Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t gut you right here, right now,” I say
in a low voice, careful not to reveal just how angry she’s made me. If they
know you’re bothered, they use it against you.
Which makes all of this my fucking fault.
“Dio mio, you never were any good at flirting.” She sets her glass down,
reaching to adjust the strap of her red dress when it slips down her shoulder.
Her fingers curl around it, then pause, and she drops her hand as if suddenly
thinking better of it.
Bedroom eyes turn up at mine, and she shifts, tilting her bronzed shoulder
as if she’s trying to entice me.
Gripping the chair until my fingernails start to split from the pressure, I
resist the urge to laugh in the bitch’s face, knowing that’ll only feed her
antics.
“One reason, Carmen.” Reaching for the waistband of my pants, I slide
my hand around, dislodging the gun tucked in the back. Smoothing my
fingers over the cool metal barrel, I unlock the safety and cock it, pointing at
her with the mouth. “Doesn’t even have to be a good one, necessarily. But
you’d better think real fucking fast before I make the decision for you.”
She doesn’t even flinch, as if unaware that none of my threats are ever
hollow. Fixing her strap with a sharp snap against her skin, she sits up
straighter, giving me a bland look.
“You’re not going to kill me, Kallum. If you were, you would’ve done it
the second you found me in bed with someone else.”
My side throbs spastically, like my flesh is being carved open all over
again after finding myself on the other end of an ambush. In my own home.
It was a rival family member, someone from Southie; if I’d been
expecting either one of them to be in my bed, he wouldn’t have had the upper
hand.
But you don’t expect the people you care about to betray you right under
your nose.
I remember the searing pain where the knife went in, thinking that would
be the end of it; at that point, I hadn’t been doing lethal hits all that long, and
torture certainly wasn’t something I even thought of when doing Ricci jobs,
so when the knife went in, stayed in, and began to move, I remember the
shock absorbing the brunt of the initial torment.
I remember waking up mid-surgery; I’d been flown to a nearby hospital
after an anonymous tip alerted the cops to my state, and they’d been so