“Let me at him,” Bobby growled. “I want to carve his fucking heart out with a spoon.”

Angelo was back home, and it was all thanks to this vicious boy snarling threats. Bobby wasn’t the biggest of the Vitali men, or the most physically intimidating - but just like Angelo said, he was a vicious little bastard with a talent for manipulation. He’d known exactly who to call when Angelo went missing. The same man who had fucked him over two years ago - and the last man who would want him back on the streets without Angelo’s supervision.

Mason Malone.

Bobby had once been a serious threat to the CEO of one of America’s most deadly private mercenary forces - until Mason had asked Angelo to handle him. Angelo had taken Bobby and made him his in every way, at first as a favor to Mr Malone, and then for his own benefit. That had left Mason in Angelo’s debt - a debt which had just been repaid in full.

Mason’s forces had hit the warehouse like a hurricane and Angelo’s captor hadn’t stood a chance. Now he was tied up in the basement, and Vitali’s boys were about to have their fun.

Mark frowned and took the teaspoon out of Bobby’s hand. “We’re not going to hurt him right now. We’re going to find out who he is and who he works for. If you can’t get your shit under control, you can go to your room.”

“Fuck you,” Bobby nearly exploded. He was vibrating with vengeful energy. This fucker had taken Angelo and hurt him. Bobby didn’t like that. If anyone was going to torture and eventually kill Angelo, it would be him. Or maybe Mark. Bobby had tried to kill Angelo twice since they met and frankly, the idea of someone else doing it was just plain galling. He didn’t have any immediate plans to off Angelo, but he’d always thought of himself as the ultimate bringer of justice to the Vitali patriarch. Point was, he and Mark definitely had first crack at Angelo when the time came, and when the mood took them. Not some random asshole who liked to creep around in bathrooms.

“We don’t know who this guy is,” Mark said calmly. “We need to find out a lot of things before we start killing him with kitchenware, alright?”

“Fine,” Bobby grumbled.

Together, they went down to the basement, where their captive had been bound to a chair in much the same way Angelo had been sitting in a chair when they found him. Couldn’t beat the classics. Bobby wanted to put a bullet in this guy to even the score, but Mark had refused to allow him that pleasure.

Mark strode into the room ahead of Bobby and yanked the bag off the man’s head. Bobby found himself looking at one of the most attractive guys he’d ever seen in his life. The asshole had wily yet strong features, incredible green blue eyes ringed with dark lashes and narrowed with fear and suspicion.

“What’s your fucking name?” Bobby cursed the question.

“Damien Colt.” He answered almost mechanically.

Shit. Damien was hot. Very hot.

Bobby glanced across at Mark and saw a stunned expression on his face too. Yeah, okay. This was going to be fun. This sexy man was theirs to play with. Angelo was still recovering from his ordeal, so he hadn’t showed any real interest in coming down here and dealing with Damien as yet.They could take their time with him. This was going to be good. Really fucking good.

“Hey asshole,” Bobby cursed. “You fucked with the wrong guys.”

“You must be Bobby,” Damien said flatly.

“Yeah, I’m Bobby,” Bobby said. “If you know my name, you should have known better than to have fucked with my family.”

“Your family? You mean the man who captured you as a favor to Mason Malone, the same Mason Malone who rescued him, if I’m not mistaken. Did you know your daddy was Mason’s bitch or do you just not care?”

Mark grabbed Bobby’s shoulder to stop him rushing forward and kicking the shit out of Damien.

“Easy,” Mark growled softly. “He’s winding you up on purpose.”

“Good. I’ll fuck his face up on purpose too,” Bobby growled.

“We want information, remember?”

Mark was so damn calm. Sometimes he really did remind Bobby of Angelo. He didn’t have the same dark charisma, but there was a forcefulness about him that could be brought to bear even when he wasn’t being threatening, and that was very Angelo-esque.

“What did you want with Angelo?” Mark posed the question with almost conversational calm.

“I wanted to kill him.”

“You could have killed him at any time.”

