STEADILY, I stalk towards the garden shed, eyes focused ahead, while in my peripherals Lee is being hauled across the lawn by Vinny and two of my soldiers.
She’ll be okay.
She’s fast asleep.
She’s safe.
It isn’t enough. I want—dammit—I need my eyes on her at all times. Need my hands close. My Glock drawn. I need the world to stop turning, to freeze so I can give her every inch of attention. Every inch of me.
I need to fix this.
I can’t fix this.
Can’t kill the ghosts in her mind.
Holding it all in, a thunderous volatility stirring, I enter the garden shed. Flicking the light on as the laboured sounds of the fucker being dragged through the doors carry on behind me, I don’t speak. I watch as he is strapped to a chair in the centre of the space.
‘You okay, Boss?’ One of my soldiers asks, but I don’t answer, just stare at Vinny as he begins to beat the fucker Lee to a pulp. I don’t respond when the first tooth fractures or when they all start to splinter and litter the dusty ground. While the brutal scene takes place, I’m thinking about her sprinting into the pool, sinking to the concrete base, giving up. After all her fighting, after clawing through life to survive, for a moment, she was willingly drowning.
‘Boss?’
A harsh cry drags me back to the vision of violence in front of me. ‘Enough,’ I order, but it’s too late as Lee is already a bludgeoned mass. I don’t care. I’m not thinking straight.
I was too late to stop her.
Too busy.
Vinny halts with his fist in the air before moving out of my way. I step forward and clasp my hands. ‘Hello, Lee. That was a very fatal thing you did today, my boy.’
When he opens his mouth, blood instantly flows from the hole. Fuck. He rips a word across his bloody tongue. ‘Please.’
‘It smarts, doesn’t it? You get used to it. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I used to box a lot when I was in boarding school.’ I drag a chair over the pavers until I’m close to him. ‘There was this large caged area behind the theatre for all the props and whatnot. And we would have underground fights Saturday nights when there was only a skeleton staff on. Mondays, we were black and blue.’ I reach forward and grab his jaw, pulling a guttural moan from him. I inspect his bloodied, gummy mouth, wanting to ram my fist down there and rip his tongue out, wanting to beat him to death myself.
Needing to move.
My body turns to steel against the fight inside me. Exhaling roughly, I drop his jaw, lean back, and lift my ankle to rest it on my knee, but my foot jolts back and forth—a tic festering inside me—my restraint not reaching far enough with the sight of my sweet girl, my little deer, in so much pain. ‘Who gave you the SD card?’
He whimpers, his mouth moving like he wants to speak but jerking pathetically at the pain. I notice the large muscle within, bitten and swollen, filling the space.
I shoot Vinny a quick glance; he should know fucking better than to beat him within an inch of his life. ‘Where is Dustin staying?’
His head drops forward, and he gurgles the words as a thick stream of blood pours from his mouth. ‘Please.’
Fucking please.
Restless, I lean forward, onto my knees, getting closer. ‘He’s in the District.’ I assume, feeling this information in my very gut. ‘I know he is. Just give me the hotel, the address, the people safe-housing him, and I’ll make all this pain go away.’
‘J-Jimmy,’ he chokes out, a flowing crimson waterfall gushing from his open mouth. I clench my jaw at the sound of Jimmy’s name. At the sound of my phantom. A dark cloud that covers all.
‘Jimmy is dead, my boy. What are you talking about?’
His voice is already halfway to hell when he murmurs, ‘Watched the girl.’
My body stiffens as something I’ve missed opens me up, allowing the ghosts of inadequacy to fill me. Right under my nose. Treachery seeps into my muscles. My Butcher head roars within my well-mannered façade. Of course. Always four steps ahead of me, even in death, old boy.
I worked beside Jimmy for the past decade, his chosen heir, and I still don’t know all his hands. All his influence. I’m the damn fool. ‘Who is watching her now? Who gave you the SD card?’
Lee passes out.
Bitter deceit prickles at the backs of my eyes, but I ram the pain of betrayal down my throat. Rising to my feet, I hover over Lee. I lift his lifeless chin and tilt his head backwards. Effortlessly, I hold it steadfast. He gasps at the metal ceiling. All the blood squirting into his mouth from veins below his teeth, from the webbing of them in his near-severed tongue, start to pour down his trachea into his lungs. He gasps again, guaranteeing his death. Drowning.
Like my little deer.
She’s drowning…
She tried to drown herself.
I bare my teeth and tighten my hold. His body convulses, and I watch—revel. Watching bubbles of blood and saliva foam around my fingers, I narrow my eyes. Her pain. He should feel her pain. And so drown he will.
I should drown them all.
All. Of. Them.
Then the men around me seem to catch my attention. The man behind me. In Jimmy’s shed. By Jimmy’s house. Not mine… I lose focus in this dying man’s eyes, feeling the entire scenario of my existence, my city, my men, burn up in flames. It was never mine. Not really. I should have fucking known better.
