Page 28 of Villainous
Demonte told me to meet him because he has some business to attend to, and he didn’t have time to meet me at my study. My gaze snags onto him as he slaps duct tape over a man’s eyes and lips; the guy’s body is tied to a chair. Then he rolls up the sleeves of his gray dress shirt. Demonte is a hit man our organization uses. He’s not part of the mafia, but he’s an associate. He’s been working for us since he was twenty years old, and now at thirty, he’s one of the best hit men out there.
This guy is a client who didn’t repay the remainder of his bill.
“You want in on this?” Demonte’s voice is filled with amusement.
The man mumbles, moves his head back and forth, and pulls on the rope that has his hands tied up.
Demonte isn’t much of a talker. Most of the time, he’s so quiet that I forget he’s in the same room. He has an athletic build, as if he plays football.
“No, I spent three thousand dollars on this suit. I don’t want to get blood all over it.”
I have a special suit I kill in, and no one is fucking up my nice clothing. My mind ventures to Maya and last night, and how she told me about what her brothers did to her. It boils my blood that I wasn’t there for her or the fact that she lied to protect me so they wouldn’t start a war with us. We don’t fuck their girls without the don’s permission.
It also damn near broke me hearing how they treated her. Like she was an object to be traded. And it makes me a hypocrite because I haven’t been a walk in the park for her either. At yet, I feel so guilty for how I treated her. I don’t know what hold she has on me, but it needs to be broken.
I remove my box of cigarettes and thump it. “I need you to do something for me.”
Demonte takes out a long, sharp knife from his holster and cuts the guy’s neck, removing soft tissue. Then he grabs the jaw and the back of the head, twists and pulls, and the neck pops right off.
“Go on.”
“I need you to look into Detective Clover Henson. He worked for the NYPD. And I need you to look for Seamus Devoy.”
“It’s a lot of work. I would need five hundred thousand dollars now and the other half after I finish the job. Unless you want me to kill someone.” He tilts his head to the side.
I take out my phone and wire him the money. “No, you know how I roll. I enjoy killing as much as you do.”
He nods. “Give me two weeks, and I’ll get back to you.”
Maya
Iturn the pages of the gossip magazine as I sit on the bed, embracing the rain tapping on the window screen. The smell of the mist outside hits my nostrils, and I inhale deeply. It’s been raining a ton, and it puts me in a calming mood. Something about seeing a gray sky makes me feel some sort of comfort.
I hadn’t expected to open up to Villainous about protecting him from Cashel and Celeste, but I don’t want his sympathy either. What my brothers did was cruel, and I’m so glad they are gone. The only family that I do have is my ma’s side, and my da’s family always rejected me because my mother was his mistress. Family gatherings were awkward, and most of my relatives went out of their way to make me feel like an outcast, which is why I stopped attending them when I was in high school. I didn’t want to be reminded of how much my da didn’t want me or how my ma was going to abort me. Which is why I was drawn to Villainous and we were considered the black sheep. It was always us against our families. I haven’t told him the real reason why my da wanted me to marry him.
The door opens, and Noemi strides in with a tray of two tall glasses of my favorite beverage, lemonade.
Sadness lingers in her eyes. I’ve never seen her so blue. She’s one of the most chipper people I know, so something must be bugging her. She rests the tray on the nightstand.She’s not wearing a cheeky smile as usual, nor her dark uniform, and her pupils are the size of saucers. Seeing her sad face bothers me as she sits at the foot of the bed.
I pick up my glass from the table and take long sips of the bitter and sweet drink.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She bites her bottom lip before answering. “I’m leaving tonight.”
I gulp down the rest of my drink as if I’m dying of thirst. “For the holidays?”
She nods slightly. “Yes. I’m going to visit my mother in Vermont.” She grabs the other glass of lemonade and downs it. “I want to have one last drink with you before I leave.”
I nod. “Lucky for you. When will you be back?”
Actually, I’m jealous she gets to see her ma. She gets to joke with her, sit around the table and eat. Even though my relationship with my mother before I was kidnapped was rocky, it doesn’t mean I don’t miss her. I still love her even though she can be a manipulative bitch sometimes.
It’s scary the way her face is wiped clean of emotions. Her shoulders sag. “The day after New Year’s. This year is going to be hard without my brother. We used to cut down a tree in the woods every year and decorate it. It’s always been our thing. Now he’s gone, I’m going to have to do it without him. He would want that, don’t you think?”
I nod, not knowing the right words to say. I wouldn’t saysorry for your lossbecause that’s not what I’d want to hear. Sometimes when people say it, it sounds fake and automatic. I hate when people saythey are in a better place. How the hell do they know? That’s the thing about death—we won’t know what happens until we actually die.
Finally, I work up the courage to say something, and I pick at the dead skin around my finger. “I know how it is. Every holiday doesn’t feel the same without them.”
