Page 60 of Don’t Say Mafia

Maybe I would’ve watched him drift exactly where I’d nudged him and felt something resembling pity. Maybe I would’ve considered how easy it was to steer someone who’d never learned how to steer himself.

A better man might have seen tragedy; he might have seen addiction and weakness and the small, pathetic hope that clings to second chances.

But I’ve never confused myself with that kind of man.

What I felt wasn’t pity.

It was rage.

Rage that he’d been allowed into her life at all. Rage that she’d worked herself raw trying to save someone who didn’t even have the decency to save himself. Rage that he’d taken something soft and hopeful and real and ground it down to fear and exhaustion and apologies she should never have had to make.

He didn’t deserve pity.

He’d had Eden.

And he’d fucked it all up.

I’d made sure the address he was given for the game was on the outskirts of town in a warehouse district where Lawson could easily hack the cameras.

Zachary drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting loose near the console, his eyes flicking between the quiet street ahead and the mirrors.

“There he is,” I murmured, nodding toward the stretch of sidewalk ahead where Ryan was walking with that misplaced swagger of a man who thought tonight might finally rewrite the narrative of his life. It was truly shocking the amount of money the Syndicate made from people just like him who believed one more game would change everything wrong with their lives.

At least he was able to walk in a straight line tonight. That was an improvement from the last time I’d been watching him from a car.

Zachary slowed to a crawl, his posture alert as he waited for instructions.

I continued to watch Ryan through the windshield, and my mind drifted backward, to the first time I’d crossed a line and realized it hadn’t felt like crossing anything at all.

I hadn’t grown up damaged. That’s what people always assume. They like their monsters forged in fire with absent parents and violence and chaos . . . that wasn’t me.

I’d come from a family where my parents loved us loudly and showed up when it mattered. My brother and I were close in the way that makes teachers nod approvingly and neighbors say things like, Those boys are going places.

But when I sat in the Sphinx secret society house my senior year of college after I’d gotten the news that the police had finally identified the man who’d hit Carlie . . . only to learn he was escaping any justice because of some bullshit issue with how the evidence had been handled, an idea had formed, and it had festered and festered until I couldn’t let it go. If the system couldn’t close the gap, someone else could.

The idea didn’t feel evil. It felt corrective.

I’d thrown up after I’d killed him, alone in a bathroom with flickering lights and a cracked mirror.

But that had been the only time I’d had any reaction at all.

Carlie hadn’t walked since the accident, and in fact, she’d basically disappeared from the world. Soon after she’d been paralyzed, Carlie had broken up with me, telling me she didn’t want to hold me back. Then she’d dropped out of school, stopped answering calls, and holed up in her parents’ house . . . never really coming out again.

Carlie had let me come see her once after that.

Her curtains were drawn in the middle of the afternoon. The air in the house felt stale, like nothing new was allowed to enter. She’d lain on the bed and stared at me with tears rolling down her cheeks and told me she never wanted to see me again.

Her life after that had been reduced to square footage and doctor visits and polite pity.

I liked to believe that knowing the man who’d done that to her was dead gave her at least a sliver of peace. But I guess I’d never be sure.

Blinking, I came back to the present where Ryan had just stepped off the curb and was crossing the street. I rolled down my window to shoot him, and the night air rushed in, the dry heat still hot enough to scorch your skin.

Ryan’s head suddenly snapped toward the SUV, and his eyes widened in recognition as he saw me in the window. “You,” he said, his voice cracking. “You’re the guy . . . You almost killed me. Your shit was tainted.”

Ah, accountability. How refreshing. I mean, sure, he was the one who bought it from me with the money he’d taken from his wife . . . while he was already high, but details, right?

The color drained from his face suddenly, and he looked terrified as he turned and began running awkwardly away.