Nicholas

 

When I was thirteen, I sat in a chair in the basement of The Punishers’ clubhouse, body riddled with a drug that transformed every tiny sensation into burning agony, as a man I trusted snapped my wrist in two. That was pain. It had never left me since then.

 

My body was a tapestry of scars, shattered bones, bullet holes, and burns I’d earned the hard way. I came from nothing and nowhere and I made my life, piece by piece. Always, there was one thing driving me forward: revenge. The cost of getting there was more pain, but I was willing to do whatever it took to get my hands on the people who had hurt my savior. Take my skin, break my bones, torture me, but just know when I come back for my vengeance, what you feel will be a thousand times worse. That was my bedtime prayer, the mantra I repeated to myself again and again over the twelve years since Smalls was killed. I’d learned everything I needed to learn from Fists and the rest of the club to do what had to be done.

 

This moment was like the silence before the car engine roared, the last moment of calm before all hell broke loose and fire ignited and pistons slammed and the beastly machinery shuddered into life. I took a deep breath and savored it. One more second of silence. Then it would happen. Everything, the way it should have happened a long, long time ago.

 

Luca was sneering down at me along the barrel of the gun. Its metal was cold on my forehead. I could see sweat slicking his brow. The air was damp, moist, whether with humidity or fear, I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. All these details registered as abstract and irrelevant. One thing mattered and one thing only: pain. Both mine and others’. In my experience, it took one to get the other. First, they hurt me. But then I hurt them. That was how my life was slated to go. That was what was about to happen.

 

He dropped the gun to his side and turned around. “I want to kill you so fucking badly,” he gasped, clawing at the air like it was my throat. “It’s so hard! It’s like I’m fucking a bitch and trying not to bust my nut too soon, you know? I can’t do it yet. I need to make this last. Whew, calm down, Luca boy, calm down, okay? Let me take a second.” He paced a few steps away, rubbing his face in the palms of his hand and muttering to himself.

 

I heard Natalia whimpering next to me. I wanted to protect her. I owed her that much at the very least. I had made her a promise, and I was hell-bent on keeping it. This son of a bitch had not only betrayed his brothers and his president, he had laid his hands on my girl. I meant every word that I said to her. I would keep her safe. He had slipped past me, but he would pay dearly for it. Starting. Now.

 

“You made a mistake, Luca,” I told him.

 

“Eh?” he called over his shoulder.

 

“You shouldn’t have left my hands free.”

 

He spun around. “What are you talking about?” he asked as he took a couple steps closer. That was his mistake. He came within arms’ reach.

 

The roar started in my stomach and ripped out through my bleeding mouth. I bellowed as I loaded all my weight onto my right side, then jerked as hard as I possibly could to my left. The bone in my left wrist snapped.

 

And my hand came slithering free of its restraints.

 

Luca’s eyes bulged, but I was too quick. I swung my broken hand into his face, fist clenched as tight as I could manage. The pain nearly made me pass out, but I bit my tongue hard enough to keep me conscious as Luca crumbled beneath the blow. He fell to the floor, stunned, and his gun came skittering towards me. I picked it up with my free hand and rose to my feet. My fingers shook with the effort it took to hold it straight, pointed down at him.

 

He looked up and froze. “How the fuck did you…?” he said in surprise.

 

I stared straight at him. “Pain means nothing to me, Luca. It’s been my friend for a very long time.”

 

Then I squeezed the trigger. He didn’t move any more after that.

 

# # #

 

The gunshot echoed in my ear for a long few seconds after I’d fired. Adrenaline surged through me, covering over the pain from the blow to my head and my limp wrist. I looked at Natalia. “It’s going to be okay,” I told her.

 

She nodded but I could tell she was still terrified. God, what a beauty. Her eyes were wide and brimming with tears, but they were full of trust, too. Trust in me. Trust in my promise.

