Tears burst from his eyes, knowing this is it. He’s probably already concluded that I’ve gone rogue, but he’s just waiting for the words. The words that will sign his death note. Because he knows I’d never let him live with this information. “Who?”
Still smiling, I announce, “I did.”
His face turns ashen, my words having drained it completely of the crimson glow of living things. He doesn’t even try to beg for his life at this point. He doesn’t disrespect my intelligence by promising his silence, his loyalty. I like that. An honourable quality, indeed.
His eyes float to the wall over my head as if he can see the reaper appear, waiting for his moment and to the only definite of life - death. Brown terrified eyes move back to mine. “And my family?”
“Safe. If you tell me where Dustin is hiding out. You see, since he attacked my sister a few years ago, he’s been like a ghost. We had people on him for a while. Last place we saw him. . . was here. . . withyou.”
He nods slowly, understanding or no longer listening. My stomach lurches. For a moment. I feel sadness for him. “Will you make it quick?” he asks, his voice hollow in his hopelessness.
I look over at the door, the image of her body on the other side flashing into my mind. “Ish.”
Reaching into my jeans pocket, I retrieve my cigar tin. “Cigar?” I say, displaying the content of the tin to him. “Romeo y Julieta?”
He nods. “Please.”
I draw one out, place it in his mouth, and light it up. The ember flares as he sucks on it hard. Biting down on the cigar, he mutters around it, “He’s back in the District. He’s been hiding out in Stormy River. He’s been importing, running his own scheme from the docking yard there - guns.”
I stare blankly at him as my mind swarms with that message.Back in the District.. . How he got past our watchers, I have no idea. How he got past Jimmy’s. . . “Without Jimmy?”
“Jimmy knows,” he says, sucking the cigar smoke into his lungs enthusiastically.
Weshould know everything that happens in that city. How Dustin is importing without Clay’s knowledge is damn near unbelievable. . . I smile in thought, not liking the scene being painted with betrayal and lies. Unless. . . my beautiful big brotherdoesknow. . .And his need for Dustin’s political pull outweighs his responsibilities to us.
I soften my smile before it becomes too manic. “Why are Dustin and Jimmy having issues?”
He shakes his head. “My family. . . you guarantee they are safe?” he says, and I nod. “Dustin’s pride was hurt when Jimmy sent him away. He’s pissed Jimmy always favours Luca and you boys over him.”
“It’s because we’re so pretty,” I say, feeling content with the information he’s shared. It’s going to be even easier to turn them against each other, given their friendship is already on a knife’s edge. Slowly, I get to my feet and pull the vanity drawer out. I grab the stainless-steel barber blade from within, flicking it open. “Any last words?”
He raises his eyes to meet mine, refusing to give the blade much of a look, fighting the urge to wallow. Something flickers in them, a hit of adrenaline that the loom of the blade stokes, perhaps. “Yes,” he hisses. “Only that Jimmy always knows everything.Everything. He’ll find out that you did this. You’re all going to die. And then he’ll take the girls you love so much, and he’ll fuck them and bury them too.”
I hear distant laughter in my head.
I laugh to its cadence.
Grinning, I take a fistful of his hair. He howls in pain. The cigar drops from his mouth; the ash floating to the tiles. Holding him within the white ceramic tub, I drag the blade through the Mother Mary, opening her guts and spilling his blood straight into the drain. He flops around, gargling on the bubbling of warm tacky fluid, which paints the entire tub and my jeans in its bright crimson colouring.
After a few minutes, I let go of his hair. His head hits the bloody pool. Usually, I would call our cleaners to take care of this mess, but no one who bears any name apart from Butcher can be trusted with what I’m doing here.
So, I clean it myself.
After I separate him into plastic garbage bags and stuff him into two suitcases, I shower, washing him from my skin with hot water and chlorhexidine. I don’t want a trace of him on me when I am with her.
Naked, I wander into the bedroom, my skin still burning from the water, steam rising from my skin. I stand at the end of the bed, staring at her perfect body. She is more curvaceous than she was at sixteen, exceptionally so.
“These are the best bits. I want them all.”
As I slide in behind her, I pull the sheet up over us, thread my arms under and over her, and cross them at her breasts to hold her close. Feeling her breath through her spine, I squeeze my eyes shut, focused on the echoes of the peaceful existence she once offered me. “We leave in two hours, baby,” I whisper into her ear.
Shoshanna
Present day
Swaying,surrounded by darkness, my mind awakens to movement beneath me and the hum of a motor, but my eyelids are too weighted to rise. I try to lift my hand to touch the throbbing behind my eyes, but my limb feels heavy, as though stuck with glue to the soft sheets I have melted into. The elastic-like substance draws my skin and the fabric together, my attempt to part them seemingly useless.
I breathe meaningfully, feeling the inhale and exhale in a mechanical way that seems strange.