Chapter 5

The car stopped in an alley and as if we were waiting for someone, we all waited in silence.

The driver soon began to talk casually to the sluggish man beside me. As they talked, I learned the driver's name or nickname was Dee. The man beside him was mainly addressed without a name making me wonder if he was nameless.

  Moreover, they were speaking Italian, making me a bit calm as if I was home. They were ranting in Italian about some random dude named Dickens making me a bit calm until they said something about his five years old child.

  

  "È stato divertente vedere il bambino morire dissanguato" The sluggish man seating close to me chuckled dryly. [It was fun to see the baby bleed to death]

  No way!

  They didn't just mean watching a five-year-old girl bleed to death in front of her father for fun! That was messed up! Even if the person did something bad, I do not support something like that.

  Even as I listened to them fall more, I could not help but glare at them and still remain scared for my life. If they can murder a five-year girl and call it fun, why was I still alive?

Soon, I sight a middle-aged man walking toward the car. His shirtless body was covered with provocative tattoos, especially that of naked women. Where I suppose his heart should be located seemed reserved as no tattoo was drawn around there. It made it easy that his heart almost looked like the thing not corrupted in him.

  Seating in the car with the emotionless man seating in the passenger seat in front, the sluggish man beside me, and the driver gingerly walking out to meet the middle-aged man.

  From inside the car I sat in, I could not hear what they were talking but it wasn't peaceful. They seems to be disagreeing over something the man was saying until he attempted to put his hand into his back pocket.

  It happened so fast.

A piercing scream escaped my throat as I heard the gunshot. Watching Dee and the sluggish man watch man drown in his pool of blood, I knew I was next.

  "He dead!" I said unintelligibly "He shot him, he is dead".

  Who the heck was I even talking to? The man that just stepped out of the car, walked to my door, yanked it open, and pulled me by the hair. He pushed me to the ground beside the dead man.

  "You were not supposed to see that..."

  "Amara" I reminded.

A small smile spread across his face and vanished as soon it as came. He took a gun for his back and pointed it at me. I could see how impatient he had grown but he needed something I no longer had.

  "You don't give me the ring, I kill you," The sluggish man said "If you then give me the ring, I still kill you".

  "In other words, you are going to die" Dee explained as if I never understood.

I wanted to glare at him but the gun pointing at me and the dead man with a bullet in his dead scared the heck out of me.

  Not again! Not me seeing a dead person with a bullet wound in his head like my late parents. I am going to need therapy for the rest of my life when I can afford a cheap yoga section from a blind Italian woman in her late fifties.

  "I will say this one more time, ragazza," the sluggish man said as he removed the safety of the gun "Where is my ri..." [Girl]

  "I swallowed it!" I screamed.

  

       What else should I have done, let him shoot me? That didn't help still as the man walked close to me and grabbed my jaw. He pressed both sides and stared into my open mouth as of wanting to see inside my stomach. Without warning, he dipped his finger into my throat for a few seconds making me tremble before I gagged.

      I wasn’t expecting him to just stare at me blankly for a few seconds as if thinking of what to do to me. If I wasn’t mistaken, I would say I saw him run his tongue across his lower lip.

  I heard the other man chuckle before moving closer to look at my face. His brows raised as if he was trying to understand what I just said before he grinned. He looked at the other man and shook his head as if he wasn’t still understanding.

  “Luciano, Did she just….” He was cut short when the sluggish man yanked me closer.

I should stop calling him sluggish since I now know his name, Luciano. That’s such a nice name, it made me wonder why Dee had not mentioned his name since they were talking. At this point, I don’t know if I should be a bit calm that Luciano just kept staring at me mutely or if Dee had a small smile on his face the whole while. I get it, I might be a weirdo but this silence is killing me.

  With Luciano’s hand still holding my jaw, he brought me close to his face and stared blankly into my eyes. I was about to say something when he scoffed and looked away from me.

“Dee, she said she has it in her stomach,” he said through clenched teeth.

  "You fucking swallowed my Diamond ring?" Luciano yelled this time at my face, sending saliva into my eyes and open mouth.

  Since he was holding my jaw, I nodded, trembling and peeing on myself. If that was all I did, it would have been better but he didn’t just stop. He brought out his gun, placed it inside my mouth, and smirked. My eyes went wide open as I gagged, he would attempt to move it out a bit and put it back to have me gagging and mumbling inaudible pleadings and apologies.

  "You still have to die anyway because, in the next few seconds, your senseless brain would be all over the floor and my face..."

  My legs began to feel like jelly as I placed my palms on his hand which was still holding my jaw. Tears endlessly flow down my eyes as my nose too began to run. 

   I didn’t care if I look like a pig, all I wanted at that moment was to live, I want to get out of this mess and my entire life, and I would make sure not to steal again. Even if the thing would be so beautiful or would endlessly scream my name, I still would not do anything like stealing, Again.

  Although I knew my cry and what I was saying sounded muffled and he won’t hear anything, I still tried my best. I still tried to cry more which wasn’t hard at all for me. 

     Pictures of my late parents with gun wounds filled my memory, making me grunt, and sniffed unattractively but I don’t care. I kept doing it until he brought out the gun from my mouth and let go of my hurting jaw.

   “I will get it back,” I said gasping for air “I swear, I w….”

  “How?” Luciano asked calmly “How the fuck would you do that?!” he yelled.

  Flinching and taking a few steps back, I raised my palms in front of me as I shook like a wet leaf. 

  “I –I will uhmmmm” I paused for a few seconds “.

  “Please, just let me poop it out!" I cried "I beg you, just let me live to poop it out then....then...the...”

  "I will still kill you," Luciano interrupted “We have a deal already" he added.