Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)(2)
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he called out, searching the house. “I know you are up here, kitten. You cannot hide forever.”
That’s what you think, Tin Man.
She was good at this.
Her mother had made sure of it.
He walked down the hallway, right past the closet, dripping water onto the floor. He was soaked from the storm, his dark hair lying flat, and his white button down clinging to his chest, only halfway tucked and mostly ripped open.
An hour passed as he searched the house. It felt like forever to the little girl. How much longer would he look for her? When would he go away? Ever?
“Fine, I give up,” he said eventually. “You win, kitten. Game over.”
His steady footsteps went back downstairs. Everything remained silent until the electricity flashed on, the house coming back to life as the storm outside faded. Game over.
The little girl waited another few minutes, cramped in the closet, before her muscles ached and she grew even more tired. Quietly, she climbed out and crept downstairs, wondering why her mother hadn’t tried to find her.
Still carrying her bear, she held onto the creaky wooden banister, finding the front door wide open. The locks were torn apart, the red-painted wood splintered, the hinges broken. She wandered past it, her stomach all queasy, and stalled in the doorway of the kitchen. “Mommy?”
Her mother lay on the floor, eyes closed, not moving. The little girl sat down beside her, pushing the hair from her mother’s tear-streaked face. Her cheeks were all puffy and her head was bleeding, a mark on her neck, like someone had finger-painted on her pale skin.
“Mommy,” she whispered, shaking her. “You can wake up now. We don’t have to play no more.”
“Let her sleep, kitten.”
The little girl tensed, her heart racing as she looked to the doorway, seeing the Tin Man lurking there. She froze and held her breath.
Be like in Toy Story.
She didn’t move, not at all, but it wasn’t working.
The Tin Man strolled closer and knelt down, caressing her mother’s swollen face before pressing his fingertips to a spot on her discolored neck. Sighing, he pulled his hand away and leaned over her, pressing the softest of kisses to her silent, parted lips. It looked sweet, like love, the little girl thought as she watched, not at all like the anger that had broken down the door.
Maybe he did have a heart.
She couldn’t tell.
“Come on,” he said, standing up, not giving the little girl a chance to argue as he yanked her up in his arms and hauled her over his shoulder. “We have to go.”
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Scared, the little girl struggled, trying to get away from him, losing her grip on her teddy bear. It clattered to the floor, right there in the kitchen where her mother slept. The little girl shrieked, panicking, as he carried her through the broken front door without it.
Stepping outside, into the light drizzle, the Tin Man said, “It is time to go home, kitten.”
Chapter Two
Manhattan. Dead of winter.
It’s so cold I think my balls have closed up shop and gone home. Home, back in Florida, where it’s a beautiful seventy degrees this time of year. They’re basking in the glow of the warm southern sunshine, while I’m stuck here, freezing my cock off out by the East River.
Two o’clock in the morning. Twenty-one degrees. It feels closer to zero with the way the frigid air seeps through my thick black coat, the fake-ass fur-lined hood not enough to keep me warm. My ears are frozen. My nose is running, it’s so goddamn cold. It’s like tiny needles jabbing my skin, over and over, obnoxious little pinpricks, stinging and numbing me.
I’d rather be stabbed with a knife than deal with frostbite.
Snow from a recent storm is still spread out along the worn, wooden dock, layered over patches of slick ice… ice I almost busted my ass on not once, not twice, but three times as I walked along it. I wasn’t made for trekking through slush, that’s for damn sure. My boots are wet, my toes about to join my nutsack far away.
You’ve got to be a f*cking fool to be out here at this time of day.
Fucking fool.
That’s what I am.
That’s me.
Lorenzo ‘Fucking Fool’ Gambini.
Say it with me.
Because here I stand on the dock, hands shoved in my pockets, fingertips tingling, struggling to pay attention to the schmuck five feet in front of me as he yammers away about a card game that was robbed last night, like I give a shit about some small-time gamblers in a city rich with, well, riches.
“So, like I said, my boss says the deal is—”
He’s still talking. My teeth are chattering.
How has my life come to this?
“Are you homeless?”
My question comes out in a cloud of breath that lingers between us, like the words are caught mid-air, frozen in the cold night. It cuts off his tireless rambling as he looks at me for the first time since arriving, his eyes widening with surprise… or horror, maybe.
Given it’s me he’s here with, I’d say the latter is likely.
He stares at my face for a second too long and he knows it, because before I have a chance to say anything about it, he averts his gaze, his eyes going straight to a pile of snow by his feet that he nervously kicks at, like a bad little boy that knows he’s about to get a whipping.