 

“This is going to be loud,” I said. I pointed the gun at the chain still binding my right hand to the pipe and fired again. The link popped off, searing hot from the combustion, but I was free. I walked over to Luca’s body and fished the key out of his pocket. Blood was trickling from the hole in his forehead. His face was frozen in complete shock. Served the motherfucker right.

 

I hobbled over to Natalia as fast as I could. Inserting the key into the lock on her manacles, I twisted them open and pulled her to her feet. She fell into my arms immediately, sobbing, finding a new voice in her tears.

 

“Nicholas, I…I…”

 

“Shh,” I told her, stroking her hair. “It’s going to be okay. First, we have to get out of here.” My wrist was a lightning bolt of pain, but it was overpowered by the sudden swelling of a strange, foreign emotion in the middle of my chest. I looked down at the girl cowering against me and realized that it was for her.

 

She was more than just my possession. In just a few short days, she had wound her way into my heart. I didn’t know how, but I had a strange feeling she wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

 

I reached up my good hand and wiped the sticky residue from her lips. She gave in to a fresh outpouring of tears. Her voice choked as she said, “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t stop him.”

 

I felt the anger and bile rise in the back of my throat. I grabbed her chin and forced her to look at me. “Listen to me, Natalia,” I said. “Nothing was your fault. Do you hear me? Not a damn thing. Don’t you ever, ever apologize to me for what that sick fuck did to you. Nod your head. Tell me you understand.”

 

Her face still streaked with tears, she slowly nodded that she understood.

 

I gripped her chin hard. “I’m here now, Natalia. And I’m not going anywhere ever again. I’ve never felt anything like what you do to me. You make me forget who I am. And if another man touches you, he’s going to end up exactly like the son of the bitch over there. Dead as a fucking doornail. That’s an oath.”

 

“I believe you.”

 

I bent down and pressed my lips hard against hers. Her warmth flooded me, her smell lingering in my nose, so exotic and uniquely hers. “Now, come on,” I said as I broke it off begrudgingly. “Let’s get the fuck out of this city.”

 

I took her hand and started to pull her out of the room, but I felt her stop as we passed by Luca’s corpse. I glanced back at her. She was staring down at him, an unreadable expression on her face.

 

“He’s dead,” I said gently. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

 

She looked up at me, brows knitted in a fiery glare. “I just hope the motherfucker is burning in hell,” she said in a firm, unwavering voice. Then she leaned over and spat on his face. Despite everything that was going on—the murder, the betrayal, the agony ripping my wrist apart—I smiled. She still had some fight in her.

 

Winding her fingers between mine, she joined me as we ran towards the door, headed for the outside.

 

We ran down a long, dank hallway. Our feet pounded on the concrete floor and our breath came in harsh gasps. A set of double doors loomed at the end. We reached it and burst through into the courtyard. I was hardly halfway through the doors when I felt a smashing blow slam into the side of my head, right where the Esposito foot soldier had hit me earlier. I fell to the floor, struggling to see who had attacked me.

 

I rolled onto my back and looked up in time to see Giovanni plunging towards me, elbow extended like a battering ram. He dropped the full extent of his weight behind it. The air rushed from my lungs and I felt a rib crack beneath him.

 

“Run, Natalia,” I gasped. “Now!” I couldn’t see where she was, but I heard her footsteps slapping the floor as she scrambled away.

 

He was massive. His fat pressed around me on all sides, sealing me to the ground. There was nowhere I could shift to find enough leverage to push him off me. He scrabbled for my neck, wrapped his hands around it, and began to squeeze the life out of me.

 

Luca’s pistol was still in my broken left hand. I was struggling to find the strength to raise it up high enough to be able to shoot Giovanni.

 

“Stop…” I gasped as my face began to turn blue. I could feel tiny blood vessels popping in my nose and eyeballs from the strain. My lips and fingertips were tingling.

 

“You fucked with the wrong people, asshole!” he screamed, his voice oddly high-pitched for a man of his size.

 

My wrist was shrieking at me. Panicked messages were shooting down my veins, begging me to stop moving it, to just let it rest and recover. There wasn’t any time for that, though. I closed my eyes.

