God help us . . .
Hysteria riffles through me as I sink my fingers into my hair, gripping the sweaty strands. Brock’s lost it and I’m right behind him, my sanity splintering by the second. Muscles strung taut with anxiety, I hunch over, my stomach threatening to hurl. The whore’s hiccupped cries knife at my ears, her howls drowning out the sound of my dry heaves as Brock steps over Bobby’s body and stomps across the warehouse, his piece aimed at the girl’s head.
Raw fear dilates her pupils, her lips quivering as Brock kneels beside her.
“No, Brock! Listen to me!” My voice cracks midsentence as I come up behind him, resting my hand on the back of his neck. “Don’t do this, bro. She didn’t do anything.”
“She has to die,” Brock says flatly, his tone hollow as he shoves the gun under her chin. “She saw everything. Knows what we look like, our names. We gotta get rid of her.” He tucks his hand under her armpit, dragging her up off the floor. “Wrong place, wrong time. That’s all.”
A cry drops from her mouth, tears swallowing her pale face. “God, please don’t. I—I won’t say a word.” Rivulets of mascara darken her cheeks, her frail, naked body shaking as her stare bounces between me and Brock. “Please. I’ll leave here, and you’ll never hear from me again. I . . . I’ve seen men kill other men. Seen Dom do it a coup-couple of times, and I never said a word. I swear on my son I won’t tell anyone.”
Christ. The whore’s a mother. I can’t let this happen. Though she’s a risk, I’d never be able to live with myself.
I hit the place I know will hurt Brock the most. The only place that might stop him from taking her out. “Think of Brandon, bro. If you do this, you won’t be around when they find the kid.” I cringe, knowing I’m spewing false hope—but fuck—it’s all I got. Hope that my words will penetrate somewhere inside him in a way that not even the mention of Amber can. “He’s gonna need his older brother to teach him shit about life. Shit he’s not gonna wanna learn from behind a partition when you’re serving a life sentence for killing anyone else.”
The second I see a flash of sanity in his eyes, I lay my hand on his, guiding the gun away from the girl’s face.
She grabs her stomach and pukes, her dinner splattering the cement.
“We don’t have to kill her,” I continue, cautiously taking the gun from him. “There’s other ways of doing this.” For the sake of the whore’s kid, I’m about to do something that’d never normally cross my mind. But in this very moment, I’m not who I used to be. My mind, along with my morals, fucked off the second Brock killed Dom. I fist the back of her greasy hair, my voice a fiery whisper as I pin the gun to her cheek. “You have a purse here with you?”
She nods, a sob on the heels of the shaky movement. “It’s under Dom’s de-desk.”
“Grab her purse, Brock.” I pull her into my chest, the stench of her vomit-tinged breath curdling my stomach. “We’re about to play another game.”
Brock cuts his eyes to mine and—with little hesitation—fetches her purse.
“Find her license and read out her name and address.” Gaze stuck on hers, I hear Brock shuffling through her belongings, my heart surging at the lines I’m about to cross. To keep Brock from killing her, I need to turn into an animal, erasing everything I was taught never to do to a woman.
“Cindy Lewis,” Brock announces. “Four eighty-three Culvert Road, apartment B, Matoaka, West Virginia, two four seven three six.”
“Repeat what he said.” I clench her hair tighter. “Now.”
“Cin-Cindy Lewis,” she cries, her lips trembling, “Fo . . . four eighty-three Culvert Road, apartment B, Matoaka, West Virginia, two four seven three six.”
“Very good, Cindy. You wanna live?” I question, sick at what I’m doing. “Wanna wake up to your kid tomorrow? See him grow up?”
Another nod, snot dripping from her nose.
“Answer me!” I untangle my fingers from her hair, the back of my hand singeing her cheek in a ruthless smack. She loses her footing, but I catch her by the nape, dragging her flush to my chest. “Don’t just fucking nod! This is serious! Do. You. Want. To. Live?”
“Yes!” she sobs, her naked body falling limp against mine. “I want to live!”
“That’s what I thought.” Though I’m anything but, my words come out calmly. I grip her chin, digging my fingers into her flesh. “I want you to listen very carefully, Cindy Lewis from Matoaka, West Virginia. You ready?”
“Ye-yes.”
“I’m gonna let you walk outta here alive so you can see that kid of yours grow up. But I’m keeping your license—as insurance, if you will. Understand?”
Relief loosens her muscles as she sniffles. “Mm-hmm. I—I do.”
“Again, very good, Cindy. Now, do you have a vehicle here or did Dom pick you up?”
“I drove here in mine,” she whispers, her sobs quieting. “Dom wanted to pick me up, but I ju-just got it for my sixteenth birthday, so I wa-wanted to drive it.”
Jesus. She’s only a kid. Nausea roils through me as I glance at Brock. After looking at her license he nods, confirming her age. The pig wasn’t just fucking around behind his wife’s back, but he was banging a minor. Another piece of my morals disintegrates, flames igniting any guilt I had over Brock killing Dom into ashes. If I could, I’d resurrect the asshole, take a dump in his mouth, and stick a bullet in his crusty thirty-five-year-old balls.