“I know you aren’t going to hurt me, Benny. I felt your grip loosen when you were leading me upstairs,” I continue, relentless to break him down by affirming his humanity. I hear him breathe deeply, exhaling slowly as his breath trembles. “You’re terrified, aren’t you?” I ask, tightening my grip on his psyche.
Benny remains silent, affirming my success at digging deep enough into his insecurities to affect him.
“I know it can feel like a really dark place, Benny,” I continue, ensuring that I use his name as often as possible to humanize myself and connect with him. “I can’t imagine how scary it must be, having to deal with Michael. He’s a really dangerous person,” I add.
I can feel his demeanor change, his affect softening.
“He wasted my brother, Micah. Three years ago next month. Around this time of year, he starts to really kick up the threats. He’s a cunt,” he says, fighting the urge to overindulge his pain.
I remember when Benny’s brother was killed. He was only nineteen; a gangly, fiery little spitfuck, in over his head and constantly pushing himself beyond his means to prove himself. My father liked Micah, but he was ornery, a liability. Michael had noticed my father’s favoritism of Micah, growing jealous. A torrent of hazing and belligerence ensued, and Micah gave up Michael’s location when he went into hiding after a raid.
Benny found Micah shot twenty-five times in the abdomen, four days after he had been killed. Benny himself was only twenty-one at the time, as well as Micah’s only living relative. There was no funeral, no memorial. We all just turned a blind eye as Benny mourned in silence.
“I don’t know how you could have forgiven Michael for that,” I say timidly, terrified that I was knowingly walking the line between empathetic and intrusive.
“I didn’t forgive him. I only stuck around because he had more muscle behind him than I do. The rest of those men are brainless fucking lemmings who would stick a fork in a light socket if you told them it would give them a boner. They’d kill anybody for Michael,” Benny says, his tone growing charged. “I’d rather stay alive than end up like Micah, even if I fucking hate everything about Michael.”
Something clicks. “Did… Did Micah know Rahim?” I ask, cold water creeping up the vessels inside my legs into my chest.
Benny glares at me, the first eye contact I’ve ever had with him. Beyond his rage, his terror, he is wounded. “Rahim is a cunt. He’s a goddamn cunt. Yeah, they were best friends, at least I thought they were until he sold you out. Always a liar and a narcissist, but he wasn’t a cunt before.”
I freeze. I consider the odds, the cosmic joke of my life, wrapped up in a burial shroud. A trusted, upstanding citizen of the medical community, charged with bringing me back from the brink of death, only to cast me to the wolves for thirty pieces of silver.
“Now would be a really good time for you to teach Michael a lesson,” I reply.
Benny scoffs at me, glaring at me once more with twice the venom as before. “You’re just like your fucking dad, trying to get into people’s heads to make them do shit for you,” he spits.
Fuck, he knows what I want.
Should I backtrack?
Do I cry?
Do I scream?
“You think I’m gonna fuck you just because we share an enemy? You’re pathetic,” he growls, regaining his radioactive persona.
Thank god, I almost say out loud.
New plan.
“It could just be because you want to, Benny,” I purr, immediately switching gears.
Clearly, the idea was already in his head. He’s volatile and pent up enough to play right into my whims.
“I’m right here, just the two of us. I can’t even imagine how lonely you must be,” I continue, gazing up at him with artificially desperate eyes.
If his walls went up that quickly for something I didn’t even say, then they’ll come down just as easily.
“I bet it’s been a long time for you. You seem to really keep to yourself, but I know there’s a need there, a hunger.” I begin to soften my words, my voice like pure, unblemished glass.
I see Benny bite his lip, his breathing quickening, and I struggle not to glow with sweet, dripping, vicious intent.
“Benny, I think we both really need somebody right now,” I whisper sweetly.
His eyes meet mine once more, and for the first time, I can feel his humanity radiating from him, casting a shadow over his relentless, violent vibration.
