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When I reached him, he said, “I’ve put him in a room with Kick.”
“Good.”
“Let’s see if I can rattle him.”
Hyde nodded again. “Also, Axe just arrived.”
“Good. Get him in that room with me. Between the two of us, we’ll break this motherfucker if there’s any breaking to be done.”
Kick’s eyes met mine when I entered the room where he waited with the guy. He then turned to Tony’s man who sat across from him and said, “You ever met King? If there’s anything you want to change about your story, I’d do it now before he gets started on you.”
The guy looked between us. The minute his gaze landed on me, he pushed his chair back hastily and stood, moving backwards fast until he hit the wall. Hands raised, he yelled, “Dude, I’m telling the truth!”
I stalked to him, not slowing to give him time to think about strategy or any of that shit. My body language screamed out my mood for anyone to read clearly. If it didn’t convince him I wasn’t fucking around, my next move would.
“You sure about that, asshole?” I asked, pointing my gun at him.
He nodded frantically, gulping for air as he tried to reassure me. “Yes!”
I aimed my gun at his leg and fired. “I don’t fucking believe you!” As the guy screamed his denials while staring with disbelief at his bleeding leg, I barked, “Shut the fuck up and start telling me the truth!”
I yanked him back to the chair and shoved him down in it at the same time my brother joined us.
“I see you started without me,” Axe said, deathly calm and steady as fuck. Axe could have been in the middle of a fucking ambush and he’d still be as calm as this. That’s what years in the military did to a man.
I, on the other hand, was feeling as far from calm and steady as could be. Every fibre of my being blazed with the need for retribution and blood. For all I fucking cared, the guy sitting in this chair would pay for the sins of Ivy’s husband unless he gave me something. I didn’t give a fuck whose blood I got on my hands so long as at the end of all this, I had Tony Romano’s.
Axe and I ignored the shit spewing out of the guy’s mouth while he protested his innocence and bitched about the fact I shot him. We circled him, and as Axe slowly rolled up the sleeves of his white button-down shirt, I said, “You got all fancy for me, Axe. But white? For this?”
He kept his eyes trained on the guy while he answered me. “Had a work thing I had to take care of before coming here. Required something a little better than what I would have preferred to wear for this. Although, you didn’t tell me we’d be doing this today. I may have chosen black if I’d known.”
I jerked my chin at the guy in the chair, who divided his attention between Axe and me, his eyes and body language growing increasingly fearful. Exactly how they should be. “He just turned up here an hour ago, brother. Says he no longer works for Romano and that he has information he wants to give us.” I stopped circling him and slammed my hands down on the table, staring the guy dead in the eyes. “But I’m not fucking buying it. And that’s what you and I are gonna figure out now. Whether the shit coming out of his mouth is worth another bullet or not.”
The guy yelled at me, “I’m not screwing with you, man!”
Axe looked at him. “What’s your name?”
“Brant.” He swung his head around to face Axe. “You’ve gotta believe me. What do you need from me to know I’m not fucking with you? I’ll tell you anything you want!”
Axe considered that for a moment. It was part of his interrogation tactic. Where I went in like a bull-at-a-gate, he never lost control of a situation. It was fucking killing me not to slam this guy back up against the wall and shoot his other fucking leg, but I knew that between us, Axe and I would get the result we needed. I just had to let Axe do his thing and wait my turn, because eventually, it would come. Axe had to get the guy there first, though.
“How long have you worked for Romano, Brant?” Axe asked, moving behind him.
“Seven years.”
“And now you’re turning on him? Seven years is a long stretch of loyalty for you to throw out the window.”
Brant’s face twisted into a scowl. “If you worked for Tony Romano, you’d understand.”
“Ah, but I don’t, so enlighten me. Tell me why you’re betraying him now.” Axe settled his ass on the edge of the table and crossed his arms like he was readying himself to listen to a long story.
“When you first go to work for Tony, he makes you feel like you’re part of his family. He invites you to his home for parties, he gives you expensive gifts, he treats your family like his and looks out for them. It lowers your fucking defences until the day he has you right where he wants you, fully at his mercy. After that, he forces you to do things you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy, and he threatens your family if you don’t do these things.”
Axe stared at Brant like he was bored. “So?”
“So? I’m showing you why anyone would want out of the Romano empire.”
Axe leaned his face close to Brant’s. “No, what you’re describing to me is what other men would consider a picnic in the fucking park, Brant. You’re not showing me anything I don’t already know about working for men like Romano. What I don’t need from you is a fucking sob story about why you want out.” His voice grew deeper, darker. “Tell me why you’d come here and chance King riddling your body with bullets after he gets the rest of his anger out in other ways. Because I’m telling you that if you don’t, you’re going to wish you’d stayed at that fucking picnic you had going with Romano.”
