“She remembered how to talk,” Aton said.
“Fucking rat,” Tommy said. “I hate fucking rats.”
“I’ll ask again… what were you doing with Wes?” Aton asked me.
I couldn’t think of anything. My mind went blank. I had grown up and heard Ma and Dad talking about family wars. Talking about Irishmen and Italians going at it hard. How sometimes lines were blurred, crossed. How original blood families from the old country were getting mixed and ruined. I never took anything from it. Ma died, Dad never got over it, and I was thrust as a moneymaker into the circles of fights to lure men into betting more and more money.
But this all seemed way too real. I was the one in harm’s way now. I had no idea what to think or who to trust. Sadly, the only person who had been telling me the truth was Wes. He said he’d get me to his place safely and he did. He told me he had been there when my car was wired. He told me he had to check on me. He asked about my family, my father, my brother.
Wes wasn’t there with me though.
“Throw her in a room until I figure this out,” Aton said. “I have to finish the money and pay tribute before the family comes down here and kills everyone.”
I did what anyone would have done a long time ago.
I screamed.
A second later, a hand was over my mouth and a gun to my head.
~
The door slowly opened. There wasn’t a lightbulb in the socket dangling from the ceiling. I was left to rely on the natural light coming in from the two windows that were cracked and half boarded up. It was some kind of unused office I was in now. There was a desk missing all its drawers and a chair ripped to pieces with springs hanging out like messy, curly hair.
“You hungry, princess?” Tommy asked.
Light flooded the office from behind him.
I figured it was some kind of crude sex joke or something. So I didn’t respond.
“Brought you a peanut butter and jelly. My favorite.”
“It shows,” I said. “Maybe you should switch to whole wheat bread.”
Tommy snorted. “You’re funny, princess. I kind of like you. Too bad things are going to get bad for you real soon. I honestly think you were better off getting into that car. You know? Quick. Painless. Boom. I’m really good at what I do.”
“Except making sure the person is in the car,” I said with a smile.
“Bitch,” Tommy said. He took the sandwich and lifted it to his mouth. He took a monster bite out of it and then dropped the plate and sandwich to the ground. The plate broke and sandwich flopped. “Whoops,” he said with a mouth full of peanut butter and jelly. “Nnjoyurluch…”
Tommy shut the door and I was alone, again.
They took my cellphone. They left my bag back at Wes’s apartment. I should have been at a shoot, wearing clothes, posing, living that fantasy of being normal.
Then again, looking around the dark office, this truly represented my normal. Darkness.
8.
(Wes)
I wore my leather jacket over my wounded shoulder and arm. I drove like fire to get to somewhere, anywhere. The only place I could think of going was the main office. An abandoned office building that Aton used to count money and train fighters. Sometimes he liked to have his own private fights, to see how the guys were doing. He’d let us fight until blood and then break it off before anyone was hurt or killed.
Sometimes it was done for training. Sometimes for punishment. Or sometimes just for fun if Aton had a few women he wanted to impress by showing us off.
As I turned into the parking lot I knew that if Aton was here, my life was going to be over. But if I could get ten words in with Aton. Explain that I went to look for Rose. That I got her to safety because someone else was trying to kill her. If she was wanted dead so badly that meant she had to be worth something alive.
I threw open the car door and hurried toward the building. I opened the side door and ran to the middle of the floor. The door shut with an echo and I yelled for Aton.
“Where are you?” I yelled. “It’s Wes! I’m here. I need to talk to you.”
I walked to the middle of the room and stood there.
I saw Shane on the floor, getting his brains smashed out of his head. That guy in the black mask. The assassin. There was a time when I heard Aton was making serious offers to bring the assassin on his crew but it never worked out. That made Shane the number one guy for Aton. Once Shane died, I then became the number one guy.
And I still was. I was a guarantee.
A door opened with a squeak and Aton appeared at one of the railings. He took an unlit cigar from his mouth.
“You smell something, Wes?” he called down to me.
“No.”
“I think I smell a rat.”
“Aton, it’s not what you think. You know me. Let me explain something.”
“I’m sorry, Wes,” Aton said. “It’s too late. She’s gone. You’re next.”