Most people go through life never knowing pain. They think they've felt pain, but they've never felt real true pain. Trust me.

I know pain.

Right here, right now, in this warehouse. This warehouse—with its humid air that breeds that slick, slimy sweat over your flesh—this is where I feel real pain.

And I know with this much pain, that scorching burn, then that numb feeling—where the only thing you hear and feel is the slowing hard thumps of your dying heart. I know. God, do I know. My breaths are numbered.

I only have a few left in me.

You know what's weird when you're dying, those last few thoughts you have? They're not: Oh shit, I'm gonna die. Not for me anyway. My last thoughts are a distinct memory—me and my friends watching the carnies set up for the Feast of San Gennaro.

While the rest of the world went to Little Italy, my neighborhood celebrated the feast and the end of summer in the vacant lot right off the bay, across a sea of tall ragweed. We'd stand there with our fingers weaving through the chain-link fence, smelling like sweat and ocean salt, thunder rumbling behind us.

Me, Angelo and Giana. My sisters were too young at the time to tag along with us. I remember like it was yesterday, the big steel arms of the Scrambler and sticky leathered seats of the Tilt-A-Whirl being put together like some complicated mechanical puzzle. My eyes squinting in the hot summer sun. Just to the left of us, the sky heavy with black-bottomed clouds and streaks of jagged electric heat slashing across them. My fingers biting tighter at the links of wire on the fence trying to get a glimpse of the big Ferris Wheel; that great whir of monstrous machinery that let you touch the stars. The one I planned on taking Giana on and getting to feel the heat of her lips against mine for the very first time.

"I heard they were putting up a big roller coaster this year. One even faster than the Cyclone at Coney Island," Giana said. The sweet tang of her sweat mixed with the salty air made my muscles ache, parts of me to wake up, harden. "Corrado, you goin’ to go on the big roller coaster?"

"You asking me to take you on the roller coaster, G?"

"Maybe I am." A fine mist of rain began to settle over us, a relief from the scorching sun that was somehow still burning bright, side by side with the storm.

"Yeah, well, I'm asking Margo to go on the coaster with me. I'll put my hand around her shoulder and grab onto her tits," Angelo rumbled next to her, walking closer to the big mechanical monsters.

Giana tilted her head back and laughed. It was one of those things I liked about Giana Acerbi, she wasn't a normal prissy little princess. She was grinning up at me, those pale blue eyes of hers dancing, small droplets of rain sticking to her dark lashes. "You're not scared of a big coaster, are you, Corrado?"

"I ain't scared of nothing, G."

She was thirteen years old, and had a pair of lips that had me waking up in the middle of the night with sticky warmth spurting out of my body, fireworks behind my lids. Her body was just starting to change into soft curves and it was all I could think about. Especially then, that moment, with the cool drizzle of the rain falling across her little white tank top, the dark rose tips of her nipples becoming steadily visible through the material. I wanted to rub my fingers in slow circles around them.

Suck on them through the white cotton of her shirt.

I bet she tasted like cherries.

But that was years ago, well, almost ten years, maybe less. I did get to take Giana on that coaster, holding her warm hand the whole time, and I did get to kiss those perfect lips. It was the last day I got to see her, though. It was the day she died. Her and Angelo. Her and all of them.

And now it's my turn.

Today's the day I die.

Lying in a pool of my own blood surrounded by monsters.

People don't usually believe in monsters, do they? Most people get told by their parents that there are no such things as monsters.

Let me tell you,

monsters

are

real.

My father taught me about real monsters. Giana and Angelo's father taught us all about real monsters. They're made of flesh and bone, hidden deep inside the minds of men. These aren't the kind of monsters that come fresh out of horror movies with the telltale decaying green skin and a penchant for eating flesh. No. The real monsters are men. Men with hidden guns, violent fantasies, and greed that burns deep in their bellies.

I know these monsters well. I've lived in their world for so long that I easily forget where they end and I began. I'm a monster too.

We're all monsters here.

All of us hold a little bit of evil inside us, and sometimes that evil can overwhelm us and have us do despicable things. Then we become more than just monsters, we're monsters haunted by ghosts. And we learn to live that way. Evil wins over good.

And right now, four of them block my view. Four monstrous heads hovering over my beaten body, looking down at me without expression. All of them puffing deep on the ends of thick Cuban cigars. White smoke clouds the air; the thick tang of it fills my lungs.

