Trapped in his End Game (Series)

With my sleeves rolled back and my prey helpless underneath me, I feel like a god. Every cut is a catharsis. Blood pumps out of his wounds, the angry red color spilling from him. His screams channel my rage. They lift to the ceiling and bounce on the thick walls, which absorb the sound, and I feel cleaner. I drag the scalpel across his skin, frowning when it catches on tough tendon. Some of these blades are getting old. I’ll need to replace them. I throw it aside and instead I pick up a more blunt tool: a hammer.

His eyes grow wide when he sees it. “No! NO!”

The man strapped to my table raped one of the guys’ comares. I caught him peddling heroin outside a 7-11, lured him to my car, and then put him in a chokehold. Now he’s at my mercy, except there is no mercy for him. Not from Jack and certainly not from me.

“Please!” he screams. “Please stop!”

He’s a middle-aged man with a wedding ring on his finger.

“Did you listen to her when she told you to stop?”

The rape of our comares is a serious crime. No one touches a wiseguy’s girl without losing a few fingers. This guy won’t live to see another day. The pathetic bastard probably had no idea that the girl was connected. I despise men like him, not necessarily because of the crime, but because it’s too easy. It’s not fair. Only weak men prey on the weak.

So I’m not going to fucking stop, no matter how much he begs. It’s mob justice. It’s cruel and unforgiving, but it’s fair.

Starting with his hand, I smash. Each digit goes pop as I move from finger to finger. Smash. Smash. Smash. They crack, swell, and bleed. It hurts like a son of a bitch. I know it does, because the guy passes out from the pain.

I open the bottle of ammonia and hold it under his nose, and then he’s awake again, screaming and thrashing.

My knife fillets his flesh like a fish. None of his wounds will kill him. I’m keeping him alive to experience the most pain possible. The yellow fatty layer just below the skin peels back, revealing deep-red muscle tissue. His screams pierce my ears like knives.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

Making it in this life only works if everyone else is afraid of you, especially when you’re half-Italian. I’m such a huge target because I make so much money. I see the other guys watching me, just waiting for me to make one wrong move. They don’t think I see them, but I do.

The same guys watching me right now.

I hold two items in front of the man’s eyes. He can barely see me through his tears.

“Choose.”

Blowtorch or pliers?

Red eyes flick back and forth. “No!” he screams over and over.

Eventually they wear down to a single syllable. It gets boring very quickly, so I jab him in the knee. He chooses the pliers. They always do.

I use the blowtorch instead.

Hey, Jack said to make the bastard suffer. That’s what I’m doing. The smell of burning flesh is almost too much for me. Sometimes it reminds me of cooked pork and that alone is enough to make me gag. It’s too much for one of the guys, who leaves the room with a hand clamped over his mouth and nose.

Sometimes I wish I could keep them for a few more days. There’s a lot more one can accomplish over a week rather than a few days, but Jack wants this one gone. Today.

Like I said, I’m getting a little bored with this.

When he’s finally dead, I slam a knife right into the center of his chest and look up over his bloodless corpse to the silent, judgmental faces watching. Hardened eyes look away from me. None of them can bear to look into the darkness.

I brush past them to exit the room, past the chill of the meat freezers holding dozens of carcasses on hooks, and then I walk to the sink, furiously washing my hands. Suddenly I’m reminded of Melanie, and how she walked into the deli right after I’d washed my arms.

It was such a shock to see her there, but I haven’t seen her much lately. It’s clear that she’s avoiding me. Why? I have no fucking idea.

Maybe I should move on to someone else.

I’m not obsessed with her, but it’s like getting your first hit of coke. The first time is so amazing, so incredible, that you can’t help but go back for a little bit more. She gave me a tease, and naturally I want more. I feel like she already gave me the green light, and all she needs is a little convincing.

I just want to fuck her and move on at this point. That’s how it always is with me. Fuck them and move on to the next one. I see the other guys with relationships, with wives, and I really don’t see the appeal. They’re constantly compromising for them, doing this or that, and meanwhile they’re fucking their comares behind their backs anyway.

