Page 73 of Bad for You

But make no mistake, double-cross him, and you’ll end up like ole Glenn here.

“Tell me what you know, and all will be well.”

“I can’t!” Glenn replies, tears in his eyes. “She’ll kill me.”

“Who will?”

I sigh because Glenn is a dead man walking.

“The person you trust.”

Before another word can be spoken, Glenn reaches for the gun in the small of his back, shoves it into his mouth, and blows his brains out.

His headless corpse drops to the ground with a squelch.

It takes Baz a moment to process the scene feet away before he screams hysterically.

My heart pounds uncontrollably. I’m covered in Glenn’s brains and blood, but I stand completely still.

Aldo reaches into his pocket and offers me a white handkerchief, which I accept. It is red when I’m done wiping my face with it.

“Egyptian cotton?” I ask, handing it back to him.

He waves me off, indicating I can keep it.

This scene is utterly comical, and that’s because this is my norm.

“A position has just opened up,” Aldo says, tongue in cheek, turning to look at me. “I need a man I can trust. I don’t want you to fight for me. You’re too smart for that.”

“You trust me?”

Aldo smiles. “Lennon Shepherd, you are far more valuable alive to me than you are dead.”

Shit…

He knows my name, which means…he knows who I am.

“You knew who I was this entire time, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he replies, not insulting me by lying. “You never questioned my Italian, which made me believe you knew what Iwas saying. And only one person teaches to fight the way you do. So the question is, are you here to take me down?

“Or could it be…you’re here to takeherdown.”

This entire time, I thought I was a player in the game, but now I see I was merely on the sidelines, waiting for my turn to play.

“And who is she?” I ask, wondering if I too am about to join headless Glenn.

Aldo smiles, forever the motherfucking king of this kingdom. “Gianna Ricci…the woman who adopted you andbellezza. I’m sorry I didn’t get there first. I should have known she’d get to her before I could.”

“What does she want with her?”

This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. The answers I’ve been searching for, for years.

“She is the answer to it all. She has the ability to destroy us all, which means…she is the enemy. You pick a side, Lennon, because there’s no going back once you decide.”

“I won’t leave her there.”

“Then bring her here.” When he reads my confliction, he guesses why. “But she will not come. Gianna has a way of making one feel as though they’d perish without her.”

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