Page 16 of Vicious Souls

“Enough,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. My gaze lingers on the boy curiously, wondering what the hell could possibly make him so fearful. I take a stab at something, wondering if that is what’s sending him over the edge. “You can keep the hat and glasses, but you will have to bathe,” I tell him. The stench really is too much; I can’t ask my men to put up with it when I can’t even tolerate it myself.

He shakes his head again, adamant that he won’t be showering. What the fuck is wrong with this kid?

“We do this one of two ways,” Marco starts, losing his patience and holding up two fingers to demonstrate his point. “Either you get up willingly and I lead you to the shower where you can have your privacy to bathe and dress, or we carry you there, throw you in, and undress you ourselves. Which I assure you, no one is looking forward to.”

Something in the way the young boy lowers his head in defeat clenches at my heart. He is young, couldn’t be older than mid-teens, and he has lived a solitary life in seclusion. Maddog had made it his life’s mission that no one outside a select few in his circle even knew he had a child, let alone what he looked like or where he was.

“I don’t even know your name,” I mutter, wondering why no one even had that information. I could only imagine the measures that Maddog had taken to conceal his son’s identity – we were never even able to find so much as a birth certificate. The matter was so murky, we had at times wondered if the boy even existed.

To my surprise, the boy looks up at me, his hidden eyes focused in my direction. He lets out a low grunt, then in what I could only describe as a whisper, I hear the word “King.”

“King? That’s your name? King?”

He responds with a short nod then turns his head to the concrete floor.

“King Murray,” Marco chuckles, and I shoot him an irritated look which warns him to keep his mouth shut. I’d finally managed to get something out of him – one word. One word. But it was still a start. I didn’t need anything derailing what little progress we’d made.

“That’s a good start,” I tell the boy. “Now, I’m going to need you to bathe and change, and then maybe I’ll let you come upstairs for some fresh air. We have a courtyard – you could get some sun.” As I say this, I notice the tan hue of his skin – obviously, the boy is used to a warm climate with his delicately bronzed skin. This boy has never resided in the underworld. Once again, something in the back of my mind triggers, placing his skin color at odds with everything else about him. Everything is off.

I watch as he shakes his head again, fearful for some reason of showering, of losing his clothes, which probably form part of his identity.

“You’re mighty attached to your clothes,” Marco laughs, and I can hear the sarcasm in his voice, indicating that Marco is quickly losing his patience. Marco is not as even keeled as I am. He is the one that throws himself into the melee and thinks about consequences later. He is the one that is always in a hurry to finish a job and move on to the next. He is all about getting the job done and getting it done swiftly, no preamble. This song and dance with the boy, in an effort to make him feel comfortable enough to let his guard down, is like poking knives into Marco.

I am the more patient type. I do things differently in this life, with more empathy, allowing situations to unfold naturally, in their own time. This is a trait my father harps on about incessantly, telling me there is no wisdom in waiting for things to happen. Yet with all the patience I possess in my arsenal, I myself am becoming frustrated with this waiting game we’ve been playing with the boy. I have other situations that are more urgent that require attention and can’t be put off any longer, yet I am pandering to this teenager’s insecurities.

The men will have to carry him forcefully into the shower. They’ll cut his clothes off him if need be, but he is going to get washed and changed, no matter the consequence of his feelings. The outcome is what matters. I need the boy clean, coherent, and singing. Like a bird. It won’t be long before someone else makes a move against Maddog’s empire, and we need to be prepared. My father has put in place measures to keep everyone at arm’s length, but there is only so much people will be willing to accept before they start to move in on Maddog’s territory, which would put them all that much closer to our own empire, opening the door to an unwanted turf war.

