Leah's POV
The neon sign above the night club buzzed like a dying wasp, its crimson glow pooling on the asphalt as I shoved through the club's sticky doors. Smoke clung to the air—cheap cigars and cheaper desperation - and there he was, slumped at the bar like a discarded marionette. Liam's fingers curled around a whiskey glass, his knuckles whitening with each swallow as if he could drown the words we'd never said.
I slid onto the stool beside him, the leather sighing under my weight. "You look like someone pissed in your bourbon," I said, nodding at the bartender for my usual gin.
Liam didn't turn. "Would've improved the taste." His voice was sandpaper rough, but the corner of his mouth twitched. Classic Liam - even half-drunk and brooding, he couldn't resist the bait.
We drank in silence for three songs, the bass thumping like a defective heartbeat. When he finally spoke, it was to the smudged mirror behind the bar. "You shouldn't be here. You don't need me," he said, the words slurring just enough to sound like a challenge. "So why're you here? Collecting strays again?"
I traced the scar on my wrist - a habit worse than smoking. "I need you sober, you idiot. Not wallowing in a puddle of self-pity and Jack Daniels."
"Sober's overrated." He slammed the glass down, amber liquid sloshing over his fingers. "You know what's not overrated? Your old flame, Darren Swanson. Murderer. Head-smasher. Psychopath with a get-out-of-jail-free card." His laugh was sharp enough to cut glass. "Real stand-up guy, Leah. You two picking out china patterns yet?"
The gin turned to acid in my throat. "He's not what you think."
"Oh, I know exactly what he is." Liam swiveled toward me, his eyes bloodshot and brilliant. "Prison guards pissed themselves around him. Even the lawyers needed therapy after his trial. But you?" He jabbed a finger at my chest. "You're out here playing Florence Nightingale for a guy who makes cayotes look cuddly. What's next? Adopting a pet basilisk?"
I caught his hand, his skin fever-hot against mine. "I owe him."
"Owe him what? A kidney?" He leaned in, whiskey breath mingling with my sigh. "Or is this another one of your twisted redemption projects?"
"A lifetime," I snapped, the words clawing out of me. "I owe him a lifetime, Liam. Not that you'd understand."
The glass shattered before I registered his movement, shards skittering across the bar like diamonds. "Rich people logic," he spat, loud enough to turn heads. "Oh, I'll trade my lifetime happiness for guilt! Meanwhile, the rest of us are out here trying not to get stabbed for our lunch money."
I stood, the stool screeching backward. "You're drunk."
"Damn right I'm drunk." He lurched to his feet, catching my elbow. His grip was all heat and desperation, the way he'd held me that night in the warehouse when the bullets flew too close. "Tell me you love him," he whispered, raw and reckless. "Tell me he's the only one that you love in your life, and I'll…I'll…"
Don't say it. The plea burned behind my teeth as I met his gaze. Shadows pooled under his eyes. Behind him, three of Cosa's goons materialized by the jukebox, their smiles all teeth and no humor.
I steeled my voice. "You're fired."
Liam blinked like I'd slapped him. "What?"
"Professionalism, remember?" I yanked free, nodding subtly at Johnny's silhouette by the door. "You're a liability."
His laugh cracked mid-air. "You're kicking me to the curb over professionalism? That's colder than your ex-husband's corpse collection, boss."
"Goodbye, Liam."
He stumbled as I turned, knees buckling against a chair. "Leah...!"
I didn't look back. Couldn't. Johnny's polished shoes appeared in my periphery, his smile a knife wrapped in silk. "Mrs. Winters. Unwise to dismiss your guard dog before a storm."
"Johnny, just do me a favor. Shut up and drive," I muttered, sliding into the waiting town car. Through the tinted window, I watched Liam struggle upright, his mouth shaping words I'd never hear. The engine purred to life, carrying me away from him - further from the boy who still believed in redemption and loyalty.
-
The incinerator's rusted teeth bit into my wrists as they dragged me through the derelict plant. Rotting plastic and decade-old ashes clung to the air like vengeful spirits. I remembered a place that was just like this.
This is the end of the world, where all the trash goes back to its original form. Ash to ash. Dirt to dirt.
Now daylight stabbed through cobwebbed windows, illuminating Al Cosa's ruined face.
He sat hunched in that wheelchair, a tumorous growth of grief. The proud mob patriarch I'd toasted champagne with at his son's wedding had shriveled into a leathery husk. His eyes—two bullet holes in parchment skin—tracked my approach.
"Mrs. Winters," he croaked. The wheelchair creaked like old gallows rope as Johnny pushed him closer. "We meet again."
Industrial fans groaned above us. I let my gaze linger on the incinerator's gaping maw behind him, its iron jaws streaked with crystalline residue from a thousand burnings. "Mr. Cosa," I said, tilting my chin just enough to suggest deference. "I heard about what happened to your son..."
"Tony was dead this morning," the old man said, "I cut off his breathing tube and put him into sleep."
I pretended to be horrified. "Mr. Cosa... Why did you do that?!"
"Do you have children?" The question lashed out, sudden as a garrote wire.
Memories surfaced - the faceless little boy in my dream. My hand twitched toward phantom stretch marks. "I once carried a child," I said, letting my voice fray at the edges. "Couldn't bring him to term."
His knuckles whitened on the wheelchair arms. "How did it feel? Losing your unborn child?"
I studied the weeping blisters on the incinerator's flank. "Unfair. This world lets monsters breed while such a little innocent, pure thing..." A calculated pause. The fan belt screeched in the silence. "...die untouched."
Al's laughter scraped like a coffin lid. "You think painless death's unfair?" Spittle glistened on his chin. "I have to say, at this stage, as a grieving father, I no longer care about whether my sons are dead or alive. I just don't want them to feel pain anymore. That's why I cut off that damn tube for Tony, because even though he looked peacefully asleep, he would suffer from cardiac arrest every 30 seconds. Every fucking 30 seconds, he would go through the unbearable pain in his chest. And the machine will bring him back, just to let him go through the same pain 30 seconds later. Do you understand what I'm talking about, Mrs. Winters?"