With that, she walked over to Jimmy and gripped his arm with both hands. It took the full weight of her body to roll him over.
When he faced her, he mouthed, “Help me.”
She leaned in and whispered, “You got what you deserve.” Then she kissed him on his bloody lips before taking out a gun someone let her bring in. Another point in her favor.
She held it to his head and asked, “Feel familiar?”
His eyes went wide, and then he begged her, “Please do it. I’m in pain, Katalina.”
I almost lunged for her. That man deserved to suffer, but I saw the same posture in her that I had when I stood over someone evil while I had the upper hand. She was relaxed, not coiled to kill.
She looked around the room, everyone watching her. “I want in, Mario.”
He nodded. “It’s a blood oath. Family first, honey. You don’t get out. You bleed, we bleed. You die, we die.”
She nodded slowly as if she knew she didn’t have any other option. For some reason, I almost blurted out to stop, almost tried to tell her she didn’t need to be a part of this.
Yet I saw the hunger in her eyes when she looked back at her boyfriend. She wanted this. She wanted so much more than this.
“Goodbye, Jimmy.” She pulled the trigger.
A few of the boys jumped, ready for the gunshot. All we got was a click. Nothing happened. No bullets were in the chamber. She looked at the gun and shrugged. Then she laughed and laughed as she walked away to sit back down. Jimmy sobbed and begged for anyone to take his life.
Some of the men, ones that had only recently made it into the inner circle, started to squirm. Watching a man turn gray and cold as he bled out wasn’t easy at first. You had to get used to it. He wrenched in pain for a couple of minutes, the stomach acid starting to take effect.
Soon, most everyone lost interest. Some went about their business, talking to one another about other transactions we needed to tie up that day. Mario talked with Bastian and Cade about tomorrow’s plans. Others looked at their phones, handling more affairs.
Katalina and I stared at Jimmy. Every so often, I glanced her way. I saw a new look, one with much less bravado, fall over her features when he coughed up some blood.
She’d put on an amazing act for everyone in the family. She even pulled the trigger, and she must have thought it was loaded. She’d been willing to kill him, but there was a love there too. She was a young girl, still conflicted about her life, and she was going down the wrong damn rabbit hole to figure it out.
“I want to ask the girl some questions,” I whispered to Mario before I approached her.
Mario glanced at her and then me. “She’s a tough little thing, but I really like her, Rome. She’s good people for us. Good to have a woman among us, huh? Maybe she’ll teach us a different perspective.”
“She’s not a woman, Mario. She’s a girl,” I mumbled as I stood.
“Too late now. She’s known too much for too long.” Mario shrugged. “She’ll be like a daughter to me. I’ve always wanted one, and a ruthless one is even better.” A laugh burst from him, and he slapped his meaty, ringed hand across his knee. “The way she pulled that trigger, even I jumped.”
I shook my head, concerned for the very first time that we’d stripped someone of their last straw of innocence.
My black boots clomped across the floor to Katie. I waited for her to turn her attention my way as I stood over her, but her eyes stayed on her boyfriend like he was her world.
“You wanted him dead. What’s so interesting now that he’s dying?”
“I’ve only ever seen a person die exceptionally slowly. This is fast but painfully slow too.”
“You care about him as much as the father you saw dying?”
“Not even a little,” she retorted immediately, and her moon-gray eyes sliced over to me, filled with hate. “I just tried to kill him. Why would you think I cared about him?”
“I saw that. It was a nice act. Now I’ve seen you sitting here staring at him with, what? Is it pity? Love? You love a man who murdered a pregnant woman?”
Her cherry glossed lips pressed together. She stood up so quickly, I heard her knees crack. “I didn’t know he did that.”
I nodded. “I want to believe you, but when you’re born into a family like mine, you remember that everyone lies.”
“There’s no point in lying to you.” She folded her arms over her chest.