Negotiations over.
Deal struck.
Lee Nightingale swung up into his truck.
Tack prowled to his bike, threw a leg over, made it roar, then he headed out to take his brother’s back.
Chapter Eighteen
Breaking the Circle
“Did she beg for her life?”
“Man, I got clean.”
“Did he?”
Shy Cage was sitting on his ass on the dirt floor of a shed in the foothills. He had his knees up, his elbows on his knees, his blade hanging from his fingers. His knuckles were split, torn and bloody.
The man in front of him, wrists behind him held together with plastic restraints, had fallen to his side. His position was awkward seeing as his feet were also bound together at the ankles. His face was mangled and bloody. Eyes nearly swollen shut. Blood was oozing from an ear.
At Shy’s question, the man didn’t answer. He simply moaned.
Shy kept questioning.
“She have time to tell you she had two boys at a babysitter’s, playin’ games and eatin’ junk food and watchin’ late movies, havin’ no clue… no… fucking… clue that they’d wake up in the morning with no family?”
The man took in a wet, sloppy, pained breath but didn’t answer.
Shy kept at him.
“Or did you pop them quick? Did they even have the opportunity to say, ‘please’?”
The man shut his swollen eyes and whispered, “I was messed up back then.”
“Yeah, talk to me about that,” Shy said, his words an invitation but his tone was cutting.
The man opened his eyes, kept his head to the dirt but his eyeballs slid up to Shy. “Smack, man. I would do anything.”
“I know,” Shy agreed. “I know, ’cause to get your fix, you fuckin’ killed my family. That, man, that’s any-fuckin’-thing.”
“I’m clean now,” the man told him again, hurriedly. “I made my way out of that and, bro, I’ll tell you, not a day has gone by where I haven’t remembered how far I stooped and it haunted me.”
“You lose sleep?” Shy asked.
“Every night, man, every single night. I see them every night.”
“So, you remember. You see them, tell me. Did they beg?”
The man closed his eyes.
“He got her earrings, every Christmas,” Shy told him. “Not shit, they were diamonds, emeralds, rubies. After you plugged her, when you rifled through my home, you didn’t get that shit, did you…” he hesitated before he finished with a disgusted “… bro?”
The man opened his eyes and whispered, “No.”
“No,” Shy whispered back. “I know. My bitch aunt got them. The aunt my brother and I went to after you murdered my family. The aunt who made us her slaves. Who treated us like shit. Who hated us and let us know every fuckin’ day for six fuckin’ years. She got my mom’s earrings.”
“I’m sorry,” the man replied brokenly.
“So am I,” Shy agreed. “I’ve been sorry for sixteen fuckin’ years.”
“If I could take it back, I would,” the man told him.
“You can’t,” Shy replied shortly.
The man shifted, his eyes locked to Shy’s. “I’ll do anything you want. Anything. I get you. I deserve this. I knew this was coming. My penance. It was gonna come, I always knew it. You can’t do what I did and breathe easy. You need to know I’ll do anything you want but please, please man, don’t kill me.”
“If you’ll do anything I want then fuckin’ answer me, did they beg?”
He sucked in another wet, gurgling breath and answered, “No.”
“Tell me,” Shy ordered.
The man again shifted uncomfortably. “I… they, both of ’em… he surprised me. Didn’t see him. I was dealin’ with the clerk, he showed and I just, I just freaked and I…” He trailed off, but Shy knew what he did. He knew exactly what he did. He killed Shy’s father. Then the man told him, “She was in the kitchen. I surprised her.”
“Quick, right? It went quick?” Shy pushed.
“Yeah,” he said swiftly. “It went quick.”
“They didn’t suffer?”
“No,” the man shook his head against the dirt with difficulty. “No, man, they didn’t suffer. She didn’t…” his voice dropped near to nothing “… she didn’t even know I was there.”
Shy closed his eyes.
In his low voice, the man said, “I shot her in the back of the head.”
Shy’s head dropped forward.
“She didn’t know anything,” the man finished.
Shy lifted his head and looked at him. “One minute alive, two boys she loves, a husband who pulls her into his lap for a kiss, she’s just walkin’ through the room, a husband who gives her earrings, the next she’s nothing.”
The man nodded, his voiced hitching when he said, “I did that. I did it.”
Shy tipped his head to the side. “You got family?”
The man’s body jolted and his eyes, even swollen, went wide, filling with fear. “No, man, no. No family.”
“You have family,” Shy said.
The man shook his head. “No. Not before I got clean. After I got clean. Not before, man, they don’t know that me. They don’t even know I was that me.”
“They should know,” Shy told him.
The man shook his head in the dirt, his body shifting with agitation. “They don’t know. They only know the me after I got clean.”
“You took three lives, destroyed two more I know of, don’t know what you laid to waste for that clerk. You think they shouldn’t know?” Shy asked.
“I did that. I admitted it. I admitted it to that Native American dude who found me. I admitted it to those guys he set to guard me. I did it and it haunted me, man, it haunted me,” he said quickly. “It haunted me so much, what I was capable of, what that shit drove me to, I got clean.”
“So my parents died so you could learn your lesson and have a good life. You think I’m happy with that trade-off? My brother? You think that will mean shit to him? You think that means shit to me?”
“No, I don’t. I just… I don’t know, man, I just, since then, I got my act together. I got family. I got a reason to stay clean. They need me and I’m just sayin’, I get you, do what you have to do but I don’t wanna die.”
“Right now, you want that gift from me. You wanna keep breathin’.”
“Yes,” the man whispered.
“And you think,” Shy leaned forward, “you think, you shot my mother in the back of her fuckin’ head, you took that gift from her, you think you should get that gift from me?”
“No,” the man was still whispering. “I don’t deserve that. I know it. I just hope you have it in you to show mercy.”
Shy changed the subject. “Too young, cops didn’t tell that shit to kids and my aunt and uncle didn’t share fuckin’ anything. So you tell me. Where’d you shoot my dad?”
“Man, don’t do this to yourself.”