Page 109 of Brutal Vows

No warning. The rod lands on my chest. Skin sizzles. Steams. Smokes.

I whimper as sweat breaks out in pinpricks all over my body. The intense pain of the burn filters through the layers of skin, and I close my eyes.

Dominic. Dominic. Dominic.

My brother. Went through this.

Survived.

Again and again and again.

As a fucking kid.

To protect us. To stop the Don from doing worse to us.

Somehow, this truth makes me grind my teeth just long enough to hold out. The rod pulls away, and I throw my head back, sweat and tears running down my temples as I strain to slowly exhale, willing myself not to whine.

When I tune back into the room, dizzy with pain, I meet Masha’s gaze. The scent of burnt flesh hangs in the air, right underneath my fucking nose. Her good eye stares at me, blank and lifeless. She’s reliving her own trauma. Jesus.

“Who are you looking for?” I try again. “This Italian?”

“Fuck the Italian. You here. You talk about you. Masha. This Lana woman. The baby.”

My gut twists. They can’t even think of Milana. I need to distract them with Franco Fiore.

“You know,” I start, watching him with a nervous twitch of my fingers as he heads back to the fireplace to shove the iron back into the coals. “There was a killing in Sicily months ago. Famous Mafioso. Name is Randazzo.”

The name hangs in the room like a curse. The men share a look.

Bingo.

“Randazzo is your man?” I push, wanting to buy time before the return of the poker, or whatever comes next.

The man picks up the knife again. Jesus. This needs to end.

Milana. Princess. I don’t want to beg out loud, but now would be a good time to do some target practice.

“What you know about Randazzo?”

The way the name rolls off his tongue tells me it isn’t the first time he’s heard it—or said it. These guys are goons, but they might be deeper into Chertnikov’s layers of trust than I, at first glance, gave them credit for.

“Big Mafioso. Drugs. Human trafficking. Sex, prostitutes, girls, boys, whatever you want. I mean, I’ve come across some shit doing porn. Now he’s dead and Italy is a shit show. He was murdered. Not sure who killed him, but he had no heir, nobody to take over his operations. They’re fighting for control.” His son is my half-brother, and so on and so on.

“You knew this Randazzo? In Italy?”

“No,” I say, still trying to keep my head while enduring the searing pain on my chest.

“You sure?” The man steps closer, the knife hanging like an idle threat from his hand. “Tell truth. No more pain.”

Uh, yeah. About that. We’re dead meat, and when you’re butchered by his type, pain is the name of the game.

“I never met him. Recluse. You know? Man who lives in fear. Never goes out. Never shows his face.” Fuck my life. Now I’m even mimicking his way of talking, keeping it simple, straightforward.

He leans in, menacingly, nods to his buddy to step up to the table. He goes to stand on the other side, and with one flick of the blade, he cuts through the zip tie on my one wrist.

I don’t smirk, but this is a good thing. Except now, he has my arm in a vise grip, forcing it flat on the table, clamping down as his friend puts both hands on my arm, leaning in with what feels like his full body weight.

My gaze swoops around, wild. Fuck, if there’s an axe, I’m done for.