When I kill her, I’ll make it slow. I’ll grind my fingers into her windpipe and feel her vocal chords strain. Maybe I’ll fuck her when I do it, wrapping my hands around her throat right when she begins to come. I’ll cut off that high-pitched whine mid-song. I’ll choke her out before she can say my name.
After all, I have a promise to keep.
The vicious method is one that I make to myself as I rinse her taste from my mouth with handfuls of water from the bathroom sink. To completely erase it, I have to use the bar of soap that rests on the counter, grinding the substance into my teeth. I spit her out, only to breathe her back in; her scent fucking clings to my skin.
When I meet the gaze of my reflection, I can almost see her there, those hazel eyes wide and demanding. She’s so hungry for the violence she believes only a man like me can give her. Violation. Destruction. Mutilation. She relishes every single mark carved or beaten into her skin; she’ll wear the scars like medals for the benefit of her fiancé. Hell, she’d string herself up in the middle of the fucking city, bloodied and broken, just to get a rise out of him. Make him suffer. Pay.
The fucker has driven the soul out of her. Even when she cries out my name while being fucked...I’m not the one she’s imagining. My cock isn’t what gets her off. It’s the simple fact that she’s giving away what the bastard can’t have.
And that shouldn’t fucking matter. Mack. His plans. Avenging Parish. Arno and his fucking imaginary gang war. That is the shit that matters. I splash a handful of water onto my face as if the sting can drill it into my fucking brain and erase everything else.
And it does. I’m blank. Cold. It’s the same icy cool that I used to feel right before I stepped into the cage. I was an animal, entitled to nothing and owned by no one—certainly not some little bitch who got off on another man’s humiliation.
“Focus,” I growl the word out loud and slam a fist onto the counter hard enough to jar the sore bones and shredded skin. The creature staring back at me from the mirror narrows his eyes in determination. He was done beating around the fucking bush.
The steely mindset steers me back into that room where I ignore the woman still slumped on the bed, and I reach for the duffle bag Darcy sent. She picked out two shirts for me, but they don’t feel like Mack’s. I don’t sense his stench tainting the cotton, either. They’re worn. Familiar. I finger the frayed edges of one of the sleeves, and the truth hits me like a punch to the stomach.
She saved them—those old clothes worn by a punk who spent most of his free time shooting up or fighting over scraps in the cage. Dino had given him a room above the pit. Even on his nights off, he could still hear the men beating the shit out of each other down below. Five years ago, when everything went to shit, Darcy must have snuck into that little room and rummaged through what little shit the poor bastard had, salvaging three tee shirts.
I slip one over my head, refusing to give into the rush of fucking nostalgia. The shit still fits, though it’s tight, stretched taut over the muscles I’ve built up in prison. Gritting my teeth, I find my jeans and wrench them on.
“Get dressed,” I tell her, making my voice hard. I enter the living room and wait for her, unsurprised when five minutes later she appears, creeping into the kitchen to fish her jeans from the floor, and...
She decided against the now bloodstained white blouse and wears one of my shirts instead. It’s a gray one, tethered to a few old memories that surge forward like the images of a slideshow. It’s the shirt. I don’t know how Darcy got a hold of it—she must have tried washing it, but even bleach couldn’t get out the blood stains near the bottom hem; they cling to the weathered cotton, shades darker than the rest of the fabric.
I try blinking just to erase them and wind up seeing red. “Take it off. Now!”
The woman flinches at the harshness of my tone, but she obeys without question, stripping the shirt over her head and leaving her breasts bare. Vincent Stacatto’s name shields her just as well as any shirt, though. The indigo letters form a crystal-fucking-clear reminder: she’s untouchable. His.
A part of me wonders if I should just leave her like that. Arno or Mack wouldn’t dare fucking challenge her motives then. Loyalty isn’t something that can be driven into flesh. To prove it, she holds her head high while I eye the edges of her mark and she doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t try to hide the damage done to her. Her armor may be different from mine, but she wears it all the same.
