Chapter 24 - The Parlor of Broken Promises
The cold water hit Maya’s face like a wall of ice.
She gasped violently, coughing, choking on the chlorinated liquid as her eyes snapped open. Pain detonated behind her eyes—a vicious, throbbing ache radiating from her left temple where the rifle butt had struck her. Her hair was matted with drying blood, sticking to her cheek.
"Wake up, little bird," a voice drawled from the haze in front of her. "Sleep is for people who aren't on the clock."
Maya blinked frantically, trying to clear her blurred vision. She was sitting in a heavy wooden armchair, her wrists bound tightly behind her back with industrial zip-ties that cut viciously into her flesh every time she breathed. Her ankles were tied to the chair’s thick legs.
She was inside a dimly lit, opulent room that looked like a Victorian smoking parlor—mahogany wood-paneled walls, heavy crimson velvet drapes blocking all outside light, and a massive Persian rug beneath her feet. The air smelled of expensive Cuban cigars, aged cognac, and old rot.
Standing in front of her was an older man, perhaps sixty, wearing an immaculate three-piece charcoal pinstripe suit. His hair was slicked back with pomade, his face heavily lined, his eyes small, wet, and black like two drops of crude oil.
Salvatore Marcone.
"Where... am I?" Maya rasped, her throat parched, tasting copper and ash.
"Somewhere very quiet, Miss Bennett," Marcone replied, taking a slow draw from a lit cigar before blowing a plume of gray smoke directly into her face.
Maya coughed, turning her head away in disgust.
"You know," Marcone mused, walking a slow, predatory circle around her chair, "I spent three months trying to find a chink in Dante Blackwood’s armor. The man is a ghost. He doesn't gamble. He doesn't do drugs. He hasn't touched a woman since his wife bled out in the backseat of his car six months ago. He lives in a fortress with a small army, guarding a daughter who doesn't even know her own name."
Marcone stopped directly in front of Maya, leaning down until his wrinkled face was inches from hers.
"And then," he chuckled, a wet, rattling sound, "my scouts tell me that every single morning, the great Dante Blackwood takes his broken brat to a grease-stained shithole in Queens, just so a twenty-two-year-old orphan with forty dollars in her checking account can feed them scrambled eggs."
Marcone tapped the tip of his glowing cigar inches from Maya's nose. "Explain that to me, Maya. What did you give him? What does a filthy little stray have that bought the loyalty of the Devil of New York?"
Maya swallowed the pain in her throat. She looked past the glowing ember of the cigar, straight into Marcone’s dead, arrogant eyes. She felt the fear inside her—it was a heavy, cold rock in her stomach—but underneath that fear, something hotter and sharper was rising: pure, incandescent fury.
"I didn't give him anything," Maya said, her voice hoarse but completely steady.
Marcone raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"
"I treated his daughter like a human being," Maya spat, glaring at him. "Something an old, pathetic coward like you wouldn't understand."
The slap was instantaneous and vicious.
Marcone’s heavy gold signet ring caught Maya across the cheekbone, splitting the skin and snapping her head violently to the side. The taste of fresh blood flooded her mouth.
"Watch your tongue, girl," Marcone hissed, his charm vanishing into a snarl of venom. "You are not a guest here. You are meat on a butcher's hook. Right now, Dante is bleeding out on the highway, or he's racing through the city like a rabid dog. When he comes for you—and he will—he will walk straight into a kill zone. And once he is dead, I will personally throw you into the East River."
Maya slowly turned her head back to face him, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the antique Persian rug between his polished Italian shoes.
A small, reckless smile touched her split lips.
"He survived your bomb, Marcone," Maya whispered, her eyes flashing in the dim light. "I heard him on the phone. And when he gets here... you won't have to worry about throwing me into the river. You’ll be too busy begging him for your life."
Marcone’s eyes flared with rage. He raised his hand to strike her again, but before his hand could descend, the heavy oak doors of the parlor burst open.
A bruised, terrified foot soldier stumbled into the room, his shirt torn open, trembling from head to toe.
"Boss!" the soldier gasped, clutching the doorframe for support. "It's Blackwood! He... he hit the warehouse on 14th Street. He burned Roberto's firm to the ground!"
Marcone froze, his face draining of color. "What about Roberto? Where is my brother?!"
May you like
The soldier swallowed dryly, his voice cracking with absolute horror. "Blackwood sent a courier to your front gate two minutes ago, Boss. Roberto’s fingers were inside the box... with a note written in his own blood."
***
