Torture to Her Soul(15)

After a second, she sighs, realizing I'm not going to touch it, and pulls her cup back as she walks away.

"Thank you for the coffee machine, Naz," she says quietly. "I appreciate it."





Ray's trying not to laugh.

I'm trying not to punch him in the face.

I slouch in the black leather chair at Cobalt after nightfall, nursing a bottle of cold pale ale, hoping the alcohol can soothe my frayed nerves, but it's pointless, given the way Ray's gawking at me.

I turn my eyes toward him and raise an eyebrow in silent challenge, as the corners of his lips spastically twitch. He's shit at keeping a straight face, and he most definitely can't hide his amusement today.

It dances in his eyes.

He's enjoying this.

After a moment, he loses the battle entirely and a small chuckle echoes out as he full-blown grins. "How you feeling, Vitale?"

At least he's not drunk yet.

Because if he called me Naz with that look on his face?

I would punch him.

Potential consequences be damned.

"Fine," I respond, taking a sip of the beer. It tastes extra bitter, or maybe I'm just in one of those kinds of moods. Karissa has me flipped upside down. I don't know if we're coming or going.

"Fine," he repeats, swirling his glass of scotch around, the ice cubes clinking against the side as he waves his drink toward me. "If that's fine, I'd hate to see the other guy."

He's looking for information, information he knows I won't volunteer, but he isn't stupid, not in the least. He'd be worried if he truly believed some guy got the best of me like this. The scratches are the tale-tell sign of a woman scorned, and only one woman could leave these marks on me and still live afterward.

Ray knows this, but he doesn't get it.

He doesn't get why Karissa is still breathing.

Why I haven't... why I won't... why I can't… kill her.

He laughs again, this time a sharp edge to it, as he takes a sip of the dark liquor. "Such a waste."

I glare at him, hoping he's talking about the wasted opportunity and that it isn't an insult aimed at me.

Unlike the other guys he keeps around, I never took an oath to be here. I was never inducted into the organization he runs, never vowed my life to the things they do. I do them, all right. I do more than most of those other guys do. But I do it with an understanding, a mutual sort of respect, that it didn't take the prick of a trigger finger to forge.

I do it because he's like a father to me.

I do it because I want to.

I do it because long ago I decided this is exactly what I was meant to do.

So while I'm loyal, and Ray knows it, he can't treat me like he does those other guys. He can only push me so far. We wouldn't stab each other in the back, but there's nothing to keep us from someday stabbing in the front.

Nobody's truly safe.

My best friend proved that.

The thing is, I wasn't the only one who wanted Johnny dead.

Ray did, too.

He wanted the Rita bloodline destroyed.

He wanted them chewed up and spit out.

He wanted them to suffer like he did.

Like we did.

The only vow I ever took to him was that I would do just that.

That I would destroy them.

That I would get justice.

The only thing keeping Karissa alive—keeping Ray from outsourcing elsewhere, from putting a hit out on her life—is that he's not willing to cut ties with me. It's personal, and for the moment that outweighs any sort of business, but I'm not a fool.

It might not always be that way.

I'm sure Karissa thinks I'm a monster for forcing her to stay with me, and maybe I am. Maybe I'm a fucking despicable human being. I'm certainly not a good man. But she doesn't realize it's because of that she's still breathing. It's because of that she wakes up every morning to hate me another day.

She's alive because I couldn't bring myself to kill her, and nobody else is stupid enough to cross me by doing it.

"A waste, huh?" I take a sip of beer before gazing at the bottle, swirling what's left of the liquid around inside of it. "It's all a waste, if you ask me. None of it should've happened."

"But it did," he counters. "Only a fool would ignore that it did."

Now that is an insult, but I keep my cool, finishing the rest of my beer. "Yeah, well, good thing I'm not a fool. I don't ignore anything."

I set the empty bottle aside and stand, smoothing wrinkles from my suit coat. I don't bother saying goodbye, merely grasping Ray by the shoulder and squeezing it on my way past him to the door.

It's a sweltering night, the kind where the darkness feels thicker than usual and the air is heavier in my lungs, making my chest tighten when I try to breathe. I hate these nights. It's the kind of air that held Maria's last breath. The ominous sensation crawls across my skin, a chill in the heat, like I'm fighting a current that wants to take me under, but I won't let it.