Chapter 27
It took just over an hour for Daisy to fall into a deep sleep. I've been lying here awake, my skin itching to move. I don't want her knowing I left, which is why I'm sneaking out of her apartment in the middle of the night. Marcel is waiting downstairs for me. I thought about which of my brothers to call, and he seemed like the better option. Considering Gio just saw me end someone else who fucked with Daisy, I don't need him finding out about this one as well.
When I noticed those marks on her arm, I saw fucking red. Like nothing I've experienced before. There is no way I was going to let this slide. I don't know what Daisy was doing there. I heard from John that she left with a young girl who ended up being admitted to the ER. My guess is she's put herself in a fucking dangerous situation for one of her clients. I know how much she wants to help those girls she works with, but I can't have her putting herself in harm's way to do so. Her life is far too fucking important to me.
"Why are we under the cloak of darkness?" Marcel asks when I jump into the passenger seat of his car.
"I had to wait for Daisy to fall asleep," I tell him.
"You're not doing it right if she's not passing out from exhaustion," he counters.
"Fuck off." I punch the address John gave me into the navigation system. "Drive."
"What are we doing, Gabe?"
"We're going to teach the fucking city a lesson on what happens if they touch something that belongs to me," I tell him.
"Right, so we're going off the rails then. Great, just what I bloody need… another loose cannon for a brother." He shakes his head.
"Some fucker put their hands on Daisy. She has fucking bruises up and down her arm from being grabbed."
"Don't you have John following her?" Marcel lifts a questioning brow.
"He says he got stuck at a fucking red light tailing her," I grunt before turning the interrogation back on him. "What's going on with the Russian chick?"
"She's not fucking Russian. She's American, and nothing's going on," he says. "She won't fucking talk to me."
"Why?"
"Your guess is as good as mine." He shrugs.
"You see her since that dinner?" A few weeks ago, Marcel brought the girl home to meet Gio and El. She didn't even stay for the entrée. I don't know what went down between them, and I didn't ask. Honestly, I was too fucking busy dealing with my own failing relationship at the time.
"I have. She's just… stubborn," he says.
"So be more stubborn," I suggest.
"Maybe."
It takes thirty minutes before we stop a few houses down from the address I punched into the GPS. It's a dive of a neighbourhood. The fact Daisy was here pisses me the fuck off.
What the hell was she thinking coming here by herself?
She has no idea John is following her around, and that's still not an argument I want to have with her, because I know she'll be opposed to the idea. It's also something I'm not prepared to budge on. I won't leave her unprotected. Although, after today, I'm going to have to find someone else to tail her. I don't like the fact that John wasn't there to stop that fucker from putting his hands on her. He should have known something happened. He should have had his fucking eyes on her. That's something I'll deal with later. Right now, I have someone's hands to remove from the rest of their body.
"Thanks for coming along," I tell Marcel.
"We never go alone, right?" he says. "Besides, I didn't have any better offers tonight."
"Right." It's a thing we've always done. We go in pairs when it comes to doing shit like this. It's safer that way. Except for the time this idiot walked into a Russian bar, I guess. If he did things the way he should, maybe he wouldn't have been beat to shit that night.
I walk up to the front door and take in my surroundings. The lights are still on inside. Pulling out a pick, I squat down and prod at the cheap lock until I hear the click that tells me it's disengaging. Shit literally takes less than a minute. Then I stand up, pull out my pistol, and attach the silencer. It might be a crappy neighbourhood, but it's also a fucking nosey one. At the slightest sound of trouble, people will come running to see what's going on.
I push my way inside the house, and Marcel stays close to my back, shutting the door behind him. We walk into the living room and find exactly what I'm looking for. The place reeks of sweat, vomit, and overall desperation. He doesn't hear us coming. Raising my pistol, I smile. This should wake the fucker up. Then I pull the trigger and watch as the first bullet tears through his right kneecap.
"Good shot," Marcel says, rushing forward to shove a cloth into the fucker's mouth to shut him up.
The guy's eyes are wide as he shakes his head from side to side. I pull out my phone and bring up a picture of Daisy. "You see this woman recently?"
He nods. Fucking idiot.
"You put your hands on the wrong fucking woman," I tell him. I pass the gun over to Marcel and retrieve my knife before setting it on the shitty little coffee table to my left. "You see, she's so fucking sweet she pleaded with me… begged me not to do this. But there's a rule in our family. We don't let shit like this slide. Which means you're about to be the example for the rest of this city. I need people to know what happens if they put their hands on her. If they even think about doing it."
His gaze flicks from the glint of the knife back to me again, as I take the roll of duct tape out of the bag and cover his mouth without removing the cloth. Then I glance down at the small armchair propping him up. This could work.
