I swallowed heavily as I tried to keep myself together.
I pressed my hands against my father’s wound. His hot blood coated my hands, and the shaking in my body got worse. I was going to die here in this shitty room if I didn’t find a way out of this quickly.
I looked over at the man wondering what his plan was. “What now?” I asked. This waiting game was making me insane. “He needs help.”
The man shook his head. “Not my problem. I’m babysitting you until the boss decides what to do next.”
“The boss?” I asked. I needed to get as much information about these people as possible. If there was an opening, I needed to take it.
The man sighed and his meaty hand came down across my face. The force of the blow caused me to fall on top of my father with a thud. He groaned underneath the wait of my body, and my blood hands went to my cheek. Pain radiated from where he’d backhanded me, but I was thankful I was still conscious.
“You ask too many questions,” he said, stepping over us. I watched as he made his way to the small table where my father had sat most of the day. “Marco should have taught you your place by now.”
I said nothing as I struggled to sit upright. This guy didn’t see me as a threat, which was starting to piss me off. My eyes cut towards the door, and for a brief moment, I considered making a run for it.
I looked down at my father, whose eyes had opened. He shook his head slightly. It was almost as though he could sense what I was planning. I was breathing heavily as I fought through the pain in my body. Making a run for it was dangerous, but I didn’t know what else to do. Staying was a sure fire way to end up dead.
“It’s a shame that you fell in with the Blanchi family,” the man said. I looked over and watched as he downed a glass of scotch. “You’re hot.”
The way he looked at me made my stomach churn. Marco wasn’t a good man. I’d been on the other end of his protectiveness, and it almost got me killed, but I’d never thought that he was a sadist. Something told me that this man was, and that scared me.
A lot.
“You can thank dear old dad for that,” he continued on. “If he’d been smart, he would have given you to us years ago. We could have avoided all of this.”
My mind was racing, and I couldn’t quite follow what was being said. I felt my father’s fingers brushing my own, and I turned my attention back to him. “It’s going to be okay,” I told him. I didn’t know why I felt the need to comfort him, but I did. He might have put me in this danger, but he was still my father.
He said nothing, but he drew my hand to his waist band. It was there that I felt the cold metal of a gun.
My eyes went wide, and I quickly looked over at my attacker. He was on the phone texting someone, probably his boss. I was nothing but a silly, scared little girl. He didn’t need to keep an eye on me because he didn’t see me as a threat.
I turned my attention back to my father. His eyes were wide as his weak fingers wrapped around my own. He wanted me to know he had a gun on him, and he wanted me to take it.
But I wasn’t sure that I could. I’d never used a gun before, and even if I knew how, I wasn’t sure that I could use it on someone.
“He’s gonna kill you,” my father whispered. A bubble of blood was released from his mouth, and I knew that he’d used the last of his strength to say those words to me.
The man got up from his chair. The sound of his weight on the floorboards caused me to jump. “Time to go,” he said. He had his knife in one hand, and I noticed how he wiped the blood on his pant leg. “Boss wants to send your man a message.”
I knew I wasn’t going to like the content of that message. So I grabbed the gun and yanked it upward. “Don’t!” I yelled, my voice shaky. “Don’t come any closer.” My finger was on the trigger, but my hand shook so badly that I could barely keep it upright.
The man laughed. “Or what?” he asked. “You’ll shoot me?”
My finger squeezed the trigger lightly. “Yes,” I said. “I will.”
The man strode forward unbothered by the fact that I had a gun on him. He didn’t care about me. Like most of the men I knew, he saw me as someone he could push around. After all, how could I hurt him?
I was determined to prove him wrong, so before I could think about it. I pulled the trigger.