Page 74 of Madness & Mercy
Then I turn, stepping out of the room and shutting the door behind me.
Two guards stand on either side.
“Don’t let anyone in. Don’t let him out.”
They nod.
“If he wakes up and tries to pull anything stupid, you don’t lay a hand on him. You call me. Understand?”
Another nod. No questions. They know better.
I head down the hall, fast and sharp, my mind already spinning through a dozen names and a dozen more ways I’ll make them suffer.
The chef’s in the kitchen prepping breakfast. The moment he sees me enter, he nearly drops the tray in his hands.
“When he wakes up, make sure he eats. Make him something he’ll actually want to put in his mouth. Protein. Carbs. Nothing fancy. I don’t care what it takes, get food in him.”
“Yes, sir,” the chef stammers. “Of course.”
I don’t wait for a follow-up.
I’m already on the move.
Phone in hand. Contacts open. I start making the calls, the kind that send waves through the city. The kind that pull rats from holes and smoke out ghosts.
Whoever set that trap at the docks thought they were slick.
They thought a shoulder wound was enough.
But they don’t know me.
And they sure asfuckdon’t know what I’ll do for the people I decide to keep.
They made a mistake.
A fatal one.
And now?
Now I’m going to find the bastard who pulled that trigger—
And I’m going to make him bleed.
Because nobody touches what’s mine.
Not without paying for it in screams.
The city is quieter when I’m hunting.
Not literally. Sirens still wail in the distance, horns still scream through traffic, drunks still shout at nothing on the sidewalks. But in my head, everything else goes still. The noise fades. Time slows. And all I hear is the heartbeat of the man I’m going to find.
The one who pulled that trigger.
Enzo meets me out front, leaning against the blacked-out Benz, arms crossed, shoulders tense. He opens his mouth, but I cut him off.
“Tell me you got a lead.”
He nods. “One of our runners spotted a guy matching the description in Naples. Shitty bar off 42nd. He was asking around. Flashing cash like he’s invincible.”
