Page 67 of Caged Bliss

Roc nods once. His gun lowers slowly. “He’s got a safehouse up north. It’s this old butcher’s shop on Argyle Street near North Mayfair Park.”

“Nice neighborhood up there.”

“Yeah, well, Tommy’s been moving up in the world.”

“How’d he do it?” I turn slightly, taking a risk. Roc stares at me and his gun doesn’t move. The barrel’s pointed at the floor.

He seems thin and old with dark bags under his eyes. I bet the fucker’s been sweating hard since I came back into his life. I bet he’s been thinking a lot about Vito and Paulie. I hope he’s been suffering.

“Girls. Always been girls. Back in the day it was immigrants from abroad, just a bunch of poor fucking Eastern Bloc chicks selling themselves in crack dens. Then he got Cage and turned it up to eleven.”

I let that sink in. Tommy’s trafficking women. And suddenly it all clicks together.

Cage’s extra money. And the third fucking floor. “He’s selling the girls,” I say to myself. “That fucking prick.”

“Cage was a real windfall for good ol’ Tommy.” Roc sounds bitter. He must be pretty pissed that he got cut out of the deal. “Tripled their business overnight and only grew from there. You know how it is. Rich guys want to get their dick wet with inexperienced girls and don’t give a shit if they’re sex slaves.”

“Don’t act morally superior.”

Roc shrugs and looks out the window. “Fuck Tommy. Fuck this life. I just want out, alright? You got what you need. Now it’s done.”

“Yeah, Roc. It’s done.”

He reaches for the door handle.

I raise my gun and shoot him in the face. The sound is loud, deafening. My ears ring as I pull the trigger a second time, blowing his jaw clean off. His corpse slumps sideways and his blood trickles down the back window. It clots on the leather seats.

I said he’s as good as gone. And now he’s fucking gone.

I lower the gun and close my eyes.

Now I owe Seamus a new car.

My headache’s pounding like a motherfucker and all I want to do is go home and take a bath with Claudia.

Chapter 35

Claudia

Ikeep hearing the snap of my tray against Skinny’s skull. Angelo’s lucky Cage uses fancy solid wood and not those flimsy plastic things. It felt like hammering at a brick wall, and the first time I hit him, he barely even grunted. It took a second, and a third, before he finally released this awful groan and the scalp under his hair broke away. Blood gushed from the wound, and I hit him again, and again, until he fell to the side and tried to curl around himself.

I didn’t stop. I should’ve stopped. Skinny let go—Angelo wasn’t dying anymore—but I kept hitting him, over and over. I was terrified Skinny would get up and finish Angelo off and kill me next, but more than that, I was so fucking mad.

The bastards did this to me. They did this to Serena. They tried to take Angelo away. And seeing Skinny with that wire wrapped around Angelo’s throat, I lost my mind. Angelo’s eyes were bulging and blood was running down his throat, and I hated Skinny so much. I felt like I was hitting Tommy too as I bashed Skinny’s skull over and over until he stopped making noise, stopping moving altogether, and I slumped back against the wall gasping for air.

Seamus’s guys found us not long after that. Angelo had crawled over to me and pulled me into his arms, and I hadn’t even noticed the blood on my hands and arms until I got back to his place.

I took a long, hot shower, and scrubbed and scrubbed, but it was like the blood wouldn’t wash away. I kept seeing Skinny curled up on the ground, bleeding from a ruined skull, not moving an inch.

Nobody said anything about it. Not Angelo, not Seamus, not any of the guys, but they all knew.

I killed him. I killed Skinny. I did it to save Angelo, or that’s what I’m telling myself.

Because there was a moment where Skinny was lying on the ground curled up in a ball, a moment when I knew he wasn’t a threat anymore and that I could stop, but I didn’t.

I chose to kill him. I kept on going because I wanted to.

And that scares the hell out of me.

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