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I look away.
“It’s too late to pay him off. Just put a bullet in his head; the bears will have his body by morning.”
With a lazy smirk, Gabe leans back and lights up another cigarette. “Not done with him.”
“What the fuck do you need me for, then?” We stare at each other, the rock music bouncing off the walls and pounding in my ears. “Turn that shit off,” I snap. “Can’t hear myself think.”
Gabe kicks the subwoofer at his feet, and the din crackles to a stop. “That’s your problem. You think.”
I ignore his usual jibe about me sitting behind a desk for forty-percent of my day, and sweep a hand over the cave. “Why here?”
With a grunt, Gabe tucks the cigarette into the crook of his mouth and moves toward his captive. I don’t know how long he’s been at my brother’s mercy, but judging by the limp hang of his head and the amount of blood on my brother’s torso, it won’t be much longer.
He flinches when Gabe’s body casts a black shadow over his shoulders, but he doesn’t have the energy to do much else. That changes when Gabe yanks his head back, pulls the cigarette from his lips, and sticks it into the man’s eye. Suddenly, he musters up the energy to fill the cave with a deafening scream.
My brother’s crazed gaze comes to mine. “I like the acoustics.”
Christ.
I’ve never wondered where he gets his darkness from; it runs through all three of us like an extra strand of DNA. No, I’ve only wondered why it is that I conceal the sadism. Angelo tried to run from it, but Gabe decided a few years ago he’d dive head first into his, as if desperate to find out what’s at the bottom.
“Who is he?”
“One of us.”
I frown. “A made man?”
“A Visconti. One of our distant cousins from Sicily. Dante shipped over a boatload of them to help him out.”
I run my tongue over my teeth, annoyance flaring inside of me. “You’re not sticking to the plan, Gabe. We said subtle. This doesn’t feel like a chess move.”
His face is expressionless as he stares into the fire. “Chess bores me, and bad things happen when I’m bored.”
I let out a sardonic huff. With my mind drifting out of the cave and up to Penelope in the car, I smooth a hand down my shirt and cut to the point. “I thought you needed help. Did you only bring me down here for a family reunion?”
“No, for some relief.”
“What?”
He nods to the back of the man’s head. “Your perfect life has gone to shit. Knock yourself out.”
We look at each other over angry flames and a sweat-drenched forehead as realization fills me.
“You’re serious.”
He only stares back.
Amusement and disbelief tilt the corners of my lips; I wipe both off with my palm. “You’re deranged, but you already knew that.” When he doesn’t reply, I hold up my hands, flaunting my unblemished knuckles; the only part of my facade I can’t peel off at the end of the day. “Not really my thing, brother.”
He nods. “I haven’t forgotten, pretty boy.” His footsteps echo off the craggy ceiling as he crosses over to the chest, yanks a key from the back pocket of his jeans, and cracks it open.
Torn between disgust and morbid fascination, I walk over and assess the rows of tools. At first glance, it appears to be a pretty standard torture kit, but when I pick things up to feel the weight of them in my palm, I notice…modifications.
Axes with three blades. Nunchucks wrapped in electrical wire. With a small shake of my head, I look up at my brother. “Really?”
He doesn’t respond.
I run my finger over the blade of the meat cleaver. Its handle has been removed and replaced by the body of an electrical screwdriver. As my mind works to piece together the mechanics of it, something sour and venomous seeps out from underneath the disbelief, rising to the surface of my skin and settling there.
