Page 21 of Beautifully Savage Butterfly

The blond steps from behind the small girl and snatches the money out of Elio’s grasp. “Room twelve,” she says.

“Thank you,” Elio says politely. “Mel’s Diner is a few blocks away, down Second Street. Tell him Elio Moretti sent you, and he’ll hook you up with some free food. He might even have some jobs available washing dishes. It’s not glamorous, but it’s not… this.” He gestures at the motel. The small girl nods, then all three of them back away until they reach the corner and take off running.

I watch them go until they’re too far away for me to even see their silhouettes in the dark.

“Jesus,” I murmur again.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Let’s go pay Daddy a visit.” Elio turns, then hesitates, looking at me over his shoulder. “If you want, you can wait in the car.”

My pulse is still rushing in my ears from everything that’s happened already. None of this feels as real as it should, and I have a feeling I know exactly what’s going to happen next. Elio’s giving me an out. If I don’t want to face it, if I don’t want to see what he really is with my own two eyes, I can sit it out.

I swallow and shake my head. Maybe he’s right. Maybe seeing this will make me hate him less. Or maybe it’ll be exactly the slap in the face I need to remind me what kinds of monsters the Morettis really are. Either way, I feel like I need to see this through.

When we reach room twelve, Elio knocks daintily on the door, the gentle rap completely at odds with the thunder written all over his face, his other hand already tucked under his suit jacket, no doubt wrapped around his gun. It only takes a second before the door swings open. Daddy probably assumed it was one of his girls. A sick satisfaction swells inside of me when his eyes go wide at seeing Elio instead.

He grabs the man by the collar with one hand, pulling out his gun with the other and shoving the pimp into the room. I follow behind, closing the door behind us on the way in. The man stumbles to the floor, scrambling to get back to his feet immediately until Elio cocks his gun and points it at the man’s head.

“Stay,” Elio says coolly. “Frank Corrigan. I should have known you were the one selling ass out of this rat trap these days.”

Frank cowers on the ground with his hands up, his posture submissive, the hard rage in his eyes anything but that.

“What the fuck do you want? I pay up every month, just like I’m supposed to. I thought that was the deal to keep you fucking vultures off of me,” he grumbles.

I glance around the room. The place is a dump, but I’d bet money it’s a hell of a lot nicer than wherever he keeps the girls when they’re not working. There’s a greasy takeout bag on the bed and a pile of cash on the nightstand.

Elio tsks through his teeth. “The deal is that you pay your taxes, like every good little boy and girl in Wildcliff. But, Frankie, that doesn’t mean that the powers that be—i.e., me—won’t pop in for a surprise inspection every once in a while.”

“An inspection?”

“That’s right. And it turns out you’ve been very bad, Daddy. We made it clear when we sold you a business license that there were rules. Selling ass is one thing, but peddling underage girls or pimping out anyone who’s unwilling is strictly against the terms of our agreement.” Everything about his body language is pure rage, from the grip on his gun to the uneven draw of his breaths, but his voice is as steady as a surgeon’s hand.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Frank scoffs. “It’s supply and demand. The pervs around here want young pussy, and I’m just a businessman doing my best to deliver.”

“That really the best defense you’ve got?” Elio asks in a bored voice, taking a step forward and pressing the barrel of the gun to Frank’s forehead. “Tell me where you got the girls, and I’ll let you go with a warning. Of course, our original agreement will be off, and if I catch you pimping anyone out again, of age or not, then I will kill you.”

Frank squirms on his knees, his eyes darting to me like he expects me to save him. Would I if I could? Doubtful.

“If I tell you, I’m dead anyway,” he reasons.

“Fair enough.” Elio shrugs, then pulls the trigger.

I’m not sure what I’m expecting, but the pop of the gun makes me jump. I whirl away before I can really take in the sight of Frank’s blood splattering the wall behind him or the way his lifeless body slumps to the ground.

Elio tucks his gun away, then grabs my arm and pulls me out of the room, the smell of blood and gunpowder sticking in my throat. I’m in a daze as he leads me back to the car, pulling out his phone to make a call on the way. He speaks quietly to whoever’s on the other end of the line, telling them the location before hanging up.

“Were you calling the police?” I ask, feeling numb by the time we reach his car.

He chuckles. “No. I was calling for one of my guys to come clean this up and dump the body.”

“Oh.” I nod and lean against the hood of the car.

He steps between my legs, moving in close until he’s pressed up against me. I feel like I should flinch away. I just watched him shoot a man in cold blood. But for all the chaos swirling inside of me, all the disgust and shock, none of it is aimed at Elio.

“Those three girls probably weren’t the only ones. Even if he’d given up whoever had sold them to him, he would have kept pimping the others out. Maybe he would have moved to a new city to stay off our radar, or switched motels, but he wasn’t about to have a ‘come to Jesus’ moment and give up the easy money that came along with abusing them,” he says matter-of-factly.

“I know.” I drag in a slow breath, feeling steadier with each passing second. “I know,” I say again more firmly the second time. “He was…” I shake my head, not having a strong enough word to brand a man like that with.

Elio’s eyes bore into mine, a flicker of something that looks like relief passing through them in the darkness. He nods. “I’m not going to tell you that my family are a bunch of saints. We make our living on the wrong side of the law. We leave a trail of blood and bodies in our wake when we have to. It’s ugly. But there are much sicker people in this city than us.” He drags his fingertips along my cheek, and I lean into his touch automatically, the healing cut on my jaw itching with the near glance. “We’re the monsters that keep this city from being even worse than it is.”

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