“Sir! Please!”
“Ooh. That seems painful.”
Luca had that look in his eyes. The one that said he was feeling a little more sadistic than usual. The one that said he would not take mercy on me. Clucking his tongue, he kissed my salty lips. “C’mon, baby boy. Let’s get you in the bath and cleaned up. That should help you calm down.”
Ugh. I’d known that was coming. “You’re evil, Sir.”
Luca only laughed. “Yeah, sometimes. But you love it.”
I really fucking did.
CHAPTER 15
SKYE
I tookin the guy tied to the chair. He had seen better days, that was for sure. He sat slumped, watching Luca and me from his one good eye, the other nearly swollen shut. His mousy brown hair was matted to his head, and dried blood covered his lower lip. He was wearing black cargo pants and a long-sleeved black shirt with a tear in the shoulder.
There was an air about him that screamed professional. He was quiet and alert. He wasn’t begging or screaming or pleading with us for his life. In fact, the guards Leo had had on him all night had reported that he had never said a word to them. He seemed resigned to his fate but not scared, like somewhere deep down he understood that this was always where he’d end up.
Neither Luca nor I had said anything since we’d walked in. We were waiting to see if he’d break first. Luca leaned against the wall near the door. He looked like he wasn’t paying attention as he scrolled his phone, but he didn’t miss a thing.
I sat in a plastic chair directly in front of our captive, posture casual and relaxed, and waited.
Finally, he sighed. “Listen, I know how this goes. Someone was going to end up dead before this job was up, and it looks likethis time, it’s me.” He tried to shrug, but with the way his arms were tied behind his back, he couldn’t and ended up grimacing.
“Does that mean you’ll talk?” I tried not to sound disappointed. I was looking forward to a little light torture.
“Yeah. There’s not really any reason not to. It’s not like we owe those assholes anything. This was just a paycheck. Nothing personal.”
“We?” Luca asked, walking toward me.
“My brother and I.” I didn’t look at Luca, but I noticed the way his body stiffened a fraction. There weren’t many brother teams of hitmen for hire, so it drastically cut our list of who this guy was down.
“You’re hitmen?” I clarified.
“You could call us that.”
“And your brother. He was the one who killed Ramirez?”
He gave a short nod. “Yeah. The job was supposed to be fucking easy. Take out the old man and grab the kid. That’s it.Youweren’t part of the picture at all. Fucking assholes.”
Luca clicked his tongue, considering. “That was why your brother backed off after killing Ramirez and didn’t go after the boy right away.”
“Mm-hmm. Our instructions did not cover fucking professionals. I told Andre to wait till we renegotiated. But the fucker always was too impatient and ended up taking a shot at y’all.” He laughed humorlessly. “See where that got us?” Andre. So, that meant this was Sven. Everyone knew about Sven and Andre. They were willing to do jobs most weren’t. Willing to get their hands dirty. They were high up on the FBI’s most wanted list, and the only reason they’d never gotten caught was because no one knew what they looked like. At least till now. As far as I was aware, we were the first targets of theirs to ever survive.
“Who hired you?”
He scoffed. “You do know how this shit works, right? I didn’t meet the person or even speak to them. Everything was done electronically.”
I kicked at his foot, earning a glare. “Oh, c’mon, Sven.” His eyes widened in surprise before he schooled himself. He hadn’t realized he’d said Andre’s name, giving him away. “You may not have confirmation, but you must have your suspicions.”
“Yeah, but in this case, it could’ve fucking been anyone. Do you know the price on that kid’s head? There are more people who want him dead than don’t.”
“But you said you were hired to grab him. So whoever paid you didn’t want him dead,” I reminded.
“Yeah. Guess there’s someone out there that still thinks his skills are valuable enough to keep him alive. Honestly, I have no fucking idea, and I don’t care. There was no name on any of the contacts, and the money was wired from an offshore account. I’m sure if you cared enough, you could try and trace it. I only cared that it cleared.” That tracked from what we knew about the brothers. As long as the money was good, they’d take the job. “I wasn’t even supposed to get involved,” Sven added, “but then Andre fucked up and our contract changed.”
“That’s why you were following us?”