 

C’mon, shorty, said a tinny voice in my head. You gon’ get licked like this? That wrist of yours ain’t so bad. Pick it up already. Shoot this sumbitch. All these years later, and Smalls was still a part of me. I wanted to laugh or cry or both.

 

Another inch and I’d be in position to fire. C’mon, shorty. Pick it up. Shoot. Pain’s your friend, remember?

 

My whole body flexed in unison as I swiveled the gun towards Giovanni’s leg and pulled the trigger. A fountain of blood plumed upwards where the bullet entered his fatty flesh. He howled demonically and flailed backwards, immediately letting go of my neck. Air—sweet, blessed air—flowed into my lungs.

 

I twisted onto my knees and reached over to grab Giovanni’s hair. Pulling his head back, I pressed the gun against his mouth. “Your turn,” I growled. I prepared to fire. He looked terrified.

 

“Not so fast,” someone said from a few yards away. My finger hovered against the cool metal trigger as my gaze shot up. “If you move, I’ll kill her.”

 

Cosimo was standing with a gun pointed at Natalia. She stood rooted to the earth, halfway between him and me, staring back in my direction like a deer in the headlights.

 

Cosimo’s nostrils were rimmed with white. His eyebrows jutted far above into his forehead, giving him a manic look in the shimmering halogen lights overhead. His shadow was jagged and long. It stretched across the courtyard like something out of a nightmare.

 

Behind him, the Esposito foot soldiers stood arrayed in ranks, guns at the ready. I saw two of them had taken charge of the wagon with the chem weapons. We were surrounded. Escape was not an option.

 

This was it. I’d come this far, only to fail at the crucial moment. I wouldn’t get my revenge. I wouldn’t do what I’d promised to do for Smalls. I was going to die instead, on my knees in the earth like a dog. I failed. I failed.

 

And it wasn’t only Smalls who I’d let down. Natalia was paralyzed with fear. But when she looked at me, there was no mistaking the trust in her eyes. I almost wanted to laugh. This time, babe, we’re not getting out of it, I thought to myself. I couldn’t keep my promise to her. I was going to let her down—brutally. Painfully. Fatally.

 

Giovanni struggled to his feet, favoring his injured leg. The bullet had passed through the thickest part of his thigh. He was bleeding badly, but it looked like he’d make it through this one. Pity. He wobbled, then straightened, glowering at me with a sadistic hatred in his eyes.

 

Cosimo walked towards where I was kneeling. His gun moved from Natalia to me as he crossed the few yards of terrain that separated us. Behind him, one of his men moved to her and seized her upper arm roughly. But her eyes never left me.

 

He paused a couple feet in front of me. Giovanni stood to my right, looking down in eager anticipation of the quick execution that was about to take place. “Time to put you down,” Cosimo said softly. He had such a predilection for the movie villain put-down. I wondered who he was trying to convince he was tough. Himself? His men? His dead father? Whoever it was, he was a slave to their approval. I hoped, for the sake of his sanity, he’d get it one day.

 

But that day would have to be in the afterlife. For a moment, it was like the world froze in its orbit. Everyone held their breath, the lights ceased their flickering, and even the stars overhead stood still. I saw my opening, shining among this foul-smelling shithole like it was heaven-sent.

 

The bombs.

 

The pallet of chemical weapons was parked ten feet behind Cosimo and just far enough to the right of him that I had a clear line of sight. My swollen left hand had hung limply at my knees, but the gun in my right hand was still pointed steadily forward. Right at the wagon.

 

The weapons were highly pressurized gas in military grade plastic containers, packaged along with detonators that operated via electrical pulses. Being that it was a black market contraption, however, the entire rig was susceptible to destabilization in the event of dramatic trauma to the integrity of the containing device.

 

In other words, a bullet in the right spot would make the whole thing go bang.

 

Three things happened at once. I took a deep breath. I yelled, “Run, Natalia!” I pulled the trigger.

 

And the world went supernova.