HARDCORE: Storm MC(28)

“The rest of it—I get that you got a right to info about Manny, dude. I know that. But that gets tied up with shit you do not have a consideration in, so you gotta understand that the thing that is driving this clusterfuck is bigger than Manny. And I know that’s hard to hear, but that’s my reality, and that’s what I gotta live with.”



He paused, and I could tell he was wavering on whether or not to let me in. “I’m not gonna share it with you if you are gonna make the smart choice here and get yourself and your woman out of town. There’s no point in you knowing, then. So you gotta make that decision now. If you’re gonna go, you should just go. And we’ll sort it out, and then you can come back. We can have full honesty then, and we will.”



I looked in his eyes, which were fierce and so tired. He was my President, my brother, my friend. And he was fighting. I could finally see that, looking outside my own narrow self. And all of a sudden, I understood that whatever the bigger that was going on was, he needed help. He was near to drowning in it, even if he didn’t see it that way.



“I’m sticking with you, Pres. Tell me. Let me in. Let’s bring down whatever the shitstorm is. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”



He looked at me another moment, shook his head, sighed, and gave me a brief chin up. “You are a stand-up man, brother.” He went to pour himself a drink, and I retook my seat on the couch.



“Okay, Dom. Tell me what you know about it, so I can figure where to start.”



“I only know that you and Manny were both at the porno lot the day he went down. Sienna dropped her sister off in the lot, saw you two at the door to the warehouse. Her sister never showed back, so something—whatever it was—happened that day. To both Tania and Manny. I don’t know the details beyond that, but I know that much.”



“Okay, Dom. Yeah.” He nodded his head, squaring his thoughts. “So, they did the shoot. Since we were just security for Ronn, we weren’t in the room. He had us standing guard in the hallway at the door. Which was fucking freezing that day. Fucker. But he said it was a closed set, no watchers. So we didn’t know what was goin’ on till after. But fuck, Dom. That was some sick fucking shit they were filming in there. That girl…” He shook his head, heavy with regret. “But we didn’t know that, yet. We just thought it was regular porn. So we stood there.”



“Wait a minute. Who all was in there?”



He grunted. “Right. Joey Ronn and Jonathan Fielding were both in there. The girl. And there was a camera guy. There had been a lighting guy and a woman there earlier, doing costumes and makeup and shit, I guess, but they left before they started taping.



“We were probably standing out there an hour and a half, hearin’ all kinds of noises from the girl, but that’s kind of par for the course, right? I mean, I figured they gagged her, so, you know, just a lot of high-pitched noises. Those eventually stopped.”



He shook his head. “Finally, Fielding came out. He didn’t look at us, just left the building. We waited a few more minutes, and then Ronn poked his head out, looked at us, and said, just to Manny, ‘You. Get in here.’



“So Manny goes in, and I can hear ’em get into it. Manny yells, ‘What. The. Fuck.’ And Ronn starts laughing. Like, hysterically. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with that motherfucker, but… Doesn’t matter. Ronn is laughin’, and then there’s a gunshot. And I had no idea what happened, or what the fuck was goin’ down, but I grabbed my gun and pulled the safety and went in there. And god, Dom. You can’t unsee that shit.” His eyes were gone; he was back in that warehouse in his mind.



I gave him a minute, giving him a chance to pull himself back. “So Ronn shot Manny? Right there and then? That doesn’t even make sense.”



“It does when you know what they had been filming. The girl, Dom. Completely mutilated. Face, body, everything. There was blood everywhere. And I could see Manny was gone. Shot in the face. His head was…” He was choking up. Hell, I was, too.



“And when I got in there, I was ready to shoot Ronn, and I almost did, but he already had me in his sights and he reminded me of why I couldn’t shoot him. Fuck. Fuck, Dom. I wanted to, so badly. I wanted to shoot that motherfucker, for Manny, for the girl, for all of fuckin’ humankind. But I couldn’t. Because, if I did, that would mean—”



He cut himself off, looking down, shaking his head with the slightest movement. When he did raise his eyes, they were red and holding back tears. I had never seen this man cry. Not ever.