I speak hushed but firmly. ‘Dustin is alive because Jimmy wanted him to be. And here I am, working in the same model as him. In a world Jimmy made. In a city he built. I just continued what he started.’ I speak to a dying Lee. To my capo—Vinny—behind me, watching. To my soldiers as they try to hold their stomachs. To myself.
I remember when I thought that if anyone was to rip the Cosa Nostra from the District, the entire city would bleed to death. Well, fuck, I was wrong. Again. It’s not the Cosa Nostra that grows like weeds within the city. It’s Jimmy Storm. And I need to pull him out. Weed by weed. ‘Jimmy wanted the entire city to bleed if he did. And bleed it will.’
Vinny’s voice is hesitant as he says, ‘What are you saying, Boss?’
I think about how Jimmy never burnt any bridges. Not with Dustin when the fucker betrayed us. Not with us when we demanded his head. He knew everything and everyone. And… he knew my little deer.
‘Fuck,’ I growl. He knew her all along. Of course, he did. I release my hold on Lee’s chin now that he is a lifeless pile. ‘This is not my city, Vinny.’
‘Yes, it is, Boss.’
‘No, my friend.’ I shake my head stiffly, turning to face him. ‘These are not my men.’
He looks at me as though I have gone mad, or is that fear I see playing in his eyes? ‘What are you talking about?’
I laugh with derision. ‘No more alliances, Vinny. They are not mine. I did not make them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I want them all brought in. Every Underboss. Every Capo. Every division. The Japanese. The bikers. I don’t think they know who I am, and I’d like to officially introduce myself as the head of the Family. Anyone who is not with me is now against me. Anyone on the fence, a peacekeeper, is now against me.’ I step towards him, growling, ‘Anyone who questions me. Is. Now. Against me!’
I watch his throat roll. ‘They won’t like that.’
Exhaling slowly, I try again to calm myself down, but it isn’t working because I am not Jimmy Storm. Not a cold, unaffected man. I am a fucking Butcher, and I’m at the end of my goddamn rope. Lowering my voice, I say, ‘Did you not hear me, my friend? I said bring them. All. To me.’
‘Boss,’—he clears his throat—’are you sure?’
Anyone who questions me. Is. Now. Against me. I go deadly cold. Deadly still. A smooth smile slides into place. I stare into the wide brown eyes of the man who has been beside me for the past twelve months, a man who has worked for the Family for decades. ‘The thing about loyalty is that it’s black and white. You are either loyal or you aren’t. There is no sliding scale in loyalty. I know this better than most, as loyalty is easy for me. I’ve only ever been loyal to the name Butcher. At the core of it, it will always be them.’ Stepping towards him, I cup his head and kiss both cheeks before leaning back and asking, ‘How long have you worked for him?’
He shakes his head in my palms. ‘I don’t work for him. I work for you.’
I release his face. Scrutinising him, I feel a pang of pain, the knife sliding between my shoulder blades, the shot to the back of my skull in the church, as I realise how he took my words. Took him to mean Dustin. Not Jimmy. Not. Fucking. Jimmy. For him to instantly think I meant Dustin.
So many tells. Now… and recently. How did I miss this disloyalty? How did I— He flipped the table in front of my Indonesian associates. Was that a diversion? Were the weapon crates even short? He was anxious when I asked him to stay back at the warehouse with me. My eyes land on Lee, rendered useless—Fucker.
Nothingness, not the cigars shared, nor the conversations had, not the love of his life who was shot in the back—none of it will protect him. I am not a merciful man when it comes to them, to her. I’m no longer that man.
For her.
Don’t fuck with me.
Don’t fuck with my little deer.
Don’t fuck with my business.
I meet his rich brown eyes. ‘I want you to know that I respect your loyalty.’ I nod with a knowing smile and levelling eyes that I can’t mask, don’t want to. This is my friend. My capo. My enemy… He should see me. Clay Butcher. The Don of the Cosa Nostra. The blood of the Family. ‘I do. I knew you were a loyal man so I should not be surprised you still are.’
He risks a look at my soldiers, shuffling backwards under their gaze and mine. ‘Boss, what are you doing?’
Those nervous movements twist that knife in my back, and I deadpan. ‘Only two SD cards?’
‘I thought so. I thought so. I searched—’
‘No one knew, Vinny. Just you and my little brother.’
‘Jimmy had someone watching her. They would have known everything. That can’t be me. I’m always here with you, Boss.’ His voice spikes with panic. ‘You can’t be serious.’
I nod. He’s right. There would have been another man watching her.
Another man to hunt.
To drown.
But this man… this man right in front of me—I exhale, the air hissing through my teeth. ‘Only you knew that she didn’t know. For Lee to have given her the SD card, it must have been under the pretence that she didn’t know what was on it… Loyalty is black and white.’
‘Clay. Please.’
‘At least it’s not in your back.’ I draw my Glock and put a round between his eyes.
