My chest heaved up and down. My fists clenched. I could feel the rage pulsating through my body. I wanted to rip out his throat. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t the reason I was there.
“What’s the matter, Jack?” Guthrie continued. “Have you forgotten how to speak?”
I’d grown up as a thug, someone who could get what he wanted by physical force. I developed early, rising to six-foot-tall by the time I was twelve, and I continued to grow and fill out my frame. Now, at over six-foot-four, and two hundred and twenty-five pounds of muscle, I could still use physical force to intimidate most people. But I had to hold back.
Claire was the first person who taught me how to settle my anger. When I met her at age twenty-one, I didn’t know how to control my rage. I didn’t know how to turn off the anger. Her loving touch, her loving care, calmed me. She showed me how to meditate, how to use breathing to settle myself, and how to walk away from certain situations. Her love was the only reason I could function in the real world.
I needed to use all of those skills to prevent myself from tearing Guthrie limb from limb.
“I’d heard that you got out of prison. That’s not justice.” I breathed deep, slow, and stepped closer to him. I was here for a job, here to pressure DiMarco, but Hugh Guthrie was one man that knew how to push my buttons. Even seeing him outside of prison was enough to make me angry. “Justice would mean you’d die behind bars.”
“What can I say?” He laughed. “I had a good defense lawyer. Sometimes, that’s all you need to get out of prison. You pay top-dollar and then you’re able to use the system to your advantage. That’s what I did. Paid top-dollar. Life’s funny like that sometimes. And look at this now, all these people have chosen to forget the charges. It’s funny what money and power make people forget.”
I took another deep breath, holding myself back from ripping his head off. “What do you want, Guthrie? Why are you talking to me?”
He smiled. “Now that I’m out of prison, I wanted to warn you to stay away from me, or you’ll be in the plot next to your beautiful Claire.”
I took another step towards him, and I could see the fear in his eyes. He stepped back. “What are you going to do, Jack? Beat me up in front of all these people?” He laughed. “Wouldn’t that be ironic justice—Jack Valentine behind bars for taking justice into his own hands.”
“I’m not here for you.”
“You’re not?” He questioned.
“No, but you’d better be prepared. Claire is dead because of you, and I’m not going to let you get away with it.” I drew a number of long deep breaths before I continued. “There’ll be no defense lawyers where I’ll be taking you.”
I brought my face within an inch of his, snarled, and then turned and walked away, knowing that it wasn’t going to be the last time I saw him. I walked into the bathroom, splashed my face with five handfuls of cold water, and stared at myself in the mirror. I had a job to do. People were dying and I was the only one who was going to stop it. I couldn’t let my personal life get in the way of work. I had to focus.
After five minutes of trying to calm myself, I walked out of the bathroom and back into the hall, looking for DiMarco. It didn’t take long to spot him. He was standing over a young girl with an empty glass in his hand, telling a long-winded and involved story, talking as much with his hands as with his voice. DiMarco talked for five minutes straight, not allowing the girl to even get a word in sideways. When he finally took a breath and stopped talking, he turned to look around the room, and caught me staring at him.
He looked twice.
I stretched my neck side to side. I didn’t like wearing a collar, and this suit was much too tight.
“Jonathon DiMarco.” I walked closer and greeted him. “What a coincidence.”
“Jack Valentine? I’d be surprised if this was a coincidence.” He looked me up and down. “You didn’t strike me as the type of guy to attend these things, however, I must say, you’ve scrubbed up quite well.”
He looked over his shoulder at the other people mingling behind him and nodded for me to follow him. We stepped out of the main room, into a hallway, and walked through the door to a commercial kitchen. The kitchen was buzzing with people rushing around, ensuring the two hundred and fifty attendees would be well-fed. I didn’t question where we were going. A few of the staff looked at us, but DiMarco kept moving. He knew where he was going. He stepped past the team of people washing up the dishes, through another door, and into the alley behind the building.
It was a narrow space, only just wide enough for a car, and the lighting was non-existent. There were a number of large bins near the exit, and bad graffiti covered the walls.
“I have to give a keynote speech about the justice system in an hour, so we’re going to make this quick.” DiMarco said as he stepped down the five steps to the alleyway. The dumpster next to us was full, and a few puddles lay further down the alley. The cars moved past at the end of the alley, at least fifty feet away, and the shadows could’ve held any number of dangers. “I
