Page 23 of Rotten Men

“Because a mother’s love is boundless, Vincent. There is nothing a mother won’t do to protect her child. Even sacrifice herself for their happiness and safety,” Selene struggles to reply, her eyes cast low to the floor, not wanting to face my anger head-on any longer.

I feel my brows press together with the realization that, if there were anyone Anna Maria would die for, it was her daughter. It was Selene.

“If she left, then your father would have just cause to go after you both. The Outfit wouldn’t quit until they found your mother. She was too much of a public figure to disappear successfully without anyone taking notice. Someone would recognize her, and word would come back to us; to him. You both would be found, and an ‘accident’ would have to happen to deal with your betrayal. If she left, she would have been signing both your death warrants,” I reason, finally putting the mismatched pieces of the puzzle together.

“And by staying, she could warn me if anyone was getting close to finding me,” she adds, offering another piece of evidence as to why Anna Maria would never leave Chicago or her nightmarish life.

“You didn’t deserve her,” I spit out, my throat burning at the lie.

“I know. I didn’t deserve a lot of things,” she admits, taking a step back, and away from my grip. The minute my hands are off her, they resent it. Be it in pleasure or pain, they need to hold her.

Just a little while longer.

Please.

“You have to go now,” I order huskily, walking away from her sphere before I do something reckless, like touch her again.

“Okay,” she whispers, and my insides become afflicted with the sound of defeat in her voice.

I take shallow breaths, trying to make sense of it all, when I hear her call out my name, sounding so painfully tender coming from her luscious, plump lips.

“I’ll leave for now. But, Vincent, I won’t go away. Not until I have what I came for. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t falter. A man like you should understand the honor in keeping a promise,” she states before vanishing from my life once more.

I almost convinced myself I was whole again. That I overcame all obstacles against such traitorous betrayals and became who people envisioned me to be—a strong merciless leader, who wouldn’t waver at any pesky lament or fraudulent tear.

Thenshehad to come back and laugh away at my pitiful excuse of an existence.

I’m not whole at all. I’m barely a man.

And I’ll never amount to one while she still holds my beating heart in her hands.

Ten

Selene

I walk through the dark, urine-infested corridor and try to remind myself, once again, why I have to hide in this sketchy motel. If I want my presence in Chicago to go unnoticed, I have to stay in places where nomade menwould suspect a syndicateprincipessato frequent. Of course, I stayed in worse places than this when I was on the run, but that seems like a lifetime ago. Being reacquainted with such a destitute environment brings back all sorts of depressing memories. Memories of how I had suffered being separated from my home and all the people who mattered most to me. Although, once I was in a more homely accommodation, able to hide in plain sight, it still didn’t lessen the heartache. But it did help to force the misery to the back of my mind, as I trudged on through with my days, pretending to be someone I wasn’t.

As I approach my room and start to look for my keys, I freeze when a suspicious sound grabs my attention. I lean my ear to the door to confirm if someone is inside, but it’s a difficult feat to accomplish when the moans of my next-door neighbor are as fucking loud as the cursing being done by an indebted junkie and his dealer across the hall. I try to concentrate, blocking all the noise out, and verify that a light sound was coming from inside my room, which could only be made by an intruder going through every inch of the gloom-filled place.

Instinct makes me reach into my purse and grab my gun, but then I change my mind and place it back, thinking better of it. Using Vincent’s gun will be too much of a red flag, raising alarms where I don’t want them. The blast of a gunshot would be impossible for the motel receptionist to ignore, and they would feel obligated in calling the cops. Even if this is the last neighborhood the men in blue want to visit, they would have to scope things out regardless—a scenario that neither they nor I am interested in.

No, a gun is definitely not the ideal weapon of choice considering all its repercussions. So, I’ll have to go with the next best thing. I bend down to my boots and retrieve a hunting knife I brought from home. If whoever is inside wants to harm me, then I’ll just have to gut them navel to chin, grab my stuff, and walk away.

My fight-or-flight response kicks in from both sides of the spectrum. Logic tells me I should run away now before I make my presence known. But the picture carefully hidden inside those four walls is what fuels my drive to kill whoever might discover it. If they do a good enough job at ransacking my room, they’ll be sure to find it and go back to their employer with information too precious for them to hold. I shouldn’t have brought it with me in the first place, but logic had no say when the heart was taking the lead.

I made a conscious effort at having as little information on me as possible that could link me to Nashville and my life there. With only a burner phone on me, I was careful not to have any personal pictures there, in case someone jumped me unexpectedly. But love prevented me from coming to Chicago without his beautiful face cheering me on in my endeavor. It’s hard enough having to leave him behind as it is.

There is another faint clatter, and this time I can distinctly tell it’s the drawers in the wardrobe being opened one by one.

Good. That means the intruder’s back is to the door.

Thinking this to be the best way of meeting my opponent, I open and close the door behind me as quietly and as silently as I can muster. Frozen against it, my suspicions are proven correct. On bended knee, one of the Outfit’s men is thoroughly examining each drawer. The expensive Italian suit, unable to conceal the two Glocks underneath, is a dead giveaway of his intentions and origins. I’m unable to see much else but his broad back and rich olive skin on his neck. The rest is too hidden for me to say if we ever crossed paths before.

With my blade in hand, I walk surely to the stranger, taking advantage of his kneeled position. Knife to the neck, I surprise him, making sure I keep the razor-sharp edge on his Adam’s apple as my greeting card.

“Don’t move,” I warn, as I look to the bed to see if it has been messed with yet.

I wasn’t foolish enough to put his picture under the mattress. Instead, I carved a small slit on one of its corners and placed it inside. Most people wouldn’t think of moving the bed in its entirety but settle with going straight to the mattress, overturning it completely without giving it much inspection. Once they saw nothing was underneath, they would move to a new spot to investigate. At least that’s what I was hoping for.

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