“To try and convince me that my father was something he was not.”
“Please,” I scoff. “I don’t need you to hate the man. But I do need you to know that you wouldn’t have been happy if he’d been in your life. He may have kept his hands off you, but he would have traded you like chattel. He would have sold you to the highest bidder the moment you were old enough to be useful to him.”
I can tell the words sting her—death by a thousand burning cuts. But she’s doing her best to put up a brave front. “Why should I believe you?”
“What you believe is up to you,” I tell her. “But I’d like to point out that you didn’t really know your father. I did. So let me say this again, nice and slow so you understand: He was a rapist. He was a human trafficker. He was the lowest of the low. A man without a fucking soul.”
She stares at me as though searching for an argument. My revelation has gotten to her. She’s trying to process it all, and it’s eating her alive.
“I don’t need to hurt you unless you make me,” I say. “Just come with me and we can sort this out.”
That snaps her back to the present. Her eyes dart to my face. “Come with you?” she demands. “Why would I do that?”
“Well, mostly because I’m not giving you a choice,” I reply.
The truth is that I don’t really want to kill her. Not here, at least. This place is on the cops’ radar now. As am I. I don’t want to invite unnecessary trouble. If a body is found on the property, it won’t take long for the cops to connect the dots. And the dots will most definitely lead back to me. It’s the kind of publicity I don’t need right now.
Her eyes dart around the room. She’s looking for weapons. Something she can use to stop me from dragging her out of this house.
“Come on, kid,” I sigh. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
“Oh, far be it from me to make this hard on you,” she snarls. “Fuck you.”
I smile. It’s been a very long time since any woman spoke to me like this. “So be it. I’ll just carry you out of here on my back.”
“I’ll fight.”
“You will certainly try.”
“You don’t know me,” she hisses. “Don’t underestimate me.”
“I’d never dream of doing that again,” I respond with a harsh laugh, touching the stinging scar on my eyebrow. “But this is going to go badly for you if you insist on being stubborn.”
I’m quickly losing patience. I want out of this shithole. Out of Long Island. Most of all, I want away from this girl. Before she makes me do something I’ll regret.
“It’s you against me,” she observes, backing away from me slowly. “I’m liking my odds.”
“Then you’re a fool. You don’t stand a chance.”
“I’m not a betting woman,” she says. “But if I were, I’d bet on myself. Every fucking time.”
I sigh bitterly. This was supposed to be an easy fucking mark. A quick, simple assassination of a fucking moron. “Please don’t make me force you—”
“Yeah? You and what army?”
Right on cue, the door slams open. Phoenix swarms in with a handful of O’Sullivan soldiers behind him. I couldn’t have timed it better if I’d tried.
Turning back to her with a smile, I take the moment to savor the utter shock and disbelief written on her face. Then I hitch my thumb over my shoulder at the men pouring into the house and cuffing her as she starts to scream.
“That army.”