Page 53 of Bleed
“You sure you want to leave Allie for last? I mean I really want to fuck the bitch up.” Dani says, scrunching up her face, staring at me as I pull a clean, black t-shirt on over my head, wiping my face mostly dry in the process.
“The rest of the Carlucci’s need to go first. Allie is just another hitman, we off her first without taking down Salvatore and he’ll release every goon he has on you, then come for me.”
“Fuck.” She sighs, blowing a chunk of her hair from her eyes, then grabs it and ties it back in a low ponytail. “So what’s the plan?”
“We burn them all to hell.”
“Sounds good.”
“Then baby…” I say, stooping down to get eye level with her. “Then we go after Allie, and we make the biggest message out of her. That we are not to be fucked with. We are the new family in town, me and you, and all the babies I’m going to put in you.”
“Ooohhh daddy.” She giggles and kisses me chastely on the cheek. “Let’s go set some shit on fire.”
Laughing, I stand back up and stomp into my boots as she pulls on her pink and black leather jacket. She looks so sexy in her riding gear, and I just want to rip those tight pants down and bend her over Luna.
When this is all done. Fuck her while you watch the world burn.
My little laughter turns into an uncontrollable fit as I picture it in my head; her bent over the bike, her ass in the air, my cock buried in her so deep, as the screams of the Carlucci family burning to death in their restaurant fill the air around us. It’s fucked up, I know this, but remember I’m really fucked up.
“Ready to go?” I ask her, taking her arm in mine and dragging her out of the bedroom.
“You care to tell me what’s so funny?”
“Nope, not yet. But you’ll see.”
We strut down the hallway and get on the elevator, still linked together. While her helmet dangles from her hand, I don’t have one, it never survived the ordeal the other day. But that’s okay, I’m not going to hide my face when I kill this time. I want the whole fucking family to see the hate in my eyes as I wipe them off the fucking map.
There will be no choice for them between clean and easy or dirty and violent. There will be no syringe or blade, in fact they’re both sitting at home on the kitchen table, left behind for when I need them. This time, there’s no decisions to be made except for me and Dani, and how much gasoline we’re going to need to level an entire city block, killing everyone in it.
The bikes fire up loudly in the garage, rumbling together as if they’re conversing with each other. My 750 and her 500 speak to each other in mechanical tongues, planning out how they’re going to help in the mission today. At least that’s how I see it. Call me crazy, it’s okay, I know I am.
The echoes of their exhausts are deafening without my helmet on as we leave the parking deck, her behind me, following me to our salvation.
We ride through the city, her coming up next to me, staying there except for when we filter through the traffic, or split lanes when things go too slowly. It feels like both the last ride of our old lives, and the first of our new ones, with her by my side, just like she should have been the last half decade.
The wind whips me in the face, my beard futtering like a fuzzy little creature hanging onto my chin as we tear down Maple street and pull into a gas station, parking the bikes together at a pump in the back.
It only takes a few minutes to fill two plastic, red cans with gasoline and top off the bikes in case we need to make a run for it, then we’re back on the open road, each one of us with a gas can in our hand, making people look at us as we whiz by at the speed of sound.
It’s a beautiful fall day, with the leaves blowing in the crisp air, and the sky shining a bright blue above us as we pull into the parking lot of the little café across from the restaurant. I shut Luna down and wait for her to do the same with her 500, then I offer her my hand to help her off the bike. Even for a smaller machine, she still has to tiptoe and balance as best as she can to put down the kickstand and dismount.
Quickly and sneakily I hide the cans of fuel behind the dumpsters of the café, then lead her inside the place where we met for the second time to waste the day away until the family comes for dinner and the sun is low in the sky.
The Carlucci assholes know she’s alive, so hiding her away like I originally wanted is a moot point now, and I proudly hold her hand as we walk in the door, making the little bell chime, announcing our arrival.
Coffee and pastries fill the warm air, making the place feel homey and comfortable, but that’s a stark contrast to how I feel inside. I’m cold, heartless, devious, and murderous.
“Coffee?” Dani asks, leading me to the front counter, pulling on my hand like an excited kid in a candy store.
“Black, like my heart.” I chuckle to break the tension up inside of me, but it doesn’t work.
I’m wound tighter than a spring about to snap, and it’s making me jittery, something that I never am before a kill.
Look at what you’ve been through the past week. Gustapo, Valentino, Antonio, Michael. So much death, so much trauma. You’ve got this, you can do it.
I just have to keep telling myself I can and will do this all. It’s for the greater good, and it’s not like I don’t want to. I want to watch them all burn, to suffer, to scream in agony as the flames melt off their skin and their bones crack from the heat. I’m just, for once, troubled at how I feel about it, and that’s not like me. But how can I really be me anymore? I’m changing. She is changing me, softening me, yet strengthening me at the same time.
Maybe she’s making a better…me.
