From the laughter that comes from him, the underboss knows he has succeeded in truly taking everything that matters from me. The compactor spitting out the hunk of metal it reduced my car to is the image I carry with me all the way to Punishment Square.
I’m so out of it that I don’t notice more than being secured to a gurney by leather straps over my body and legs. My bare arms are strapped to boards projecting from the sides of the gurney. Then a technician inserts a needle into my arm. The prick disappears into the wide abyss that’s opened up inside me.
There’s some kind of noise, but I’m beyond hearing it let alone making out what it is. I stare up at the sky and wait. My world has come to an end. There is no going back. I once told Zamara I am incapable of loving. That conversation seems like a lifetime ago. If I could rewind and do everything over again, maybe I would have let myself fall in love, or at least explored the possibility of it. All that is left is this overwhelming ache inside my chest I can barely understand.
The technician asks me something. I have no idea what he says, so I don’t respond. He nods at someone in the distance. I am not afraid. A soothing warmth spreads from the catheter in my arm. The drugs they use to end things. The lovely drugs that will take away all the memories, all the suffering. I welcome them.
The final thought that penetrates what is left of my consciousness as my vision tunnels and the darkness takes me is how blue the sky is. The same kind of blue on the body of my GT streaked with white to represent the clouds.
Chapter Thirty
THE STEADY cadence of someone speaking as if reading from a teleprompter gently pulls me away from the blissful void. No matter how hard I resist and crawl my way back to sweet oblivion, the continuing drone floats my consciousness up until I reach the surface. Forget the impossibility of me being alive because this is not the case here. I’m most likely in some sort of afterlife. I was never one to believe in a heaven. Maybe I’m in something like purgatory or hell. If heaven is real, there’s no way I’m there for the simple fact that I’ve done many unworthy things during my miserable lifespan.
Ever so slowly, I open my eyes—just a crack. I seem to be lying on some sort of bed. White sheets cover the lower half of my body. I lift my gaze to the source of the speaker. The flat-screen hanging on the wall across from the bed features a reporter with a split screen of Punishment Square filled with people sitting on stands as if they are at a stadium about to watch a game. At the center of the square is a gurney. Oh holy racing gods! This must be hell.
As if I haven’t been punished enough, I’m being forced to watch my execution over again. I wince in disgust as two guards drag my barely alive, emaciated, and battered body toward the gurney. They lift me on, then leave me in the capable hands of the technicians. There are four of them. I never noticed when I actually lived the experience. I’m strapped; then the catheter is inserted into my arm.
Immediately the scene shifts to a section of the stands where the boss sits behind his ever-present screen while Brody stands stoic at his left and Zamara sits to his right. There are several other people in the special box reserved for the highest members of the Mob. My heart breaks at the sight of Zamara, her chin held high. With her lips in a thin line, she observes the proceedings without taking her gaze from the center of the square. Then the camera cuts to another box, this one slightly bigger than the one where the boss is seated. It’s filled to the brim with Star’s family. The entire Halehorn clan has come to witness the execution of the woman brazen enough to take their precious daughter’s life.
Something tells me I should be listening to the reporter’s running commentary of the event, but my attention is suddenly captured by the boss, who has gotten up from his seat. All eyes on Punishment Square shift toward him. He begins speaking. There seems to be something wrong with the TV because I can barely hear what he’s saying. As if by some cue I miss, a pack of soldiers in black fatigues I recognize as the special hit squad loyal to the boss swarm the underboss’s family. The last image I see before the screen goes black is of the underboss’s throat being slit. My eyes are so wide I can feel the skin on my temples tighten.
“You’re finally awake,” says a deep and familiar voice.
My gaze, still shocked, shifts to the figure sitting on a chair by the bed I’m on. My brain immediately takes in the expensive suit and the stern expression. Then I let my eyes travel down the scar that starts at his chin and stretches beyond the collar of his crisp white shirt. That’s when I notice the steady beeping; except it becomes frantic because my pulse leaps.
“W….” I attempt to form words, but my throat refuses to cooperate. My lips are moving, and I do swallow… still nothing. I resort to clearing my throat.
Brody pushes to his feet and moves to a table at the far side of the room. He quickly fills a glass with water from a pitcher. He replaces the pitcher beside a vase of wildflowers, then approaches the left side of my bed with caution. That’s
