1
SALVATORE
Crimson droplets fall to the floor with a rhythmicplop,plopoff the sharp edge of the stainless steel blade in my leather-clad grip. The warm stink of death fills my lungs with every inhale and tightens the growing pit in my gut. And I’ve got a gun pointed square between Harry Peterson’s eyes.
Fuck. I lost control again. Can’t even remember how I got here, let alone how the three once-moving security guards became limp masses at my feet.
Or maybe I do, and I just don’t give a fuck about taking a life anymore. Either way, I’m here on business, and the man pissing his pants in the corner is my target.
“I thought I made myself clear when I was here last, Harry.” I should be dead, not them. I’m holding a knife, and they have M16s strapped to their chests.
Now isn’t the time to piece this mystery together. It’s best to consider it divine intervention and move on.
“You did.” Wide-eyed and gulping, Harry barely gets the words out. He has both hands high above his ginger mop top of hair, and his eyes travel from my face to the barrel and back again.
“Then why am I here?” I turn my attention away from the bodies to him.
“It isn’t as simple as shutting my doors and walking away,” Harry says, determined to convince me that he’s genuinely trying to make a change.
I’ve been watching him for weeks and know he’s lying through his fake white teeth.
“I understand.” To some degree. “But how can you justify eight dead and fourteen injured because you wouldn’t allow them to leave during a snowstorm? At the very same building that caught my attention in the first place.”
“I’ve settled this with the lawyers.” The practiced fear so clearly etched into his pasty face slips for a moment. And his lack of remorse burns furiously in his green eyes. “Everyone who died in those buildings didn’t want to lea?—”
“Think I’m here waving a gun in your face out of some misguided sense of justice?” I cut him off.
“With a name like the Lawless Lion following you around, it would’ve surprised me.” Harry hasn’t managed to find his false terror since I rattled his cage.
It should be enough for me to gun him down where he stands. Knock out the man plaguing my thoughts and making my life annoying. But it isn’t. Not yet. He has a purpose that I need him to fulfill before I can finish this for good.
Harry is the perfect scapegoat. He’ll show the people of Delta County that the Lion’s Den isn’t the enemy. That they have us on their side against tyrants like Billy Mayfair and Harry Peterson, and for their protection, all we’ll ask in return is that they hold their tongues if anyone asks too many questions about us.
I got the idea from Pablo Escobar. If everyone loves you, they’d rather have the devil they know than the monster waiting to replace him.
“What’s this about? You want money? A cut of my business? What’s it going to take for you to fuck off out of my life?” Harry drops his hands at his side, realizing if I was going to shoot him, I’d have done it by now.
If those hands make one wrong move, I’ll do it without hesitation.
“No, the easy option for better working conditions has been exhausted. What I want now—and this time, you will oblige or face the full wrath of the Lion’s Den—is for you to start shutting down your doors. One by one, starting tomorrow, until every poorly run warehouse and office park is moved far away from my backyard.” Every word I say has Harry’s jaw falling further to the ground.
He must think I’m crazy. Hell, with the way I’ve left his office in disarray, I might be. But this time, I won’t take no for an answer.
“If I decline,” he poses it as a statement he’d rather follow through with than a question.
“You’ll meet the same end as these three.” I wave the blood-stained dagger over the bodies. “But your death won’t be as swift. I’ll take my time with you. Relish in your screams and cherish the sight of life escaping your eyes.”
There it is. A quivering lip and urge to recoil away from me. Genuine fear that pricks up the corner of my lips.
Still holding the gun toward Harry, I walk backward through the door that led me into his office. I keep the pistol trained on the door until I reach the elevator, only stowing it and the dagger once I head down.
I arrive at my car and speed off into the night. My heart’s pounding in my chest, my mind’s racing and it’s the first moment of peace I have had to process what just happened.
And still, I can’t. No matter what I do, I can’t recall the events that led me to Harry. Shit, the last thing I can remember is having drinks with Dante and then?—
A blood-covered blade and a terrified redhead.
It’s only when my phone starts buzzing in my pocket and my car’s Bluetooth plays the ringtone that I snap back to reality. And with it, the realization that I have no idea where I am other than a long stretch of road leading far away from the city.