“Nobody will be back for a few hours at least, it’s part of the way we keep you afraid,” Benny asserts, an uncharacteristic warmth gliding along his words. Without another word, he kneels next to me, and as the light hits his eyes, I can see flecks of gold in the depth of the otherwise endless pools of umber, as muddy and opaque as my conscience.
“Are you afraid, Gabriella?”
“No, Ben, I’m not afraid,” I reply warmly in an almost syrupy manner.
He leans in toward me, and I smell cigarette smoke on him, mingled with the faint, cloying scent of whiskey. Slowly, calculatedly, Benny climbs over me, holding me by the small of my back with one hand, the other on the back of my head, stroking my hair. As he leans down closer to kiss me, I slide my hand down his side and seize his gun, immediately pointing it straight at his chest.
Chapter 19
“If you move, I’ll blow your heart into the fucking ceiling,” I growl.
Benny falls back as I hold the gun in place. “You goddamn vile bitch,” he accuses, hesitating to strangle me only because of our new power structure.
“Tell me where the fuck Adrian is,” I command. “I didn’t want to do this, but I have to protect my family too, Benny,” I continue, my hands shaking, ready to convulse as adrenaline arrests me. “If you tell me where Adrian is, I promise you that I have resources, Benny. I can get you away from this life. But you need to do as I say.”
My stomach turns as I watch the bloodlust cloud over Benny’s vision again.
Instead of lunging forward to recapture his weapon and subdue me, he simply lowers himself to his heels and exhales deeply, almost in relief. “Are you gonna kill me?” he asks, almost expectantly.
My hands continue to tremble as I keep the gun trained between his lungs. “I bet you’ve never even fired a gun before, you always had someone like me to do it for you,” he continues, becoming unnervingly serene despite his predicament.
“Tell me where Adrian is, Benny, that’s all that I need from you,” I reply, lowering the gun while still focusing it up towards his sternum. “I promise that I can get you away from all this, but I can also hurt you very badly from where I’m sitting, so don’t cross me. Just do what I tell you,” I say.
Benny relents. “Your husband is being kept in a basement in a house at the cross of 108th and Cyprus. It’s usually used as a safe house for product exchanges, but there’s a holding cell there too. He’s pretty fucked up, but he’s alive,” he says. “Be careful, though. They’ve always got someone posted there. His family has made a few attempts already, though they didn’t succeed.”
I picture the faces I saw briefly at my wedding, everybody Adrian knew. His parents had security everywhere, and I wonder how many of them had been sent to save Adrian and been put to death for it. How many of those people had celebrated with me? Can I even recall any of their faces? Now they’ve disappeared, their families will never see them again.
“What have they done to him? I need to be prepared, Benny,” I assert, climbing to my feet, still bound to the radiator.
“It’s…” He pauses. “You’re not going to be prepared, no matter how much I tell you. You might as well just go, find out for yourself. Watch your back, too,” he says. “Let me go with, I know my way around that place really well,” he continues, coming back from his apathy toward his imminent death, not pleading for a chance to be of use.
Ironic.
“108th and Cyprus? What’s it look like?” I ask.
Benny bites his lip, racking his brain for a proper description. �
�Um… it’s like… grey… a red door, like the one on your parents’ house. That’s how everyone finds it, they can relate it to that,” he adds.
I pause for a moment. “I’ll need you to cut me away from this radiator before we go, obviously. Quickly, now,” I command him.
He hesitates, still gazing at the pistol in my free hand. He pulls a Swiss army knife from his pocket and cuts me free.
A red door should be easy enough to find without his help.
“Thanks Benny, you’ve been helpful,” I say, pulling back the slide on the pistol before I aim it as his head, blowing a bullet through his brain.
I give him no space to feel betrayed, no time to absorb what I’ve done; an act of mercy, the least I can do for him.
I scramble to my feet, ears ringing, head full of static and cotton. If past experience is anything to heed, somebody will have heard the gunshot and called 911. I need to leave, now.
