“Stop! Please! What do you want?!”
“What, you don’t recognize us, you stupid fuck?” Huxley picks him up and throws Irish in a chair at the back of the repair shop, then gives him an almighty gut punch.
“Hey Vinnie, close the doors would ya?” I say, before joining my brother in giving Tommy a few of my own.
“Stop! Stop!”
I turn and search the workbench for something to tie him up, grabbing a roll of electrical cord as the best option.
“Don’t worry,” I say, “we’re not going to torture you for information. And looking at the cars here”— next to the ford there’s an old Alpha Romeo, a quirky looking Porsche, and even a vintage Ferrari at the back of the place— “we don’t even have to bother about getting the dough back you stole, but I’m going to ask anyway. Where’s the money you stole?”
Irish Tommy with his patchy blonde hair takes deep, exasperated breaths, his skinny torso wiggling from within his restraints. “You guys are making a big mistake. You know who I—”
“Listen, you lanky fuck,” my brother says, “don’t waste our time here. Maybe you’re not quite grasping the predicament you’re in. We know you run with Tony Romano, which isn’t something to be boasting about right now, in fact it’s quite unfortunate for you. You see, I’m Huxley Moretti, that’s my brother Antonio, and the guy who’s holding the shotgun is Vinnie.”
Vinnie grins, and if Irish wasn’t scared before, he is now, you could almost see how the Moretti name shot a surge of fear through him.
“And although your pal may be a made guy,” Huxley scowls, “you my friend are nothing, meaning that Tony has just about fucked you in the ass. Now, this is the last time we’re going to ask—where’s the money?”
While I’m watching and listening to all this, a moment where on any other day I’d be the most focused guy in the room, my immediate environment becomes jaded. The guy in the chair reminds me of her, frozen on the bed. I feel like a fucking idiot, mesmerized by a young girl who means nothing in this life of mine. She’s a little girl, Antonio. When did I become the softy that walked away from a woman who gave herself to me, purely because I felt bad? Because she looked like a scared mouse under my touch?
“Fuck you!” Irish somehow finds the courage to say.
The funny thing is that as his words land to my ears, the anger that boils up and causes me to grab a large adjustable wrench from the workbench, isn’t generated by Tommy’s lack of respect, but toward my own embarrassment, toward the idea that I might actually be going soft over this girl.
“Don’t be a dumb fuck!” I shout out as I crash the wrench down on top of Irish’s left kneecap. Tommy screams out, but it barely registers.
Don’t let this broad get to you, I think, as, next, my swing shatters his shin. I feel the bone break, the vibration of it running up the stainless steel and into my palm. And the worst thing about it is, that I’m practically picturing myself in the chair. Because that’s it, isn’t it? I’m angry with myself for letting this happen. For wanting to protect her, instead of ravishing her as she wanted me to do.
Jesus Christ, I am going soft. The thought alone causes me to shout out with a guttural, raw cry of self-hatred. I would give anything to shed these feelings. I drop the wrench on the floor and instead start to go to work with my fists, letting all my frustration go as my fists connect with Tommy’s chin, then his nose, then his ribs. I lay into the fucker, still imagining my own sappy self in that chair, beating and beating, knowing this is not the time to be going soft. It’s not the time to feel anything more than lust, not when my father’s dying, when our family’s future rests on my shoulders. No, not now, because I know in my world, the less you love, the easier it is to get to the top.
Before I lose myself completely inside my own head, Vinnie pushes me aside, forces me off the kid.
“Aye, boss, slow up. If you want to put him in a bag, there are better ways to go about it.”
I fall back, breathing heavy, my knuckles screaming at me with pain. Just like the adjustment of a camera’s focus ring, my vision clears from my thoughts of Mia and sees Tommy in the chair, his head leaning back, blood gushing from his face.
“Antonio, are you okay?” My brother now asks, and the truth be told, I’m not even sure if I know the answer to that. I leave my brother and Vinnie to clean up the mess, walk outside and run my hand across my hair with only one certainty, Mia Gallo managed to give me a gut punch just when I was starting to think I was invincible.