“Take him to the showers,” I tell Marco, turning to walk away. This is the part where I walk away and let the men do what they need to do. I can’t watch, I can’t oversee. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to stop it. That part of me, that switch called humanity, could not live with myself to see someone suffering and not put a stop to it…

I hear Marco speak as I turn away, then he curses, loud and heavy, a word I haven’t heard him use in a while. It is that word he reserves for the more dire and dangerous situations in his life. A word that not even he enjoys using, so you know when it comes out, it is almost involuntary. I turn back to him, my feet barely inches from the cell door, and see Marco standing away from the boy, a look of shock on his face. It is almost comical to see Marco this way. I notice the fedora on the ground at Marco’s feet, look up at the boy, and realize what has horrified Marco.

The boy is still seated on the edge of the bed, his head now free of the hat he is so attached to, a cascade of long wavy dark hair winding its way down his back.

15

KINGSLEY

Ismell. This much I know. And I reek of savage desperation, my mind a blur after three days of trying to mentally scheme my way out of this cell. I can see this is one situation I am not easily going to get out of. Tate isn’t coming for me, and I wonder if I will be relegated to this cell until the end of time.

There is only so much I can do to hold them off, but I know that eventually something has to give. There is only so much waiting they can do. I don’t answer any of their questions, don’t eat their food, and flat out refuse a change of clothes by shaking my head. I am too afraid to even open my mouth, fearful that my tongue will betray me. I have no idea what they want, but it would seem I am some sort of curious specimen to the men that hold me here. Obviously, whatever it is they want links back to my father. I just don’t know how.

So they wait patiently. And wait. And then wait some more. Until finally, the gig is up. One of the men – Marco, I think his name is – frustrated beyond words, is ordered to take me forcefully for a shower. I can see him mentally high fiving himself at the victory – it had been three days in the making. And before he has even made his first move to grab me from the bed, he tells me we should start with the hat and he raises his arm and knocks the damn thing off my head.

“Motherfucker!” he curses, and I sit in stunned silence as I feel my carefully wrapped bun unspool rather ungracefully and fall heavily against my shoulders and down my back. I don’t know who is more surprised, me or him. And then after the shock, there is relief, as Marco stands watching me quietly, his thoughts running at a hundred miles an hour. Dante turns back from the cell door and now looks at me in confusion. The hair isn’t enough to tell him who I am, but it is the start of something bigger with more questions that need answering. I lift my hands to my glasses, bringing them down slowly, my eyes connecting with Dante’s.

I wonder what – if anything – will change, now that he knows who is sitting in the cell. I wonder how the conversation will turn, what is expected of me versus what I will give. I never imagined that we would meet again, and never in a million years had I envisioned meeting under such circumstances. He obviously doesn’t know who I am beyond the fact that I was a woman he once rescued from the wrath of a motorcycle gang. Yet now here we are, facing one another, the look on his face telling me he is just as shocked to see me as Marco is.

Of course, I’d known who he was all along. From the moment we were in the cell and he brought me that tray, his mask long gone, and tried to get me to talk. I knew exactly who he was. I’d known all along. I just didn’t have the information I needed to make an informed decision on whether or not I should show my hand. This was the only card I had, and I had intended to keep it close to my chest until I had exhausted all avenues. But now my cards have been revealed. And all I can do was make the best of a bad situation.

16

DANTE

The minute the boy lowers his sunglasses, so many things make perfect sense. Yet so many more questions remain unanswered. Moneybags. It’s Miss Moneybags. The poker player with a penchant for getting herself into dangerous situations. The woman who I’d rescued from a motorcycle gang. The woman I’d followed in the hopes of getting intel on the Murray household. The woman who subsequently stole my car, left me stranded out in the middle of nowhere, then promptly proceeded to return said car with a big bold bow wrapped around it – spotlessly clean and free of any fingerprints.

And now she is sitting here in a prison cell funded by my family. Oh, the irony.

But who is she really? Was this the decoy Tate had set up for us, knowing that we would make a move against the family? Is that why he hadn’t made a move to retrieve ‘the boy’. Was that even Maddog they had put in the ground a few days ago? I shake my head as I realize we’ve probably been played. And how.

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