As I sprint toward the stairwell, I’m stopped in my tracks by the rusty stains and spatters left behind by my sisters, slain in this very spot. The once lively, horrid pools of viscous blood have been scrubbed haplessly into two-dimensional vermilion slabs. What is left of my sisters is now an unsightly, unliving monument to their untimely passing, with capillaries and vessels of its own as their life force spread deep into the cracks of the floor.
That wave of nausea and pointed bereavement assaults each synapse within me. I wish to fall to the floor, to lie with them there, to turn back time and join them. I’m paralyzed, begging my body to pause, to hold my grief steady and still until I can truly grapple with it as a swaying pendulum.
A siren blares outside, and the embers of instinct and survival are lit mercilessly.
I jump, broken from my trance, my vortex of sorrow. I hear pounding on the metal door at the bottom of the stairwell, and panic floods me. My eyes dart around the room, my heart pounding so loud, so fast that I feel as though I can’t even make a plan of escape or register any intake of new information. All I see is a broken window at the back of the room, eleven feet away from Benny’s body, where his eyes have glazed over, his final wish granted.
I’m suffocating under the weight of my dread, my reptilian conquest to remain alive at all costs. When I approach the broken window, I notice a broken scaffold floating precariously, hundreds of feet from an overgrown parking lot.
There are no options left.
The glass of the window is jagged, a razor edge begging me to misstep, to hesitate too late. A torrent of rain has begun, falling in sheets, creating a slick plane over the iron scaffold. It swings from chains, barely scraping the rough ledge of the window. I place my foot down carefully, immediately feeling the scaffold give and shift with my weight.
Fuck. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up pushing it away from me.
I slide the rest of my leg out the window, grazing the back of my thigh on the ravenous teeth of the broken glass. I yelp out loud, biting my lip as I feel the back of my black jeans begin to stick to my skin.
As I fail to find my footing, I hear the door below break open. A cacophony of loud footfalls echoes throughout the stairwell, and I hold my breath, thrusting myself out the window and lying flat on the scaffold, the pistol still in my hand.
Heavy boots climb up the stairs, and I can hear five or six individuals enter the space where Benny’s corpse lies bleeding out.
“Jesus fuck, weren’t we just here for a shooting last week?” one of the voices asks, dumbfounded. “Who decided an abandoned textile warehouse was such a good place to drop people?” he continues.
A different voice scoffs. “Have you ever watched any horror movie? This is like a prime location for murders,” he says.
The footfalls approach Benny’s body, lying dangerously close to my makeshift hiding place. “I think the last one was a murder-suicide, I don’t think that counts as serial killer activity,” the first voice adds.
“Shut up, you two. We haven’t even assessed him yet. He could still be alive,” a female voice interjects.
The two other voices both laugh. “Do you see that exit wound? I saw it from thirty feet away. He’s fucked,” one of them replies.
Immense guilt radiates through me. Poor Benny. I know almost nothing about him, and yet I feel as though we could have been great friends in another life.
I picture the medics standing around his body, alone to be assessed and speculated by strangers. If it weren’t for my family’s relentless hunger for power, he and his brother could have gone to college or had families. Instead, they were both executed, and it’s my fault.
Reality sets in, and my stomach fills with hot lead as I consider the position I’ve backed myself into. The medics will no doubt contact the coroner to pick up Benny’s body, adding an extra hour to my time on the scaffold in the pouring rain.
All I want is to curse my life, to relinquish control, and roll off the side of the scaffold. My descent to the ground would be quick, almost merciful as my skull detonated from the sheer force of my velocity.
I close my eyes and imagine it, reeling myself in as to not give in to the thoughts, the call of the void.
“Shit, I know this dude. I went to high school with his brother,” a familiar voice says, breaking my focus.
Rahim.
Rahim will know that I did this. He knows my affiliation, my objective. If he’s able to get a hold of Michael, I’m as good as dead. I need a new plan.
I roll over, assessing my options. At first, the situation is hopeless. I’d have to climb down the scaffold, gripping the pole for dear life. Thinking back to my reverie of sweet death, I choose to make a deal with myself.
