“You fucker! You crazy motherfucker! You shot me!” Medina wails. He’s trying to get up, but his leg won’t hold his weight. I place my hands on his shoulders, forcing him back down onto the chair.

“Put your hands behind your back,” I tell him calmly.

For a moment I don't think he's going to do it—maybe I will get to put him down after all—but then the guy does as he's told, still hissing and spitting and swearing under his breath. I cuff him one hand at a time. The chain links between the cuff loops feeds through the back of the chair so that he can't stand up without taking the whole seat with him.

Medina’s hyperventilating now, deep, gasping breathes, as he undoubtedly tries to fight through the pain. I take off my belt, stoop down, and I tie the band of leather around his thigh, creating a tourniquet; the wound’s a through-and-through, but he could still bleed to death. I can’t let that happen; I have other plans for him. “You got no idea what you're involving yourself in here, ese,” Medina grunts out. “Charlie’s got big fucking balls, but he's gotta be seriously insane to go up against Julio. The two of you are risking everything for a game you have to know you can't win. Fuck, man. You guys aren't even contenders.”

There he goes with that Charlie shit again. It makes no sense. They know I broke ties with my old boss, so what the hell does he think to gain from telling me the old man’s in the shit? “Hate to break it to you, buddy, but Charlie and me, we aren't exactly best friends right now. If you're trying to make my heart bleed, the only way you're going to make that happen is if you take this gun from me and put a bullet through it. And I think I’m out of ammo now.”

Medina pants, a vain attempt at laughter, wincing. “Yeah, Julio may have believed that fucking line, but not me. I knew better than that. I saw through your lies. I saw through the bullshit you spun about that whore you brought along with you, too.”

Did he seriously just say what I think he said? He has got to be fucking kidding. “You disrespect my mother and I shoot you in the leg. You call my girl a whore, what do you think I’m gonna do to you now, asshole?” I smash my fist into the side of Andreas' face, feeling a grim sense of satisfaction overcome me as my knuckles connect with his cheekbone. His head rocks to the side, his neck cracking in a sickeningly loud crunch. If there's one thing Andreas Medina should not be doing right now, it's talking shit about Sloane. If he had absolutely any fucking sense whatsoever, he wouldn't be talking at all. Period. He rolls his head so that his chin is resting on his chest, a thin strand of bloody saliva hanging down from his open mouth.

“He did say you are crazy about that bitch,” he wheezes, laughing. I crouch down in front of him, lifting his head up by grabbing a fistful of his close-cropped hair.

“Didn't our last meeting give you an indication that perhaps you shouldn't insult my girl? As I recall, you couldn't walk for a week after you dared to fucking touch her.” I shake my head. Stand up. Swing back. Hit home. “Now you’re calling her a whore?” I'm filled with a black rage I doubt I'm going to be able to quench by beating my fists against this disgusting piece of shit’s face, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Once, twice, three more times, I lay my hands on him, transferring my rage through my body into my fists and directly into his face. Medina takes the first few hits well, laughing like a maniac. Blood sprays everywhere as I rain down my wrath upon him, but by the end, he's gasping for air and his eye sockets are already starting to swell and bruise.

“That woman’s worth a thousand times more than the disgusting bitch who pushed you out of her body,” I snarl.

Medina’s a complete mess. There’s blood everywhere, his face swollen beyond recognition, but he still tries to smile. “It makes no difference what she’s worth, ese. When Julio gets his hands on her, he ain't gonna sell her ass. He's gonna chain her to a bed and let every single one of us take a turn on her. He swore it. Should never have stepped up to him, man. Your old lady is gonna find out the hard way what it means to lie to a man like Julio. And when I say hard, I mean really fucking hard.” Medina sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, biting down in a mocked expression of lust.

That's it. That is seriously fucking it. He's just trying to rile me, to goad me into losing it, probably with some half-assed hope of escaping somehow. I know all of this and yet I can't help myself—I react. I jam the tips of my index finger and middle finger into the base of his throat, cutting off his oxygen supply. With my other hand, I press down firmly on the dip below his right ear, just underneath his jaw. I can see he’s fighting it, but it’s pointless. You can fight human nature. You can fight against the will of others, but when it comes to fighting off your own nerve endings…yeah, good luck with that. His jaw drops, Open fucking Sesame.

I scoot down again, and make a show of inspecting the inside of his mouth. I frown, nodding at what I find inside—a selection of decaying teeth and a particularly bad case of halitosis. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. Just the right size.” I let him go, and Medina draws in a gasp of air that sounds like a car engine trying to start. I start for the door, and I can tell by the scrape of the chair legs against the concrete and Andreas’ coughing that he regrets pushing my buttons.

“Wait. Wait, man. Where are you going?”

I look back over my shoulder, just enough so that he can see the intent in my eyes. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t be long. I’m just going to get my bag.”