Page 10 of The Enforcer

5Alfonso

I thought,after this morning, today might be boring. Slow, even. But Giulio says I’m easily bored, so maybe I just assumed that nothing could top the excitement of my encounter behind Giuseppe’s bakery. I’m not disappointed that I’m wrong, especially not when she walks through the door, but that brief moment of interest is almost immediately smothered by panic.

I yell at Salvo not to go outside. He doesn’t listen to me all the time, but he has an unusually thorough understanding of how dangerous the world is, so I never normally have to tell him not to rush out into the day to follow some unknown woman, even if she does look to be one hundred and eighty centimeters of nothing but curves. Even I didn’t do that.

I did think about it. But that’s not the point.

I scramble over the bar, which is no easy feat considering that running and jumping are more Giulio’s strengths. I’m a punch and duck away kind of man, but if something happens to Salvo, I’ll be a dead kind of man.

I burst through the front door, and the sun burns my eyes. I don’t squint, though. I keep Salvo in my peripheral vision and scan the square. I’ve never missed Giulio more than at this moment. He could have pulled Salvo back inside, and maybe even the woman he followed, while I do what I do best. I can’t do both, however, so I look for threats and pray that Salvo will remember himself.

I’m lucky. I see the gun before he fires. If Giulio were here, he’d have pulled his own gun from…somewhere and handled this casually, but I’m not armed. Not with a gun, anyway. So, I do what I always do and use my body as the weapon it is.

I see the gun, and I head straight for it.

Most people with guns shouldn’t have them; they have no idea what they’re doing, and they usually want to take the easy way out, the distance letting them pretend that the mess and the gore won’t touch them. But I live for the mess and the gore and everything in between. So, when people point a gun at me, I consider it my mission to make sure they never think about doing that again.

His eyes widen when he realizes I’m rushing toward him — my body between the barrel of this gun and my boss. If he was a smart man — no, I see the closer I get, boy — he’d shoot me in the forehead. The chest, at least. But his hand is shaking. He lets me get close enough to see sweat on his brow.

Mistake for him. Exciting development for me.

He should pull the trigger. As I stalk closer, I think that thought like a chant.

Premere il grilletto.

Premere il grilletto.

Sparare.

Sparare.

Shoot.

It’s the smart thing to do if he wants to live. But if I know anything, it’s that the line between people who will do anything to live and those who won’t is not thin, and I place myself squarely on the former side. I don’t mind fighting to live.

The fighting is probably my favorite part.

I’ve been shot, stabbed, beaten more times than I can count. I was even run over once. That was interesting. I know it’s going to take more than one bullet to slow me down, so I hope he shoots me. I would have more respect for him if he did.

Unfortunately for both of us, he does not.

Faster than he expects — because I’m so big — I’m close enough to reach for him. I don’t miss. When I grab his hand, I feel every bone break in my grip, but I squeeze to make sure. He screams, but when I slam my fist into the side of his face, all I hear is the crunch of bones and nothing else for an immeasurable amount of time; it could be five seconds or five hours, I don’t know, and I don’t care. What I know is the moment when the hand holding his gun collapses in my palm, and his gun clatters to the ground. I know the second the bones on the left side of his face give way.

These moments are like a pure shot of adrenaline to my brain.

I let him go, and he crumples to the pavement, whimpering and holding his ruined hand. I kick the gun out of the way and then grab him by the front of his shirt, ready to keep punching him. It feels good.

“Alfonso.”

Salvo calls my name in a sharp clip that cuts through the bloodlust. Unfortunately.

I turn to look at him over my shoulder with raised eyebrows, annoyed but ready for some orders now that he’s hopefully pulled himself together. By the look on his face, I’m not sure that he has — not fully, anyway. But he has himself together enough to nod toward the restaurant. I don’t need him to speak to get the gist of that gesture.

I grab the gun and shove it into the back of my trousers, and then I haul the man up from the ground and over my shoulder. I turn to Salvo and nod my head toward the front of the restaurant.

He turns to the woman who rushed into the restaurant earlier and a woman next to her. I’ve never seen either of them before, but they remind me of Zahra. I don’t know if it’s okay to think that, though, and there are more important things to do in this moment, in any case.

I do notice that Salvo is speaking only to one woman, but not the one I saw in the restaurant. He’s inching close to her, his hands reaching, and his voice is so soft and gentle that for a second, I don’t even recognize him. I look at the other woman, and we make eye contact. She looks as confused about whatever is happening right now as I am.

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