The pen is open air and the rain hasn’t stopped. I lie, broken and bleeding, in a puddle of mud, the two dogs standing over me, sniffing at the blood.
For the next six weeks I live out in the cold, being fed only dog food and the occasional sandwich snuck out to me by one of my brothers. I will later learn that Nora was threatened with the death of her children if she tried to come outside to me.
When I’m eventually allowed back in the house, I’m weak and malnourished. I lie in bed staring at the ceiling. I don’t go back to school. I eat the food my brothers steal from the store and I slowly regain my strength.
As soon as I’m able, I start lifting weights. I spend hours in the garage my father once set up as a gym but never used.
Every other day, he smacks me about, trying to get a response out of his eldest son, but he never does, because I don’t speak. I don’t utter a word. Instead, I lift weights, and…
I read people.
I’m still dragged out to functions and funerals, but my mouth stays sealed, and I watch.
I learn people the way other boys learn books.
Unlike words, people don’t confuse me. People are actuallyvery simple and predictable. By my sixteenth birthday, I can read anyone. So I’m put to work. I clean up in Atlantic City. The casinos are spotless of dirty scammers in less than a week.
My father turns bigger profits than ever thanks to my no-bullshit, no-hesitation approach to finding and fucking up anyone who dares to play us.
I don’t talk, I’m efficient and I don’t mess up.
I replace my father’s best men, one by one. Then I’m promoted. Not only do I get to identify the assholes who try to fuck over the house, I get to kill them off too. Turns out not having a voice makes it easier to sneak up on people and slice their necks from behind without any friction.
I finally find my place in the world.
I become the thing my father always wanted—the thing they all respect and fear: The most lethal enforcer in New Jersey.
And the best part?
I never have to speak a word.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Pfeiffer
I closethe door quietly behind me and lean against it, exhaling a long breath.
“Dad?”
When there’s no answer I walk into the living room and find him slumped in his chair, the TV flickering silently. His eyes are closed, and his breathing is slow and gentle. He’s sleeping.
My chest softens with relief. I don’t have the energy to be strong right now.
I lock myself in the bathroom, and strip out of my clothes. When I step into the shower, I make sure it’s burning hot. I need to feel heat outside of my blistering pulse.
The water pounds my shoulders, filling the room with thick, rising steam. Only when I can’t see beyond my nose do I rest my forehead against the tile and close my eyes.
And that’s when it comes back.
Callum leans over me,his face contorted into a horrifying grimace. “Say his name again.”
I’m standing in our kitchen, my fingers digging into the countertop so hard my nails hurt. Dad is at work. He always is when I get home from school.
“I don’t want to,” I say in a quietly trembling voice.
“You don’t want to?” he echoes. “That’s funny, sweetheart. Because I don’t want to put my hands on you either.”
My stomach twists into a knot as he leans in a little more. His breath, laced with cheap alcohol and bitterness, drifts beneath my nostrils. I want to gag.