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The GPS chirps that we’re two minutes away, and Ari pulls up just short of a dingy little house that looks like it’s been used as some kind of meth den by the locals. There’s a busted-ass car in the rocky driveway and several piles of tires around the house, and everything is either cracked or rusted. It’s a little too familiar for my liking—giving me flashbacks to the day my father asked me to join him here in the States and help him run his business.
I was Romano’s drug lackey for two and a half years before shit hit the fan—before my father skimmed off the top and pissed him off. Before I was pinned down and forced to pay my father’s pound of flesh for him.
I remember the look of fear on my old man’s face—not because it was his son being tortured, but because he knew that if he fucked up again, Romano would turn on him next. I was a warning—a cautionary tale.
My father fled after that—after they left me for dead. The only thing I regretted was trusting my father when he promised that he could give me a better life here. But I can’t regret losing where it landed me, in the end. Not when it gave me everything I have now.
A part of me wonders if that’s why Romano hates Kane so fucking much. Romano has to work for every scrap of loyalty he has. Kane simply has to exist, and people are willing to throw themselves at his feet.
Including me.
I snap out of my thoughts as Ari shuts off the car, and then I toss him the kit so he can prepare the syringes. I pull my gun from my holster and make sure the safety’s off and that it’s loaded, then shrug off my jacket and run my fingers down my leg to make sure my knives are in place.
By the time I’m satisfied, Ari’s holding out one of the capped syringes, and I stick it between my teeth before opening the car door. The gravel beneath my boots crunches loudly, but I honestly don’t mind. I hope the fucker inside can hear us. I hope he’s shitting his pants because they all know that when we take their men behind our compound walls, they don’t ever leave alive.
Catching Ari’s gaze, I nod at him, and he jerks his chin toward the house.
He leads the way to the front door, and he doesn’t bother trying to be stealthy as he kicks it in. It falls to the floor with a massive boom, and we follow the scream to the back room. The guy we’re after is young—maybe early twenties, if that. He’s wide-eyed and shaking, and I’m pretty sure there’s a piss stain on the front of his grey boxers. He’s mostly naked, and so is she, and both of them have thick, bruised track marks on their arms.
Fucking brilliant. Phoenix sent us after a junkie.
“Look, I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” the guy starts babbling. “Anything. And you can have her. You can do whatever you want to her. Just…”
I’ve had enough. I walk forward and knock the screaming woman to her back with my knee, then uncap the syringe with my teeth before shoving it into her neck. I have no idea what dose Ari loaded it with, but I don’t care. She fades almost immediately, and I turn my attention back to the man, who’s on his knees, begging.
Ari’s just staring at him, making him squirm.
“Just tell me what you want, man. Please,” the guy’s saying.
I almost laugh. They always, always beg Ari to speak to them. It’s a wonder they don’t all know what those scars on his throat mean. After drawing it out, and the more pungent the smell of piss becomes, Ari finally gets bored and takes out his gun, clocking the guy on the back of the head.
He goes down but not out, so Ari hits him two more times before I hiss through my teeth, “He needs to be capable of speaking.”
With a scoff, Ari kneels down and shoves the needle into the guy’s arm and loads him full of drugs. It gives me a sudden and almost vicious reminder of when we took Alice. We were kinder, I suppose, though she was terrified. Not scared enough to piss her pants, but probably close.
This guy’s nothing but a rat, though. He’s probably some third cousin sent over by the family because they think Romano will take care of his own. A part of me hopes that Kane plans to send the truth about their prodigal son once this is all over.
I want the shame of who Guido Romano is and what he’s done to seep through every single one of their veins.
Together, Ari and I managed to heave the guy into the back seat of the car, and I try not to think about how pissed Kane is going to be because the fucker immediately stinks it up. I rummage through the trunk and eventually find a tarp, wrapping him tight enough that if he pisses again, it won’t get on the seats.
Once I’m satisfied, I head back for the car, but Ari’s waiting for me, and he grabs me by the belt loop, laying a furious kiss on my lips. The kiss is needy and too soft because he wants me to be mean.
I flick his teeth with the barbell in my tongue, and then I bite his lip until I taste blood. “Get in the car and fucking drive.”
He shudders, then walks around the door and gets in. As we head back out to the open road, and after I let Phoenix know we’re coming home, he curls his hand around my stump and holds it. The touch is grounding, and all it does is remind me that once this is finished, we can get back to normal.
Whatever that’s going to look like now.
Chapter3
ARIEL
There’snothing like the feeling of blood under my nails or the echo of someone’s screams in my ears. They don’t make the tightness under my skin go away, but it does sate the feeling of restlessness for the moment. Of course, right now, all that matters is getting information about Kane and where he is, and this weedy, spineless little coward knew almost nothing.
Of course, the evening wasn’t totally pointless. We got another name out of him, and I got to carve him up, which allowed me to breathe a little easier.
The scent of copper is thick in my nose, and as I leave his slumped, lifeless body in the chair, I have the sudden urge to head into Alice’s room and roll around on her sheets, soiling everything she’s touched. I want her to see this—the raw, ugly, cruel truth of who and what we are. I want her to know who she sold herself to. I want to see the look of disgust on her face so I can remember it in softer moments.
