Page 88 of The Carnage We Keep

There are tears in her eyes. But come on.

I saw this episode before at Carl’s. That little crocodile routine almost got me knocked into acid and royally fucked everything else about the night up.

“Sit tight,” I smile at her. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

“NO!!!” she screams, her face pale and stricken and haunted as she slams her fists on the bars repeatedly. “PLEASE!!” she begs. “PLEASE LET ME OUT! PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME HERE, DAMIANO!”

Ugh.

I sometimes wonder what life would be like if I had more of a sense of guilt.

But that’s another question for another day.

“Now, no raiding the minibar,” I grin at her, wagging my finger. “And no pay-per-view porn.”

“DAMIANO!!!”

She’s still screaming when I turn, exit the building, and head back to the car.

She’s safely behind bars, and besides, she’s a serial killer, for fuck’s sake.

She’ll be fine.

Fuck.

It’s four in the morning when I finally get back to the building.

This is pretty close to what I imagine guilt feels like.

I told Bella I’d be back in an hour. That turned into six because it turns out Lester went ahead and hired some muscle.

I wince as I step out of the car, gingerly rolling my bruised shoulder and flexing my possibly sprained hand. Blood trickles from the gash on the side of my head where one of the fuckers hit me with a bottle of vodka.

A “quick, one-hour easy job” turned into a marathon the second I kicked down Lester’s door and came face to face with four huge motherfuckers with baseball bats and guns. But when have I ever shied away from a good fight? Besides, it was obvious the goons had been drinking heavily all night.

Just the same, it was brutal. Worse, by the time I was done killing the last one, Lester himself was already roaring away in his car.

And that’s where I’ve been for the last six hours: chasing that child predator fuckhead all the way into New Jersey before I managed to ram his car off the road.

Then I had to run him down on foot, because the fucker just wouldn’t give up. Then I had to stuff his ass into my trunk and drive him alllll the way back to his place in Brooklyn so I could properly bleed and dismember him and his four dead goons before heading to Red Hook to scatter the bits into the appropriate tidal spots.

I mean, this is work, you know?

I pause at the building's back door, my brow furrowing.

It’s quiet.

Guess someone got tired of screaming her lungs out…although I’m guessing that whole boo-hoo dog-and-pony show was over the second I drove away.

“Hey, I’m back,” I grunt as I push open the first door and step inside.

The light is off behind the barred door. Bella doesn’t say a word.

“I'm truly sorry, that wasn’t supposed to take so long,” I sigh as I flip on the light switch. “But you know how things can⁠—”

Shit.

Bella’s gone.