I dropped my arm and sighed, frustrated. What the fuck could this possibly achieve? “Fuck this,” I spat, putting away my gun and motioned for Tiny to do the same. He lowered it, but he didn’t retreat. “Get our guys off the streets and offline,” I told him. “We’re on lockdown until this dies down.”
Tiny nodded once as I switched my gaze to Franco. “If it comes out that it’s your supply causing all these fuckin’ overdoses then the Francos will be dead to us. I’ll make it my mission so that you have no fuckin’ place here, or in the entire state.” I looked him up and down, a calm washing over me. “You’re fuckin’ pathetic, Franco. Your entire family is. It’s going to be a pleasure taking you down.”
I don’t really know why I said all those things, but there was a pressure building in my chest, pulling at my gut and of all the other shit I was dealing with, he was the last thing I needed to worry about. How easy would it be for me to bring him down? For me to start spreading the word, a single whisper, that it was his shitty supply killing those kids? The only thing that’d stopped me was my respect for Uncle Benny and their fucking relationship. Maybe I said too much, got too personal, but I fucking hated him, and I’m sure the feeling was mutual.
It wasn’t until I’d turned my back and had taken two steps away from him that I heard him laugh, this sinister fucking laugh that had my feet instantly rooted to the ground. “That’s all you got?” Franco paused. “Oh no. I get it,” he said, the sarcastic lilt in his tone unmistakable. “I thought PJ was just talking shit about you and that girl who killed Pauly.”
What. The. Fuck?
“Don’t, Nate,” Tiny ground out, his voice low, words meant only for me.
Franco laughed again. “What does it feel like, Nate? To be so disrespected that your own men are talking shit about you?”
I turned to him, jaw set, but I was too angry to speak.
“What the fuck do you do with her, anyway?” he asked, smirking as he ran a hand through his slimy black hair.
I took a step forward. I couldn’t stop myself, and of course, Tiny followed.
Franco was smiling, cocky, proud of the effect his words were having on me. “Oh, don’t tell me,” he said, hands up as if to stop me from speaking. “PJ showed me pictures of her… those pretty little lips,” he sang. “They’d look so fuckin’ good wrapped around my cock. Do they look good—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish before he was thrown to the ground, me on top of him, my fists flying, one after the other. It was almost serene, the way the blood oozed from his cheeks, his nose, his mouth. “Keep talkin’,” I warned, moving from his mouth to his gut.
Behind me, Tiny muttered another “fuck” and added a “not this shit again,” but I didn’t care and apparently, neither did he. He didn’t try to stop me like he did with PJ, he didn’t tell me to calm down, he just stood to the side, watching, waiting.
Franco smiled, his lips widening, displaying his blood-filled mouth. “I bet her *’s tight,” he taunted, laughing between hits.
“Shut the fuck up,” I spat.
Rage.
Rage is by far the strongest, and most uncontrollable emotion there is.
Franco lifted his head and spat blood on my face, and that’s when I pulled out my gun and held it to his chin. The motherfucker had a death wish. There’s no other way to explain it. “I bet she’s a real good fuckin’ whore for you.”
The rage built, so strong, so fast, I couldn’t breathe. My muscles turned to stone. My willpower turned to dust. Please, I begged internally. “One more fuckin’ word, and I’ll kill you.”
He had to be insane. “It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, I guess…” he said, his voice strained, right before he coughed, blood splattering from his lips. “You are a DeLuca after all.”
For a second, just one split second, I almost let his words get to me. Almost. Then I felt Tiny move, his hand on my shoulder.
Franco blinked once. Twice. Then he smiled. “And everyone knows your mother was a whore.”
I don’t know what came first. The sound of the gunshot, the hot white behind my eyes, or the blood on my hands. But afterward, everything was still. Silent. Blood poured from Franco’s wound, down the solid steel of my barrel and seeped between my trembling fingers.
“Get in the car,” Tiny said, lifting me like a rag doll and forcing me to stand. I walked backward to the car while Tiny stood over Franco’s dead body. I waited until I was next to the car before emptying the content of my stomach, over and over. It was all a blur. I remember nothing after that. Not even how I managed to get in the car.
I came to only minutes away from my house, the shaking gun in my hand the first thing I saw. Slowly, I looked over at Tiny behind the wheel. “Why’d you do it?”
He shrugged.
“It’s your job to protect me, Tiny. Not to kill for me.”
He glanced at me quickly, before focusing back on the road. “I protect you because you’re my boss, Nate. I kill for you because you’re my family.”
29
Bailey
I smiled against the pillow when I heard Nate say my name, and it grew the second I felt his lips on my bare shoulder. “You need to wake up, baby. It’s time for your meds.”