As hard as it is to sleep with her beside me, it's even harder having her gone.
Curiosity gets the best of me after a few minutes.
I climb out of bed and throw on some clothes, slowly making my way downstairs. Karissa is in the kitchen, standing by the counter, pouring herself a bowl of cereal. Coco Puffs. It's still weird, seeing this space used so much, utilized for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Sometimes she just hangs out in here, just leaning against the counter for the fuck of it.
Strange.
Stepping past her, I grab a bottle of water from the fridge, opening it and taking a sip when she speaks.
"I'd kill for some coffee."
Her voice is light, the words coming out easy, like talking to me these days still comes naturally.
Huh.
Leaning back against the counter, I eye her peculiarly. "Literally?"
She turns her head my way, rolling her eyes. "It's an expression."
"I know it is," I say, screwing the lid back on my bottle. "If you want coffee, call the café down the block and have them bring you some."
"And what, order fifteen cups of coffee?" she asks. "They have a minimum delivery amount, you know. I'm better off just walking there, but that requires putting on pants, and well…"
And well, she's not wearing any.
My eyes slowly scan her at the mention, drinking in the sight of her creamy skin in the soft light from the window. Sometimes I think she does this just to tease me. She never used to show so much skin. It's tempting, that's for sure.
I want to caress every inch of her.
"Do you want me to go get you some?" I offer when I meet her eyes again. "I will."
"No, it's fine," she says right away. "I don't want anything from you."
I shrug, pushing away from the counter to stroll past her when I hear my phone ringing off in the den. Ray again. Always Ray. "Fair enough. If you change your mind—"
"I won't," she says. "I'm not going to change my mind."
It's quiet again, as I walk out of the kitchen, her voice barely a breath when I hear her amend, "Not when it comes to you, anyway."
"So there's this guy…"
This is how a lot of conversations start with Ray. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard those four words…
Actually, I'm sure I have a few thousand for every time.
"What guy?" I ask needlessly, knowing he'll tell me whenever he's ready. Ray has a flair for the dramatic.
"This guy," he says, "who did some work for me. He's in the car business, you know… he owns a shop and stripped a few cars. He got in deep, though, and decided he wanted out, but you know as well as I do there is no out, so the jackass filed a report. For harassment! Can you believe it? He called the police and thought they would do something for him!"
Yes, I can believe it.
People seem to believe the police are actually there to help them.
I used to think it, too.
Before I learned the truth.
I glance at Ray as we sit in the back office of Cobalt, sipping drinks even though it's not even noon. Brandy is fast asleep in the corner, on a leather couch along the wall. I wonder if they spent the night here. I've never seen her at Cobalt so early in the morning before.
"And what, you want him taught a lesson?"
"Nah, we already took two knees," Ray says. "I'd rather he just be dealt with already."
"Yeah, okay," I say. "I'll handle it."
Ray rattles off the guy's name and some identifying details—Josh Donizetti, late forties, blond hair, walks with a limp because of the kneecap incident. The garage he owns is over in Brooklyn, not far from where I live. That's really all I need, but Ray reaches into his desk and pulls out the man's business card for me anyway.
I finish my beer as Ray switches topics, rambling on about something. I don't know. He's not talking to me. Not really. He's just talking. Unlike me, Ray doesn't like silence.
When my bottle is empty, I set it aside and stand up, slipping on my coat before reaching my hand toward Ray.
He shakes it, smiling genuinely. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Vitale."
Without me, he'd be poorer, and weaker, and probably would even be dead. He relies on me more than he likes to admit… more than the other guys know. They think their boss is the strongest man in the city, the most powerful, and on the surface it seems that way. He slaps his name on most of my deeds, taking credit.
I don't mind.
I don't do it for the glory.
I don't need any credit.
I don't want people kissing my ass every day.
"I'll call you," I say. "Just as soon as it's done."
I spend all afternoon finding the garage in Brooklyn, staking it out, watching the man of the hour as he limps around the workspace, struggling to bend down, straining as he works on cars. Bastard probably suffered enough, both of his knees wrecked. He's lucky to be walking at all.
But he made the grave mistake of going to the police. It's unforgivable in our world, something nobody is immune from. No matter who you are, or what you do, or who loves you… it's a deadly sin we don't forgive.
The first person I ever killed was a guy named Joseph Manchetti. I did it clean and simple, a shot through the back of the skull. My hands shook that day when I pulled the trigger, and I barely made it a block away before doubling over along the side of the road and losing everything in my stomach.
It wasn't because he was dead, wasn't because I took the life of a married man, the life of a father, the life of a man severely in debt to a mob that only wanted his mortality as payment.
It had nothing to do with him.
It was the adrenaline.
It had been the first spark of life I'd felt in my veins since the night it was all stolen from me, the first time I felt normal again. It was a high unlike any other, the high of controlling someone's last breath. My heart beat wildly in my chest, a heart I wasn't sure existed anymore.
The most inhumane moment of my life reminded me that I, too, had once been human.
I felt alive again.
I grew addicted to that feeling.
Eventually, I stopped getting sick afterward. The high didn't feel as high. The adrenaline didn't come on as strong. Like any true junkie, I needed more and more to gratify me. Clean and simple became messy and torturous, the sensations heightened by witnessing the aftermath. I perfected it, figuring out the best way to get the biggest thrill with the least amount of risk.
I didn't care how they felt as long as I got to feel again.
As I sit in my car across the street, watching the man move around the shop, my fingers start to tingle from anticipation. I toy with his business card, running my fingertips along the rough edges of it, biding my time, but the pull is strong. It's funny, in a way, that they call it a hit.