Dark Saint [Romano Brotherhood, #1]

27 | Nina

Blood drips to the floor in sporadic, crimson teardrops. Surprised, I step back, steadying the punching bag in front of me. It's then I feel the sting. 

The knuckles on my left hand are busted and bleeding. The wound smarts, but not uncomfortably. In fact, it's a welcome sensation.

Standing barefoot on the cold floor for the last hour, my only companion the sound of my breathing and my skin on the punching bag, I can see for the first time why Santo spends hours down here alone sometimes. 

It's dark and quiet, so quiet that it feels claustrophobic in a way that makes you want to scream. But instead, you punch and kick and exhaust your body until you feel deliciously empty. 

My upper body strength is on par with that of a wet noodle, but all I had to do was pretend the bag was Luciano's face, and strength I never knew I had drove my fists into the bag with precise fervor.

Hearing from Santo what Luciano is doing, how many people he's hurting, angered me. After he finished speaking, Santo was practically hovering over me to try and ensure I was alright, but all I felt I needed in that moment was to fucking hit something. The anger was all consuming, and it took me by surprise. Fear has always been the default. Not anymore. 

I'm not sure Santo knew how to go about helping me in that moment—he's still learning how to deal with certain emotional things, especially things that hurt me. Specifically when those things can't be immediately and violently eliminated. Someone bothers me when we're out? Santo would have it—and them—handled in seconds. My estranged, lunatic not-father's horrible business revealed to me when the man is state lines away? Not as easy of a fix.  

 The look on Santo's face when I left told me that he thought I was coming down here to scream and cry and pound the punching bag until I was blue in the face. Like a scene from a movie that ends with the girl dissolving to the floor in a puddle of tears and snot. 

But I'm resolute. Hearing about all the poor women Luciano has been enslaving in every single city in a beeline from Vegas to Chicago filled me with disgust so strong, I felt it crawling up my throat. Hearing about what he has planned for Christmas day has made my bones buzz in anticipation. 

If I saw Luciano in front of me right now, I would shoot him. Probably in the thigh. The shoulder, maybe.

I don't think I have it in me to kill someone, but if I did, I'd kill him.

I'm forced to face the things of my childhood that I'd always been surrounded with, but never with a clear lens to view them through. I always knew that Luciano liked to "sell humans." Before I was five, Carlo sat me down and explained it to me in those very words, the both of us huddled together cross-legged on the floor like we were discussing a game of pretend, not the imprisonment and slavery of humans happening under our noses. I quietly played with my toys one room over from Luciano and his men discussing auctions and buyers. I slipped silently through the house in the midst of his meetings, bumping into the legs of the men whose sole job it was to lure away and isolate vulnerable girls, forcing them to work at Luciano's casinos or selling them to men even more depraved.

I've always been partially blind, but I can see clearly now. 

I wipe up the blood, wrapping a rag around my fist as I head back upstairs. It's nearly 1 a.m. and I'm sure Santo is waiting for me in the kitchen. Probably in some state of stress.

If the only thing I can do to help is ensure I'm not entirely helpless, I'll do it. I won't pretend like I can save the day, but if I can at least throw a punch? That's better than nothing. That means Santo can spend less time protecting me and more focusing on the shitshow that has become our lives.