POV: Leo
The smell of expensive Italian leather and stale cigarette smoke filled the cabin of the SUV, a suffocating luxury that felt like the interior of a coffin. But all I could taste was iron. My jaw was swollen and hot where Santino had pistol-whipped me with the heavy frame of his Beretta, and my ribs burned with every shallow, agonizing breath. I could feel the jagged edge of bone scraping against tissue, a constant, sharp reminder of my mortality.
But physical pain was an old friend. It was a rhythmic, predictable constant. It was a distraction I could manage, a sensory input I could categorize and file away under "functional noise."
The real threat sat in the heavy, expectant silence of the front seat.