"Pull his arms behind his back," I tell Marcel as I tape the fucker's wrists together. He won't be able to move them from this position. "Thing is… I'd be a really shitty boyfriend if I let you keep your fingers after you touched her." I pick up the knife while eyeing the bite of the sharpened blade. It'll cut through skin like butter. "And I don't intend to be a shitty fucking boyfriend."
I walk behind him. He's bucking, attempting to throw his body around as much as he can. It's pointless. There's no getting out of this for him. Marcel leans down on the guy's left shoulder. Holding him in place while I squat in front of him. I pick up his left hand and slice right through the pinkie finger. His muffled screams make me smile.
"That's one. Nine to go, motherfucker," I lean forward to whisper in his ear before repeating the action on his right side. I continue to remove all of his fingers, one by one. And by the time I reach out to grab his only remaining thumb, he's passed out.
Marcel slaps the fucker across the face. "Wake the fuck up. You're going to want to know what comes next."
I pull out a reciprocating saw from the bag. Attach the battery and turn it on. "It wouldn't be very cool of me to leave your palms attached to your wrists," I comment as I slowly walk around the chair to position myself behind him.
Then I proceed to saw through both of his wrists, watching what's left of his hands plop onto the stained carpet beneath him. I manoeuvre around the chair again to look the guy in the face and see that he's passed the fuck out from the pain. But I'm not taking chances. I won't leave him here with the possibility of someone finding him and getting him help before he bleeds out on the spot. So I hold out my hand, and Marcel places the pistol into my open palm. I aim for the middle of the forehead, firing off one single shot. Then add another two to the chest for good measure.
"I think you got him, bro." Marcel laughs.
"Never hurts to be sure," I tell him.
We pack up our shit, making sure there are no signs of our presence… besides the corpse we'll leave rotting in the chair. I complete one last walk-through of the house. The place seems empty. No one else is here.
"Let's go," I tell Marcel.
We exit through the back door. Walk around the yard and end up on the darkened street. Marcel drives us home. Where I shower, dress, and catch a ride from one of the soldiers over to Daisy's place.
The sun is just starting to rise when I crawl into her bed. She turns and cuddles against me. "Mmm, where did you go?"
"Nowhere, baby. Now go back to sleep." I kiss the top of her head.
I spend the next few hours running the events of the previous day over in my head. I've never killed for a better reason than her. And I'd do it again. In a heartbeat. There's nothing I wouldn't do for her. Knowing that scares the crap out of me.
I get out of bed and cook breakfast an hour or so later. I can't sleep and Daisy's still passed the fuck out. It's the weekend, though, and she never sleeps in this long on weekdays.
"Baby, you awake?" I ask while leaning down to capture her lips with mine. I've already set the tray of food on the bedside table.
"Mmm, I am now," she says.
"Good. I made you breakfast. Sit up." I wait for her to position herself before I place the tray on her lap.
"You made all this for me?" Her eyes widen. "It looks so good."
"It's just bacon and eggs, Daisy. It's not all that great."
"But you did it for me, which makes it the best breakfast I've ever had," she says.
"You haven't even tried it yet." I laugh.
"I don't need to. You did it so I know it's perfect." She smiles at me.
"What are your plans today?" I ask her.
"Lounging around and binge watching Netflix," she says. "What are your plans?"
"I have to go and do something for Gio, but I'll be done early."
Her smile instantly falls. I know she doesn't approve of whatever it is she thinks I do. And honestly, I think her own ideas are probably way less horrible than the actual truth. Which is why I let her come to her own conclusions.
"Okay, well, I'll be around here," she says.
"You know this isn't forever. It's a for right now kind of thing, Daisy. This isn't going to be our life."
"What do you mean?" she asks.
"I mean, I'm going to step back. I'm going to focus on the other side of the businesses. But I can't just leave Gio in the lurch. He needs me right now, and until Santo is back to at least a small version of his old self, I have to pick up the slack."
"I get that. I'm not telling you what you can and can't do, Gabe. I just worry about you." Daisy sighs.
"You don't need to worry, babe. I'm like Teflon. The bullets bounce right off me," I joke. Although, judging by the look on her face, she doesn't see the funny side of it. At all.
"Do not get yourself shot, Gabrielle."
"I'll do my best," I tell her, before her death glare has me quickly adding, "I'm kidding. I won't get shot. I love you."
"I love you more than a person should love someone else," she says.
"What makes you say that?"
"I just think it's dangerous to let another person have such a hold over you, but you have that hold on my heart, and nothing I do can remove it."
"If it makes you feel any better, you have the same kind of hold over me." I lean down and kiss her. "I gotta go, but I'll call you later."
"Stay safe," she reminds me as I'm walking out the door.
"Always," I tell her.