What do they get out of it? I don’t understand it. I really don’t.

Eyes avoid me as I enter the back of the deli, where Jack waits. “He’s gone.”

Jack is a tall, imposing figure for a sixty-year-old man. Light of hair and eyes, he always makes me feel vulnerable. I’m self-conscious around him, maybe it’s because I’ve known him for so long. He tightens his jaw and nods stiffly. “Good.”

He reaches around my back, smiling, grasping my shoulder with a tight squeeze. “Tommy, I need you to keep your eyes open.”

Past the giant saws and refrigerators, there’s a large room with a pool table, an oak dining-room table, desks, and chairs. He leads me around and motions to a seat. All my life Jack has always been surrounded by people. There were always a couple guards hanging around him. Until now.

“What do you mean?”

“What happened with Ben was just-” he shakes his head. “I’m very worried, Tommy. Very worried.”

My insides stir when I hear the dejected tone in his voice. He’s like a father to me, and I hate hearing disappointment from him. It makes my skin crawl. I sit down across from him, and the look on his face makes my guts twist. What happened? Is he upset with me?

“What’s wrong, Skip?”

“Keep your eyes and ears open for any more rats. There might be more.”

Jesus.

“Jack, you know you can trust me, right? I would never talk after everything you’ve done for me over the years.”

“I don’t trust anyone, but if I did, it’d be you.”

I sit up straighter in my chair. “Then why won’t you make me a member?”

He looks up at me, suddenly much older than his age, his eyes pained.

The first time he told me I could never become a made member, I was sixteen years old. It was probably the worst day of my life. All my life I wanted to belong somewhere. I wasn’t noticed at home. There, I might as well have been a ghost. There are some people who just go through the motions in life. They have kids, even though they have no interest in raising them. They just do it because it’s expected of them. My parents were like that.

Jack made me feel special. For the first time, an adult actually showed interest in me. He’d ask me questions about what I wanted to do with my life, who was my favorite baseball player, and he’d listen to the responses. He’d lean forward on the table with his head in his hand and really listen as though he was interested. Jack threw me my first birthday party because I told him my parents never bothered with them. There was even a cake! I couldn’t believe it. I was so moved by the gesture that he practically had me eating out of his hand. He gained my loyalty basically by being the parent I always wanted and never had.

When he told me I would never be made, I went home, locked myself in my bedroom, and cried for hours. The pain still resonates inside me, fifteen years later. It’s a bitter tang at the back of my throat; it’s the hollow beat of my heart. I wanted so badly to be accepted by him, and he denied me because of who I was. It was heartbreaking. I didn’t understand why it was so important that I wasn’t full Italian. What did it matter if I went through the same training and pulled the same numbers as everyone else?

“The books are closed,” he says without meeting my eyes.

I let his voice ring in the empty room for a few moments.

“Bullshit.”

His head snaps up. “You know I can’t make you a member.”

“Why not?”

He just stares at me, pity swirling in his eyes.

“Fuck this-” I stand up abruptly, but his hand snatches my wrist.

“Damn it, Tommy, it’s not like I’ve a choice. Those are the rules.”

I laugh hollowly. “You’re the boss. You can do whatever you want.”

“What kind of example does that set if I make you and not others?” His fingers tighten over my wrist. “I give you every single protection that they get, and I let you get away with a lot of shit.”

“Only because I make you so much fucking money.”

The bitterness in my voice makes me want to spit on the floor. Jack’s eyes narrow.

“Hey, it’s not about that. You’re like a-”

“Like a son to you?” I finish his sentence with a smirk. “Come on, Jack. That might’ve worked when I was young-”

“It’s the truth, you little shit.”

“Well, maybe I don’t believe it anymore.”

His fingers drop from my wrist and it’s like a frozen wall erects itself between us. Cold makes the hairs on my arm stand up, and I can’t see him anymore. I’m a snake and all I can sense is heat, but he’s completely cold. There’s nothing there.

Maybe a flicker of fear.

That’s when I know I’ve gone too far, because when your boss starts fearing you, that’s when throats get cut.