Invincible(15)

“Come on, princess,” Tommy said and dragged me to a set of steps.

We went upstairs and Tommy knocked on a door.

“What?” a voice yelled.

“It’s me, Aton. I have something for you.”

“Open the door.”

The door opened and there was a man seated behind a large wooden desk with piles of cash. He had a cigar in his mouth. When he saw me, he stood up, eyes going wide.

“What the hell is this?” the man asked - I assumed it was Aton - the cigar bouncing in his mouth. He took it out of his mouth and put it into an ashtray.

“Aton, allow me to explain the situation,” Tommy said. “Your boy, Wes, is nothing but a filthy rat.”

“What?” Aton asked.

Tommy clicked his teeth, like he’d done at Wes’s apartment. “You heard me. I found this princess in his f*cking apartment. And Wes wasn’t wearing a damn shirt.”

Aton looked at me. He had small, dark eyes. He wasn’t tall, wider in the waist than in the shoulders, built nothing like Wes.

“So you’re Rose,” Aton said.

“How do you know my name?” I asked. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be. I don’t know how you pulled it off. Guess you didn’t need your car, huh?”

“I knew about it,” I said. “Someone told me so I knew not to touch my car. How’s that sound?”

Aton leaned against the desk. He knocked a stack of cash over but didn’t seem to care. “You know what you f*cking did, princess. I know everything about you. Your family. Everything. What were you doing with Wes?”

I swallowed hard. It became very clear that this whole thing was not a setup by Wes. He was in serious trouble because of me. Because he helped me.

“Uh-oh,” Aton said. “You see that? She swallowed her tongue.”

“I can make her talk,” Tommy said. “It would be my honor, Aton. Considering I f*cked this whole thing. I’m sorry about that.”

“No, it’s okay,” Aton said. “We have her now. We might be able to enjoy a little more right now. I wasn’t planning on starting a war for my family, but maybe it’s a good time for that.”

“What do we do about Wes?” Tommy asked.

“He’ll come,” Aton said. “Then we’ll make sure to handle that situation properly.”

“Don’t hurt him,” I said. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“She remembered how to talk,” Aton said.

“Fucking rat,” Tommy said. “I hate f*cking rats.”

“I’ll ask again… what were you doing with Wes?” Aton asked me.

I couldn’t think of anything. My mind went blank. I had grown up and heard Ma and Dad talking about family wars. Talking about Irishmen and Italians going at it hard. How sometimes lines were blurred, crossed. How original blood families from the old country were getting mixed and ruined. I never took anything from it. Ma died, Dad never got over it, and I was thrust as a moneymaker into the circles of fights to lure men into betting more and more money.

But this all seemed way too real. I was the one in harm’s way now. I had no idea what to think or who to trust. Sadly, the only person who had been telling me the truth was Wes. He said he’d get me to his place safely and he did. He told me he had been there when my car was wired. He told me he had to check on me. He asked about my family, my father, my brother.

Wes wasn’t there with me though.

“Throw her in a room until I figure this out,” Aton said. “I have to finish the money and pay tribute before the family comes down here and kills everyone.”

I did what anyone would have done a long time ago.

I screamed.

A second later, a hand was over my mouth and a gun to my head.



~



The door slowly opened. There wasn’t a lightbulb in the socket dangling from the ceiling. I was left to rely on the natural light coming in from the two windows that were cracked and half boarded up. It was some kind of unused office I was in now. There was a desk missing all its drawers and a chair ripped to pieces with springs hanging out like messy, curly hair.

“You hungry, princess?” Tommy asked.

Light flooded the office from behind him.

I figured it was some kind of crude sex joke or something. So I didn’t respond.

“Brought you a peanut butter and jelly. My favorite.”

“It shows,” I said. “Maybe you should switch to whole wheat bread.”

Tommy snorted. “You’re funny, princess. I kind of like you. Too bad things are going to get bad for you real soon. I honestly think you were better off getting into that car. You know? Quick. Painless. Boom. I’m really good at what I do.”

“Except making sure the person is in the car,” I said with a smile.

“Bitch,” Tommy said. He took the sandwich and lifted it to his mouth. He took a monster bite out of it and then dropped the plate and sandwich to the ground. The plate broke and sandwich flopped. “Whoops,” he said with a mouth full of peanut butter and jelly. “Nnjoyurluch…”

Tommy shut the door and I was alone, again.

They took my cellphone. They left my bag back at Wes’s apartment. I should have been at a shoot, wearing clothes, posing, living that fantasy of being normal.