Without a word, I pull off the black shirt and toss it in her direction. She tries to catch it, but it lands at her feet, and she has to stoop for it. “Put it on.”
She does and watches while I shove my feet into my boots and jerk my chin toward the blue tennis shoes Darcy gave her. She’s silent as she follows me out of the apartment and down to the lower level of the garage.
Speak of the devil, Mack’s already waiting down below. He stands with his hand resting on the handles of a parked motorcycle. Darcy leans against the wall, coincidentally a few feet in between us. She eyes me carefully, scanning my bare chest and the scars that cross it. Then she spots the woman behind Mack and me speaks up before I can analyze her expression.
“I’ve thought it over, Kitty,” he says. He hasn’t changed—blood still covers his gray shirt—but he’s schooled his face into an expression that I recognize from the old days. It’s the same one he wore in the cage: a warrior ready for battle, ignoring everything else for the sake of the fight. For now. “We’ll do things your way...but with my expertise.”
I glance at the woman. She stands near the stairs, her hair hanging limp and wild down to her waist. Her eyes are downcast, but I’m not fooled by the demure act. She’s listening to every word Mack says. In her pocket, I make out the shape of that knife—she must have grabbed it on her way out. Not only that, but she keeps her hands at her sides, and she’s positioned herself closest to the nearest exit, just in case Mack comes for her again. The little lamb’s learning fast.
“How?” I demand, turning to Mack.
He watches me carefully. There’s that foxy gleam in his eye that I hate. He’s scheming. He’s plotting. “Your plan is fine in theory, Kitty,” he explains. “But there’s one small problem. Vinny keeps his girls in at least ten enclaves all over the city. To really hit him where it hurts...you’d have to find a way to target every single enclave at once. Or at least make a threat large enough that he’s forced to move as many of the women as he can. Then we make our mark and pick them up, hand-delivered.” He smiles coldly. “The only problem is that no one knows the specific locations of said enclaves...”
“But I’m guessing that you have an idea,” I say, taking a shot in the fucking dark.
Mack smiles wider. “I know a guy. He’ll tell us the locations. For a price.”
“And what is that?” Somehow, I know the answer even before he jerks his chin toward Stacatto’s woman.
“Her.” He beckons her forward with a crook of his finger and a malicious expression. She’s cautious, but she steps closer, wincing. My mind immediately goes beneath her jeans to the raw skin of her cunt underneath. She feels me with every move she makes. I’ve left my mark in bruised, sore flesh, far away from that fucking tattoo. “This...associate wants to make another video staring Stacatto’s little bitch. He’ll need insurance, you see, for when Vinny’s kingdom crumbles right out from underneath the bastard. If you agree, we can do it tonight.”
“No.” The word tears from my throat at the same moment Stacatto’s whore steps forward, even more, her chin pointed to the ceiling.
“I’ll do it.”
Black. It’s a more jarring change to my vision than the red. I can’t see anything. I can only hear: my heartbeat, the blood rushing through my veins and the distant hum of Mack’s satisfied chuckle. I can even hear her standing there, her movements stiff due to her sore, abused pussy. For five seconds my sense of hearing is the only thing that tethers me to the present before my vision returns in bits and pieces. I see Mack first, his eyes gleaming. Then, I see Darcy, her gray eyes narrowed as they flit from me to Mack and back again. And her, Vinny Stacatto’s pretty little whore watches me, her expression unreadable.
“No.” I turn to Mack who’s still sporting that cocky-ass grin. It widens, and suddenly the smile is more of a wolf’s snarl than anything remotely human. “You whore her out on the off chance of what? That your ‘associate’ might gather enough balls to take on Vincent Stacatto?”
“I’ll do it.” She makes her voice loud enough to counter mine. The black returns, creeping along the edges of the room, covering Darcy in shadow and swallowing Mack. All I can fucking see is her, those hazel eyes gleaming as she pictures yet another way to screw over her beloved “Vinny.” “I’ll get the information.”
“You’ll spread your legs,” Mack clarifies, just to hammer the point home, but he isn’t satisfied by her blank expression. He’d prefer that she squirm, but she merely stands there, a pitiful excuse for a sacrifice.