"It hurts me deeply," Tony grumbled over me, flicking ashes at me from the tip of his Cuban, "hurts me deeply that I lost my trust in you. Corey, you were like a son to me. A son."

Now, Tony? Tony knows pain.

Not only does he know how it feels, Tony gets off on causing pain. Real pain. I once watched the man giggle while he waited for a pot of water to boil, only to pour it in some guy’s lap, while it was still bubbling.

Tony is a monster. A real fire-breathing, soul-wrecking monster. Because from what I saw, all the poor guy did to earn that boiling pot of water in his lap was scratch a dent in Tony's new Mercedes. But it could have been something more, what did I know, I was only sixteen at the time. That day, Tony held my face in his strong hands, making sure my eyes witnessed the rest of the boys pulling back the poor guy’s pants. A few layers of blistering torn flesh along with it.

But that was then, and this is now, and now it’s my turn to feel the pain.

Tony's face disappears from my sight. Someone tugs at my leg and drags me across the floor, the pain making me lightheaded and dizzy. I'm tugged over rotting wood; somewhere a sharp nail tears into the leg of my pants and bites into my skin scraping a line of fire through my flesh. The room blurs in and out like a dream. Some sort of illusion, some sort of last rite. Tony and his men, there are only three left, standing over me laughing, the barrel of their guns aimed right for my head. I inhale long and slow, the air rattles wetly in my chest. Something rough and hard wraps around my wrists.

"I brought you into my family. I kept you. I kept you safe. I loved you. Loved you, Corrado." My wrists pull up, and my body lifts off the ground. My shoulders and back strain from the position my body stretches in. I'm swinging by a rope, on my tippy toes trying to stop the spin. "I want you to beg for your death, my son. Beg me."

I hock up a mouthful of saliva and blood. Spit it at his feet. All these months, all these years of being involved in this organization, have been for this moment. Kill or be killed. The only thing remaining between me and my last breath is Tony's fetish for torture.

He’s taking his sweet time torturing me, but I know he’s going soft with me; dying at the hands of Tony is usually a lot worse. I've witnessed firsthand the despicable things this man can do. Doesn’t matter if I live or die, Tony won’t last the rest of the night. He won’t be getting away with anything this time. Someone will find him.

Something flutters off to the side of my vision.

A quick movement.

A soft blur of motion. Everything seems wrong suddenly, off. I try to lean up, tense my arms to pull up and I catch the movement again; a quick glimpse of a girl. She's walking up through the dirt road and into the shelter of the warehouse.

God, no. No, nononono. Don't let it be her. This changes everything.

Drip.

A warm wet splat hits my chest.

Drip.

Drip. Drip.

A line of thick red crimson streams down my arm. Blood.

Pain is white hot.

Kick the pain down, stuff it in a box,

down,

down,

down.

I focus on the girl. God, please make her turn around. Walk away. She looks so young, so breakable, that my lungs growl out a warning. Leave. Run! I want to scream, but I can't. Her eyes are on Tony the whole time, expression blank. In her hand, swinging from her fingers, is a dirty gray cloth. Blood drips into my eyes, with my hands tied above my head. I try to blink them clean. Put your pain in a box, lock the lid, hidden in the dark where the nightmares belong. Control it, dominate it, own it. That's what my father taught me.

I can't save her, I think. This girl. This girl I love. The one with the secrets and the lies, that moves like liquid, that makes me come so hard I see stars every time. I wanted to save her, shield her from this life, but just like me, it's all she knows. She walks through the doors, right into the devil’s lair. Shakespeare was right when he wrote that line in the Tempest, Hell is empty and all the devils are here. They're all in this room.

The girl continues her approach. Without fear. Without hesitation. The faintest of smiles tugging at the corner of her lips. Blood pools beneath me on the floor. Black spots. Fuzzy. White noise.

"Hey Tony," she calls out.

Tony straightens, snaps his head towards her voice, "Oh, who do we have here? Boys. Boys. Check it out. Our favorite girl is here. You got something for me, baby?" He rolls his cigar across his bottom lip.

"Yeah, Tony, I got something for you. A little surprise, Tone."

And what she has, shocks the hell out of everybody.

Especially me.