“He fucking knew better than to do that,” Bobby snarled. “Nobody touches a Vitali. You made a huge mistake.” He dodged past Mark and slapped Damien across the face, his palm making hard contact with the flat plane of Damien’s cheek. God, it was so satisfying. He wanted to do it again, but Mark caught his hand before he could and twisted him away from the bound man.

“Easy!” Mark growled at him. “Hands off!”

“I barely touched him!”

“You weren’t meant to touch him at all,” Mark rounded on Bobby, his handsome face stern. “If you can’t follow directions, you can leave.”

Bobby blushed crimson. He did not like being lectured, especially not in front of captives.

“He’s the one who took Angelo and shot him! Give your big bad act to him, not me!”

“He’s following orders better than you are right now.”

“That’s not fair! He’s tied up.”

“Maybe you need to be tied up,” Mark rejoined. “Maybe I’ll tie you up next to him.”

Bobby’s mouth dropped open. How the fuck was this fair? Mark was disrespecting the shit out of him.

“If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even have him,” he pointed out. “So maybe you should shut the fuck up.”

Mark grabbed him by the arm, swing him around, and landed a hard slap to the seat of Bobby’s pants. The hot flash of pain bought Bobby to his toes and elicited a high-pitched yelp at the same time.

“What the fuck!”

Mark repeated the treatment, spanking Bobby on the spot. It hurt, but worse than physically hurting was the fact that it was totally destroying Bobby’s cred in their prisoner’s eyes. The guy was fucking smirking!

“Stop it!” Bobby tried to twist out of Mark’s grip.

“I’ll stop it when you work out how to do as you’re told,” Mark said, releasing him anyway.

“I’m going to tell Angelo,” Bobby threatened.

“You do that,” Mark glowered. “See what he does to you when he hears you’re being insubordinate and making a scene in front of Mr Colt.”

“Why don’t you go tell Angelo and let me deal with this piece of shit,” Bobby suggested. “I promise I’ll leave enough of him to question. He doesn’t need his limbs for that, right?”

“Go and see Angelo,” Mark snapped. “You’re done here.”

“But I didn’t even touch him!”

“GO!” Mark thundered the word.

Bobby went.

He sulked all the way to Angelo’s bedroom. Angelo was on bed rest, doctor’s orders. To Bobby’s surprise, Angelo was actually following those orders. Damien had only held him for a bit over twenty-four hours, but that was plenty of time to fuck a guy up.

“What are you doing here, my boy?”

“Mark sent me up,” Bobby said, his lower lip curling out in a pout. “He said I was being too rough.”

“That does sound like you,” Angelo smiled. “Come here.”

Bobby slid onto the bed and curled up with Angelo. At first he just sat over the blankets, but after a second he kicked his shoes off and got into bed. Angelo was wearing silk pajamas. He looked older and more tired than Bobby was used to seeing him, and Bobby really didn’t like that.

“It’s alright boy,” Angelo said, pressing a kiss to Bobby’s forehead. “I’m going to be fine. There’s no harm done.”

“He hurt you.”

“Yes, he did,” Angelo said, allowing Bobby to snuggle up against him. “But he didn’t do any long-term harm. He could have killed me at any time.”

“I want to kill him,” Bobby growled. “We should take him to pieces and send him all over the country.”

“On a tour of some kind?”

“No, in like matchboxes. To everyone who thinks of fucking with us.”

“The postal service is very insistent that one not send the flesh of one’s enemies,” Angelo smiled.

“You think this is funny?”

“I think you’re very sweet,” Angelo said, pressing a kiss to Bobby’s forehead. “I appreciate your nasty impulses, but they’re not necessary. Once we find out who Mr Colt is working for, we’ll know what to do.”

BAM!

A loud sound downstairs made Bobby startle. The sound of feet pounding on the stairs below drew closer and in an instant, Angelo wasn’t looking old or tired anymore. He reached over, grabbed a pistol from his bedside cabinet and…

“NYPD FREEZE!”

“Angelo!”

Bobby screamed his name, but it was too late. They were taking Angelo away in his fucking pajamas, and him too. Their sanctum was crawling with fucking cops. Bobby tried to go for his gun, but was tackled to the ground and cuffed in seconds. The string of curses which escaped him continued all the way down to the cruiser that he was roughly shoved inside.