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In sum, we can hurt him, but not too much. It’s the most Beefer can give and I appreciate it.
“Let me at him, boss,” growls one of Cesaro’s men. I don’t know his name, but he’ll be wearing that scar along his cheek for a long time.
Cesaro shakes his head and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “You know how good Beefer is at his job, don’t you?”
“He’s the best,” I agree. It’s going to be a long and torturous night, but these wounds will all heal. I settle into the chair and ready myself. As long as my girl is safe, there isn’t anything that these guys can do down here that will break me.
“The best? We’ll see about that. Let’s begin.”
Beefer starts small, smashing the pinkie on my left hand with a hammer. I release a long hiss of pain and break out into a sweat.
“I don’t get you.” Cesaro dips his head close to mine. He’s lucky I don’t bite his nose off. “One night is all I want. One night and everyone goes home happy.”
Like Camella? Like the other girls who work for the organization who nearly piss themselves in fear when they hear Cesaro’s in town? I’ll never let him touch Bit. “She’s not for sale.”
“You’re a dumb motherfucker,” Beefer mutters under his breath. “There’s no point. He’s going to have her anyway.”
I stare steadily at both of them. Cesaro gives the signal to continue, and Beefer, with a little smirk on his lips, smashes the knuckle on the next finger. These fingers are going to be totally unusable when they heal up. He’ll have to switch to the other side soon.
Usually, Beefer’s calculated and businesslike, but tonight there’s an anger in the way he’s carrying out his task. It’s resentment, I conclude. He didn’t fight for Camella and he doesn’t like seeing me fight. The outcome has to be the same for Bitsy as it was for his daughter or he won’t be able to live with himself.
Cesaro pokes the mess of bones and blood. I nearly pass out from the pain. “I can’t believe you’re sacrificing yourself for some snatch, but your loyalty to her intrigues me. She must be dynamite in the sack. Is it how she sucks dick? Is her pussy laced with ecstasy? I want her even more now.” He sticks out his tongue and runs it across the bottom of his lip. “I bet she tastes juicy.”
I explode, the force of my anger ripping through the bindings on one arm. Cesaro jumps back, but not before I catch the front of his shirt in my hand. I drag him forward. “Don’t fucking talk about her that way,” I growl through clenched teeth.
He claws at my hand as I tighten the fabric in my fist, cutting off his air supply. It takes all four of Cesaro’s men and Beefer to drag me back and tuck Cesaro out of reach. He jerks out of the grip of his men, dusts his hands against his pants as if a prisoner didn’t just almost choke the life out of him. “Cut off his hand,” he orders.
Beefer balks. He’s resentful but not stupid. “He’s not going to be of much use to us if we do that.”
“I don’t care,” Cesaro explodes. He’s losing it. Spittle forms at the corners of his mouth.
“Why don’t you do two of his fingers?” Sterno suggests. “She’s a young girl and an old deformed man isn’t going to appeal to her much.”
“Start with his fingers,” Cesaro orders, pretending that Sterno never suggested that exact thing. “We’ll see how much the girl likes him after that.”
“I’m sorry, kid,” Beefer says as he takes out a blade familiar as my own hand. “At least let him choose,” he asks. “Cuz of all the years of loyalty.”
This is a poor sort of mercy, but I’ll take it. “The pinkie,” I tell him. “Who needs five fingers anyway?”
They laugh like I’m a comedian at Madison Square. I nearly bite through my tongue not to make a sound as Beefer saws off the top of my digit. That pisses Cesaro off too—my continued silence.
He picks up a board and slams it against my side. I feel my ribcage cave in. The cracking echoes in my ears. He slams it again and I want to scream because the pain is excruciating.
But Bit’s upstairs. She could hear me.
40
Bitsy
I strain my ears for any sound from Leka, but the basement is silent as a tomb. Chilled, I pull my heavy puffer coat tighter around me. It was all I was allowed to grab when the men broke down our door and dragged the two of us out of the hotel.
It took only one man to subdue Leka. The tall, scarecrow-shaped man named Sterno held a gun to my head and ordered Leka out of the room.
