Page 125 of Devotion

“My place. You really are different, aren’t you? You’re so fucking serious. Where’s the laugh? Where are the wisecracks?”

“Oh, I smile plenty, and I laugh when I find something funny. This ain’t it.”

“You’re right. Thisisfucking weird.”

“Like you speaking in complete sentences and more than one in a stretch? Yeah.” I leave the obvious chasm between us that has to do with the fact that he tortured me and my girlfriend just twenty-four hours ago and slaughtered a bunch of Volk before that.

He drives us out to the coast, then up along the Atlantic. A few hours slip by. Unless my geography is way off, we’re heading toward Casablanca.

We drive in silence for a while before I can’t stand it any longer.

“What the hellhappenedto you?”

“Me? You look like you’ve lived ten years in six months.” Ero huffs.

“Are you going to insult my looks, or tell me a freaking story?”

“Fine. You sure you want to go there?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

“It’s not a happy tale.”

“What’s new?”

“I just don’t want you to feel bad. Worse.”

“Are you serious?” I level a flat stare at him.

“Call it my conscience. You’ve been through a lot.”

“When have you ever had one of those? I swear, there’s always been something wrong with your brain. Quit stalling.”

“Careful, Ciro. You might end up calling the kettle black.”

“If anything, I’m not the pot. You are.Crackpot.” I cross my arms.

“Not your best work, Teacup.”

“I’m not gonna waste my good material on you.” Dammit. He’s sucking me back into our old dynamic.

Sighing, he lets me pout for a few moments before continuing, “I take it by now, you know that Adriano’s AWOL.”

“Yep.”

“And we all lost Alessandro’s number.”

“On purpose. They were supposed to move too. No way to reach them.” I rattle off the details like I just read the file. Adriano’s orders were specific.

“Right. When Adriano sent us away before he went back to get married, he gave us each orders…”

“No shit. I was there. Mine were intercepted,” I cock my head, looking out the window.

“Mine were too. So instead of meeting with a contact to get a new identity and disappearing, I almost got nicked by the authorities in Spain. Got shot. Ran. Wound up across the Strait of Gibraltar in Morocco.”

“Dom burned everyone he could. Told the Bratva I was coming. I wound up in the Gulag for three months.”

“That explains a lot. Mine was an underground ring of slave fighters. I killed a guy in Northern Morocco trying to get enough money to see a doctor. Turned out to be Mocro. They came at me with everything they had for revenge. I fought back. Hard enough that they decided to keep me alive. Put me to use in the ring. Then doing hits. Got Adil’s attention because of my skill.”

---