Page 12 of The Enforcer

6Zoe

My dad saysthat I didn’t inherit anything from him besides his height and a love of punk rock music, and he’s right; in every other way, I am my mother’s child. That means that I am preternaturally suspicious in all situations, and I hate feeling as if I don’t know what’s going on. So, this moment is making my anxiety spike. But unlike my mother, I had a father who taught me how to manage this kind of stress. My mom rages and throws a tantrum until she feels in control of a moment, but dad taught me to observe. If the only thing that I can control is myself — and I didn’t want to be extra as fuck like mom — dad taught me how to lock myself down for as long as I need and take in the fullness of my surroundings to give my brain time to process something besides fear.

So, here’s what I know:

Blood has been shed in this room. Lots of it. The sharp metallic scent of it lingers in the air, but it’s just barely covered over by the sting of industrial cleaning solutions. My own blood wants to race at the smell. It’s so strong that I have to breathe through my mouth to lessen the impact. The room is a rectangle, maybe seven feet by ten, with a single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. There’s a metal table in the center, and the big brute throws the bloody man he punched into unconsciousness atop it. I thought he was dead, but then I hear a rattled, raspy breath, followed by a pained cough and the spray of blood onto the floor.

This is a room for torture. I once wrote an exposé on Russian mobsters, and I’ve watched all the Saw movies at least twice, so I know what I’m seeing. I know what’s up, but I can’t get caught up thinking about any specific detail, or I’ll panic like it seems Shae is. My cousin is holding herself in the corner, trembling, her eyes darting left and right, but I can’t focus on that either.

There are two doors; one we’ve just come through that I know leads to the alleyway, and another that obviously leads into the building where the restaurant is housed. I wonder if that door is closed. Or locked. I wonder if I can grab Shae’s hand and leave through the door we entered. I wonder how long we could survive before whoever the fuck sent the dude on the table came looking for us. I wonder where in the actual fuck my little sister is.

I get one answer, at least.

The door to the alleyway bursts open, and a dark-haired man with a nice smattering of day-old scruff rushes inside before pulling my little sister into the room behind him. To be honest, this is the least surprising thing that’s happened in the past twenty minutes.

“Oh my God,” Zahra says. “What are you doing here?”

She’s looking between me and Shae with a surprised smile that falls into a grimace. “Damn. The Council sent y’all, huh?”

Shae is too busy looking toward the door that leads into the restaurant — the door the older man who’d barely been able to tear his eyes from her had exited through a few minutes ago. He’d grabbed her waist and whispered something I couldn’t pick up from across the room before he’d gone.

So, Zahra turns to me for answers.

“Of course, they sent us,” I say, each word making me feel more like myself. “Now tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“What do you mean?” Zahra says. “I just got here. How would I know?”

I love my little sister. I also know when she’s lying through her teeth. I glare at her to remind her that, shock or not, we can still scrap. She knows what my threats look like; no words necessary.

She edges behind the man with the dark hair. “Really,” she whines, “I don’t know.”

“Ah,” he says, stepping to the side and exposing her to my gaze. She glares at him with her hands on her hips. “Is this your sister?”

“Yes,” Zahra says testily. “Now, could you please stand between us? Zoe likes to fight.”

“Veramente?” the big brute who beat that guy with the gun like he was a rag doll asks.

But I’m not worried about anyone else in this room besides Zahra right now. We stare at one another like we used to when we were kids, with a silent tension that will either bubble over into laughter or a full-fledged brawl. Only God knows what’s coming next, but I’m betting it isn’t laughter, and the entire room is quiet as my sister and I have a stand-off.

We could have lasted at least an hour, I think, but after a couple minutes, the other man walks back into the room and draws everyone’s attention to him, even mine. I can read a room. He is definitely the boss. But what trips me up and pulls Zahra to my side is that he only has eyes for Shae.

“Girl, what’d I miss?” Zahra whispers to me. I turn and glare at her, and she shrugs with wide eyes. “What? Sal’s looking at her like…”

“Like what? And who the fuck is Sal?”

“Him, obviously.”

“Are you dim? Did that man fuck the brains out of you? Is that why you haven’t called me back?”

Someone snickers.

“I meant to call,” Zahra says. “I was going to call, just not yet.”

“Imagine,” I say, raising my voice since everyone can hear us anyway. “Imagine if you had just sent that text message or email. Fuck, a voice note probably would have appeased the Aunties, and we wouldn’t have had to come all the way here and immediately get caught in the middle of some dude trying to shoot somebody.”

Zahra’s dark-haired man starts speaking quickly, but it’s all in Italian, so I ignore him.

“And then,” I keep going, “that big motherfucker beat that dude to death.”

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