Forcing my gaze to stay uninterested, I take her in. Her hair looks messy, and her body is shaking. Her shirt is ripped, hanging in pieces off her slender body. Her pants are undone and slightly pulled down, her underwear peeking out.
Mack pulls out a gun and points it at her head. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t even flinch or make a single sound. Her eyes never leave mine, and I know exactly what she is thinking.
This is the end.
20
Amara
Sounds drag me from my sleep, but my mind is too hazy to make sense of them. My head feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton, and I’m unable to form a coherent thought.
Out of nowhere, Mack appears in front of me, yanking me up by my neck. I feebly attempt to fight him off before he shakes me so hard, I think I’ll pass out again.
When the shaking stops, my eyes focus on the figure standing across from me. It takes everything inside of me not to cry out in happiness as I see Enzo standing there. Then our eyes connect, and all the joy drains from my body. His eyes are void of all emotion. A cold, hard stare is all I see, spiking my fear more than Mack’s tightening hold on my neck.
Enzo says nothing to Mack’s welcoming, simply stares in silence.
“Come to collect your whore?” Mack’s voice booms in my ear as he cocks the gun against my head.
“My whore?” Enzo’s face turns business-like as he raises an eyebrow up in questioning.
“Yes, this one right here, the one with a bullet cocked and loaded for her. Eli fucked her—you know that, right? The question is, do you know how much she enjoyed it? I heard her scream in pleasure all the way from across the factory… or maybe those were cries of pain,” he shrugs, “you know it’s hard to tell sometimes.”
Time stands still as Enzo covers the distance between us casually, seemingly completely unaffected by what Mack just said. Enzo’s eyes stay on Mack—even though I want nothing more than for him to look at me.
I don’t dare move. I know Mack isn’t fucking around. He’ll shoot me just to make a fucking point.
“Did he enjoy her tight pussy?” he asks, smirking. My own heartbeat speeds up as what he just said sinks in. This has to be a joke. He has to be playing or something.
“Well, not the reaction I was expecting, but why don’t you ask him yourself,” Mack says, gesturing to the hallway behind us.
On cue, Eli appears, entering the space. His pants are still undone, but he buckles them now as if to emphasize the fact that he fucked me.
“I did actually… enjoy her, that is. Thanks for breaking her in for me, old friend.”
I look intently at Enzo, waiting for something to show on his face. Anger or rage, but there is nothing.
Am I in the twilight zone?
“See…” Enzo pauses, looking down at me then to Mack. “She means nothing to me. Though her cunt is one of my favorites, she’s not worth actually keeping around for a long time.”
What? I’m stunned… and hurt, so fucking hurt. My knees are going to give out soon and my chest is shaking with every breath.
“She means nothing to you?” Mack asks like he is as surprised as I am. This has to be a trick. My mind slips back to the shower. The words he said…
“Remember, no matter what, I love you, Amara. I always have, I always will. Okay?”
He wanted to make sure I knew, even when he hurt me, he still loved me. That has to be it. It has to be...
“Nope. Not a fucking thing. Now let’s settle this like men,” Enzo says as he dismisses me and the entire conversation. “We need to figure this shit out. The FBI will be hunting us both down if we don’t figure out how to work together. There is a whole empire falling apart, and we can take it back. Together. Side by side. Partners instead of rivals.”
“You’re bluffing,” Mack snaps, and I can hear the smile in his voice as he pushes me forward and to the ground. My knees hit against the concrete so hard my teeth rattle. Fresh tears spring from my eyes and run down my cheeks.
“Bluffing? I think you of all people would know if I were bluffing Mack.”
“That’s just it. I know you. You are. I know it because I watched you. I know the look in your eyes because it’s one I had in mine not too long ago.”
“Move on from it, Mack. I didn’t know you were together. It didn’t matter anyway. She had to die.” She had to die? Who was she?
“You made me kill her, Lorenzo. You made me kill the woman I loved. I pleaded with you to let her live, and you still made me pull the trigger,” Mack screams, and I feel the gun at the back of my head again as he pushes it against my scalp hard.
For a small moment, I allow myself to feel sorry for him, I let myself see a man he used to be, and a tiny shred of me understands his pain. Understands the pain Enzo caused him. Mack wants revenge just like the rest of us, but instead of going for the man who caused it, he came for me, someone who’s never done anything to him.
We all have a path to choose. He chose the wrong one.
“Love is weakness, Mack. You and I both know it,” Enzo spits.
“If that’s true, then kill her. If she means nothing to you, kill her. An eye for an eye, as you always say.” Mack quotes Enzo as if he memorized the very saying. I look up at the man before me, the dark shell of who he truly is on full display.
Dark whiskey-colored eyes connect with my own as his gun comes into view. He isn’t really going to kill me, is he? His eyes say he is sorry, but his body says he isn’t. Killing me is a duty that needs to be done.
“I guess you’re right.” Enzo shrugs. “I’ll kill her, and then we can finally go back to business as usual?”
While he is talking, I slowly inch my hand to my boot, sliding my fingertips into the side and grab the blade. I pull it out ever so slowly, hoping, praying that Mack is too distracted to notice. It’s heavy, and if I land it perfectly, it will kill him.
One chance, that’s all I have. A small smile plays across my lips as I wait for Mack to speak.
“Business, yes. As usual? No. You have everything I ever wanted, and you refuse to pay respect to those who helped you get where you are. I want my piece of the pie. I did what I could. Then this bitch got in the way and fucked everything up. You say love is weakness, but when I watched you look at her, I saw the same look I used to give Delilah in your eyes.”
The words leaving his mouth are both vile and full of anger. I hate Mack just as much as Enzo does, but right now, listening to those words, I feel for him. I know what happened between him and Delilah was tragic. I know it turned him into a monster the same way the death of Enzo’s mother did for Enzo. The only difference is Enzo has me. I can save him, but there is no saving Mack. He’s broken beyond repair.
You can only be broken for so long before it gets to you—before the hate and guilt you carry around eats away at you. You couldn’t care less about being alone for the rest of your life because nothing matters to you. That’s what happened to him, and I could feel it happening to me.
Blood pumps through my veins rapidly, echoing in my ears. Everything around me becomes white noise. The only thing I can hear is my own shallow breathing. My hands feel like they are being weighed down by bricks as a thin layer of sweat forms on them.