“I said no.” For the first time, the protest actually seems to fucking resonate. The girl stiffens and Mack...the bastard practically chuckles with glee.
“Not your call, Dante,” he says. “You’re outnumbered.”
Outnumbered. Vinny’s whore is the deciding vote in her own goddamn fate, and I shouldn’t care. I don’t...
“No,” I spit through clenched teeth. “We find a different way. How the fuck do I know that you won’t have your ‘client’ disappear with her afterward?”
It’s a prospect that even Mack can’t deny with a straight face. I’m sure he’s thought about it. Money and benefit are all he sees when he looks at her—and maybe a hot piece of ass, not that he’d admit as much around Darcy.
I know fuckers like him inside and out. Hell, I am one. A mad dog always plays both sides of the fence.
“Fine,” he concedes, eyes narrowed. “You could send one of Arno’s men with her—”
“No. Him.” Once again, the woman breaks her role by speaking up. She’s suddenly at my shoulder, her scent teasing the air, her hair swishing against her lower back. “He comes with me.” She even points one slender finger in my direction.
I can’t smother a laugh. I’m her guard dog apparently. The convenient mutt that she fucks whenever she needs a fresh dose of pain to reinforce the fact that she’s away from a man she seems to fear more than death itself. The cut on her palm is a leash, and she flexes the wounded hand as if subconsciously giving that tether a little tug. Heel, Dante.
I turn on that fucking heel and head for the door. “Send her alone.” I don’t give a fuck if Mack strings her up for his own gain. I don’t care if she’s fucked on camera by a million sweaty businessmen with bones to pick with Stacatto. Let the little junkie get her fix. She’s high off the danger, apparently, and I was such a fucking fool for thinking that the heroin could even faze her. When revenge was your drug of choice, nothing was more addictive than the steady drip of your own self-destruction.
But she doesn’t like that course of action, and her gasp stops me in my tracks. There’s confusion in that damn sound. Even more amusing, there’s fear in it. For all her bravado, she can’t jump into hell by herself apparently. She needs an escort. She needs me.
“I’m fine with that plan,” Mack says. “We’ll leave now. This guy gets antsy after sundown. Pissing off Stacatto has left him with very few...friends, if you catch my drift.”
Through a window straight ahead I can see that the sky is already gray, the sun sinking below the horizon is a fiery kiss-off. It’ll be a new moon tonight; there’s no sign of it waiting in the wings to take the sun’s place. It’s a perfect setting to pick apart the kingdom of a mob boss. Some sick bastard might even deem it “poetic.”
And Stacatto’s beloved little whore is ready and willing to drive the final nail into his coffin. She even wants me to hold her hand while she does it.
“I’ll take good care of her,” Mack promises and I can sense the smirk he wears without even having to turn and see it for myself. “I’ll even give her another taste of the good stuff to make sure she’s a happy camper.”
I don’t know why I look at her from over my shoulder. Her back is turned to me, her posture perfectly erect. You could balance a book on her head, she’s that stiff. Does it faze her at all that she’s signing her freedom and sanity over to Mack as easily as most people decide what to wear in the morning? There’s no care in it. No finesse. Hell, to a criminal her lack of tact is fucking insulting.
“Wait.” I turn, and in two steps I have a good grip on her shoulder. She can’t fight it when I drag her two steps back, merely to throw her off balance and watch her stagger to regain her poise. “I go with her. We get the information, and then what? You gladly march in and lead an assault on Stacatto’s enclaves?”
Mack reaches up to flick something imaginary from his chin. “Don’t be hasty, Dante,” he says. “All in good time. First things first.”
First things first. I glance at the woman from the corner of my eye. Danny, she said her name was. I’d expected something complicated or foreign in the few seconds I felt bored enough to wonder. Felecia. Anastasia. Dolores.
Danny is too fucking simple. It’s a crown of weeds and thorns for this prissy, stolen queen.
“Fine,” I say. Then I shove her toward the door and leave Mack to follow. “Let’s go.”