If I die, I die, and I get what I want.
If I live, I live, and I get what I want.
In this way, I have no choice.
I flip myself over onto my stomach, my cracked ribs howling in pain. All I can do is wince and grit my teeth. I shimmy my body over the platform, hanging one leg over the side to find my footing on the rail. My leg is still bleeding, and the pounding rain on my wounds stings like acid, like salt.
My body slides easily across the platform on the rainy metal, but the weight of the rain in my clothes pulls me down. I find the best grip that I can on the edge of the platform and throw my other leg over, my stomach floating into my chest.
Miraculously, I find footing relatively quickly, but not before I nearly slip and let go. My skin breaks out in prickling, hot sweat, and I want nothing more than to scream. In the distance, I hear sirens blaring, wailing as a warning for me to get the fuck out of there.
Will someone see me?
Will I just be shot down by a fire squad?
My muscles seize, and my diaphragm strangles me.
Diagonal beams line either side of the scaffold, and I struggle to brace myself as I ease each of my legs down, then my hips, then my arms as I reach for the next set.
After three or four attempts and countless bruises and misses, I’ve worked out a moderately efficient system of lowering myself from the beams onto the one below me. My hands slip a time or two, and the rusty edges of the beams scrape my palms, breaking my skin. Flakes of rust fly from the beams as I grip them, falling endlessly to the ground where my head would explode if I followed them.
Shouting ensues below, and I estimate that the projection of the voices is coming from the other side of the building, giving me time to at least finish climbing down. On the last step, I’m able to grip my boots to the last beam and jump.
I greatly underestimate the distance between me and the concrete, and my ankle buckles and collapses under me as I land my jump.
This time, I scream.
I scream bloody fucking murder as I collapse, bright light bursting from my bones and blinding me. I roll onto my back, attempting to swallow the onslaught of screams that are clawing their way out of my throat. Holding my breath, I listen for more men on a power trip in heavy boots to approach me and apprehend me as a prime murder suspect.
The foot
steps don’t come, and there are no insecure schoolboys with weapons and warrants that arrive. I choose to close my eyes, just for a moment, to breathe; to be.
Benny’s face burns behind my eyelids, joined shortly thereafter by Jonesey’s, haunting me moment by moment as I grasp helplessly for peace between breaths.
I need to focus.
I roll over onto my knees, slowly raising myself from the ground, my ankle just barely able to bear weight. With one foot in front of the other, I make my way along the wall, leaning against the frigid bricks. My jaw is tight, and my chest burns beneath my sternum, cutting through my breaths like a superheated blade. Every few steps, I must recalibrate, adjust, and continue to preserve what’s left of my already-limited fighting abilities.
When I reach the edge of the building, the rain begins to lessen, and I can soon rejoin the world as an unsuspecting, severely-injured woman walking down the street.
When I assess my surroundings for the first time with all of my mental bearings, I realize that I’ve seen this place before. 108th street is two miles north of where I am. If Cyprus is a cross street, I know for a fact that I’ve never been there.
Still dizzy and shaken from my descent from the scaffold, I force myself to breathe, and breathe, and breathe until I’m able to maintain a linear thought pattern without panicking.
Walking that distance on my ankle would be an exercise in futility. My limited knowledge in anatomy tells me that I’d likely never walk correctly ever again if I attempted such a thing. If I can straighten myself out and do my best to mitigate the extent of my injuries, I could spend the rest of my money on a cab.
The idea is hilarious to me, engaging in such a mundane, normal behavior in the midst of such a hurricane. Nevertheless, I fear it’s my only choice.
My steps are careful and calculated as I approach the street from the sidewalk near the warehouse. Each step is excruciating, sending that jolt of white lightning through me with each contact. My limp is staggered, but to anybody off the street, I would appear to be recovering from a minor car crash or sports injury.
Broken King: An Arranged Marriage Mafia Romance Page 10
