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Gasping, I lay an offended hand to my chest. “I am incapable of nothing.”
“Prove it.”
“Sadly, your reverse psychology has no power here. I do what I want, when I want, and I have nothing to prove to anyone. Ever.”
“Then I’m done with this. I don’t have time to waste playing games with you.”
“You don’t have time to waste on anyone, Rowan. But who says my games are a waste of time?” I direct a finger past us, out of the alley, toward a man. And a child.
The plastic smile on both their faces chills me to the bone, and no one would see the abject fear in the little girl’s eyes unless they knew to look for it. Even then, most people don’t like to assume horrible things. They create ideas of safety around themselves, to protect their own minds.
Bad things are supposed to look dreadful. Like a train wreck or a car crash. Awful shades and neon lights are meant to paint warning labels across horrors. Bad things aren’t supposed to be as discreet as a too-tight smile.
But that’s reality.
In reality, the worst crimes happen in plain sight.
Rowan’s gaze shifts to follow my finger, and breath freezes in his chest. “That’s—”
“One of Granger’s subordinates. Acting explicitly against your rules.” Pushing off the wall, I smooth my hands down my skirt. “It takes money to organize a coup. And we both know what makes the easiest money.”
Rowan’s large form hardens, and he straightens, imposing. “You’re—” A curse leaves him. “—kidding me.”
The man and the child turn out of sight, so Rowan marches.
I follow, avoiding passersby as I fight to stay on his heels.
He pulls out a flip phone, dials, and lifts it to his ear. Hard language speckles his statements to either Corbin or Aster—I can’t be sure—as he instructs them to round up the refuse.
And put Granger…in the basement.
Chapter 13
~~~~~~~~~~~~
TW: torture and murder
Rowan
Torture is a unique art, my father always used to say, as he buried metal in my skin and let my own screams fill my ears. It took meeting Corbin barely five years ago to recognize exactly how twisted my parents were.
Pain was my upbringing. So I convinced myself it was normal.
It took meeting someone on the outskirts of this rotten family for me to understand that even if terrible things were normal for a mafia, that didn’t make any of them right.
My parents ran my world. They confined me to their ideas, their corrupt logic.
I was never beaten in anger, or for punishment. I was never tied to the chair in front of me for misbehavior. It wasn’t a result of correction when my father severed my nerves and my mother stopped by to reprimand me when she could hear my screams upstairs.
Pain was a tool my parents used to teach me that no amount of suffering should ever surpass loyalty to the family. As I grew more used to it, they rewarded my silence, my indifference. As I grew more used to it, my father tried harder—in order to teach me what really hurt, in order to carve out my ability to feel anything.
My own body became the lessons that taught me how to abuse others, and—for years—at my parents’ discretion…I did.
“Well?” Granger sputters, eyes frantic and wide beneath heavy brows. Curses lace every other word he utters while I sit across from him, reliving the sensation of blades cleaving flesh from my bones. “Git on with it, you—” He slurs a thread of swears, but I barely acknowledge them.
How many times did I pass out in the chair in front of me and long for a more eternal darkness?
How many hours did I exist in a perpetual nightmare I couldn’t wake up from?
