I purse my lips. “Do you hurt people?”
“That’s two questions,” he says with a grin.
I glare at him, but he doesn’t relent. “C’mon. It’s getting too cold for you to be out here without a jacket. Let’s get home.”
“Vince?” I ask.
“Yeah?”
“Can we stop by my friend’s house and my dad’s place now? I really need to make sure they’re okay.”
He searches the sky, pursing his lips. “Not quite yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what it sounds like I mean. Not yet.”
It’s hard being around him sometimes. Part of me loves the way he thinks he can get his way so easily, and the other wants to rage and fight back against his arrogant confidence that I’ll just do what he says without question.
I don’t have time to brew on it, because Vince’s body goes rigid. I look to him and see he’s staring intensely at a larger man wearing a thick jacket. The man has a few day’s worth of stubble on his cheeks and looks like he might be Italian. The way Vince is looking at him makes me suddenly sure that the man is a threat to us.
“Who is he?” I ask.
“Come with me,” says Vince, not taking his eyes from the stranger. He stands abruptly, pulling me roughly behind him through 5th Avenue and into a side street.
“Where are we going?”
“Quiet,” he says, still pulling me by the arm as he pulls his cell phone out with the other hand. He makes a few quick taps with his thumb and puts the phone to his ear. “Yeah. Need a crew. 5th Avenue moving toward 200.”
I turn around and see the guy still following us. We take another corner and I lose track of where we are. We work our way behind a store and into a deserted alleyway. Vince pushes me against a dumpster and motions for me to stay quiet. He reaches into his pants and pulls out a knife. It catches the still fading sunlight and glints bright orange, nearly blinding in the darkness of the alley. He puts his back to the wall near the corner and waits.
I hear footsteps. They get louder until the man in the coat steps into view, walking quickly. Vince rushes him, using his forearm to push the guy into the wall. He points the knife at the man’s chest and leans forward, looking so angry that it scares me, he looks like he’s mad enough to kill. It gives me chills and makes me think twice about the criminal with the heart of gold I was starting to let myself think he was.
“Who sent you?” asks Vince.
“Fuck you.”
Vince’s hand is a blur and I hear a wet punching sound. The man clutches his stomach where Vince stabbed him. Holy shit. Vince just stabbed him like that?
“Don’t test me, you fat fuck.”
“You fuckin’ stabbed me? You crazy piece of shit,” says the man, lifting the palm he’s holding to his stomach and looking at the blood like he doesn’t believe what he sees. “You fuckin’ stabbed me.”
“And I’ll stab you as many fuckin’ times as I need to for you to start talking.”
“Wait, wait. Okay? Shit,” he says, looking down at his stomach again. The blood is flowing freely and his face is already growing pale. “You fuckin’ stabbed me.” His words are breathy, full of shock.
“We’ve covered that.” Vince places the knife point over the man’s chest. “Tell me I stabbed you one more time and watch what happens.”
“Okay, okay. Andre Anastasio. He sent me.”
Vince drives the knife into the man’s heart. The fat man’s eyes widen and he looks down at the knife for a few seconds before slumping to the ground, lifeless and bloody. “Fuckin’ rat.” Vince spits on the man’s corpse.
I feel coldness seeping through my bones. When Vince turns to grab me again, his face is like fire, it’s full of darkness and hate. It scares me. He reaches for my hand and I see the blood on his fingers. I shake my head, backing away. “No,” I say.
“Aubriella…” his voice is cold. It’s iron. “Don’t test me right now.”
I keep backing up until I bump against the wall. He moves in until he’s right against me.
“You need to do exactly what I say, right now. Do I make myself clear?”
25
Vincent
Once I have the cleanup crew arranged, I get Aubriella the fuck out of there. It was sloppy of me, I know it was. We have certain places where fixes are in place with the cops to keep them off our back. They’ll overlook certain things as long as we pad their pockets. I don’t have a single fuckin’ fix out here, and I’d be gambling my life that whatever cop stumbled on me was willing to be bought.