“You done fucked up, son.”
Another foot landed in his lower back, hitting his spine. That hurt. “Mother… fucker,” Grady groaned.
“Oh, that does it,” another voice said as feet impacted all along his body and legs. He went ahead and pissed himself. Why not?
“Ew! Goddamned fool pissed hisself.”
At least the kicking stopped.
“Alright. Alright. Enough. What’s this maricón got to say for himself?”
“Why we bothering with it, Scorp? We should just kill him.”
“Because I said so, cabrón. He killed twenty-three of my soldiers, our boys. I want to know why. Then we’ll kill him.”
“Scorp? What the fuck is that dumb shit?” Grady said, coughing up blood after he got the words out.
Another boot hit him in the kidney. “Don’t disrespect The Scorpion like that, you piece of shit.”
“I said, enough!” Scorpion roared. “Sit him up.”
Grady felt a pair of hands hook in between his arm and ribcage. They pulled him into a sitting position and the gang leader squatted in front of him. His face bore a tattoo of a scorpion’s tail encircling his right eye. “You,” the gangbanger said. “I want to know why you killed my men.”
“Because they were there,” Grady replied with a bloody grin.
A look of appreciation passed over the man’s face for just a moment. “A warrior, then?”
“Some might say that,” Grady agreed. “Others just say I’m a fucking asshole.”
“One and the same,” Scorpion replied. “What should I do with you?”
Grady tried to shrug, but the motion was hindered by the ropes binding his hands.
“These guys wanna cut you up into little pieces and drop you into the Hudson for all the fishies to eat. Why shouldn’t I do that?”
“What do you think you’re gonna get from me?” Grady asked. The fact that this guy was talking to him meant that he wanted something.
“Maybe I should take your pants down and let the boys rape you until your asshole rips open and you bleed out, eh?”
Grady laughed, or at least tried to. Doing so hurt, a lot. “You called me a faggot, but you’re talking about having your gang fuck me? Hello pot, meet the kettle.”
Scorpion’s punch came out of nowhere. Grady’s nose shattered and blood poured from his nostrils. “There goes my acting career,” he groaned.
“You think you’re some kind of tough guy, huh?”
“I’ve been—”
Another lightning fast jab hit him in the cheekbone and his eye began to swell almost immediately.
“What do you think of that?”
“Sucks,” Grady admitted.
“Why don’t I kill you right now? Stab you through the eye with this blade?” He held up a fixed-blade knife.
“If you were gonna kill me, you’d’ve done it already. You need me.”
“Ha!” Scorpion laughed wildly. “I’m here threatening to murder your sorry ass and you still think you’re the baddest motherfucker in the room.”
Grady lolled his head to the side, leering at the other gangbangers present. “It isn’t hard to be the best around these sorry sacks of shit.” With the swollen lip, his S’s sounded like he had a lisp. It probably made his bravado seem pathetic to the gang’s leader, but he needed to keep it up, let him know that he wasn’t afraid of him. Men like Scorpion respected that.
The knife embedded into the wall beside Grady’s head, just inches from his ear. “I like you, pendejo,” Scorpion said. “You’re a tough motherfucker. You’re right. I could use a guy like you.”
“Scorp, no! He killed Flea and Chupa. What—”
The gang leader surged to his feet out of Grady’s line of sight. “You shut your fucking mouth right now, Weasel. I rule the Kings. Don’t you ever fucking forget it.” Scorpion dropped back down in front of him. “You create a problem for me. On the one hand,” he held out an open palm, “you killed a whole lot of my men, making the Kings vulnerable to other gangs in the city. And for what? For sport? For revenge? Why?”
“Because they were there,” Grady repeated. It was the truth. He’d murdered, hunted, those men simply because they were a convenient target for his rage.
Scorpion smiled wickedly, exposing several silver capped teeth. “I knew it. You’re a killer. You don’t give a fuck. Blood recognizes blood, y’know?” He held open his opposite hand. “On the other hand, you are a man with invaluable skills. With that type of talent, we could even go up against the cops and run all of Manhattan.”
Scorpion dropped his open hand, then raised it while he did the inverse with his other one, mimicking that he was weighing his options on a scale. “The world we find ourselves in is nothing like it used to be. But you know that, or else you wouldn’t have survived this long. I got to where I am, first by being ruthless, second by recognizing talent. The Latin Kings could use a soldier like you. You might could even work your way up to the number two spot, killer. What’s it gonna be? You think you could take orders from me, or do I let the boys run a train on you, then chop you up and put you in the river?”
“Hmmm,” Grady mused. Would they be stupid enough to let him go free? He could easily wipe the gang out once they let him go. He needed to get himself untied before he could do anything, though. He needed them to think he was willing to be in their stupid gang. What would somebody like that say?
“If I work for you, I want a woman—no, two or three women.” He wanted Scorpion to think that he could be easily bought.
“That’s no problem. Bitches in the city will do whatever you tell them to if you can offer protection
