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But there was a reason I didn’t want the kid to get his hands on everything all at once. The fear of him becoming too powerful, too fast. Thinking back on the sum of Jack’s meager little portfolio, I feel better about the prospect. “It’s yours.”
Romero’s head swings my way. It’s either wisdom or shock that keeps his mouth closed. Not that I need to hear what he’s thinking. This is my call. This is my family. My well-deserved vengeance. “Now. Can we proceed?”
“Be my guest.” He steps aside, wearing a victorious smile, and I move forward into the brightly lit space. Instead of a massacre involving my men and my ex-wife, it’s the sight of a prone Jack Moroni that catches my eye. He’s curled on his side, hands bound behind his back, ankles bound, and a gag in his mouth. Sweat coats his skin and soaks through his suit. The blood spattered on his jacket most likely came from the dead man lying a few feet away. He’s not the only one, either, which explains the metallic tang hanging in the air. I count four dead bodies in all.
“Please… let him go…” The soft, pitiful whimpers catch my attention, drawing my gaze to a girl whose red face is swollen and slick with tears. A pair of men flank her, one hand wrapped around each arm. “Just let us go, please!!” I recognize one of the men as Damien, Sebastian’s brother.
“What do you want us to do with her?” he asks, appearing almost annoyed.
“Shhhh, we'll be leaving as soon as we finish here,” Sebastian assures her in an offhanded way. She flinches before a broken sob tears its way out of her. “Just keep ahold of her while I help our guests out.”
I turn my attention to Jack. He’s the reason I’m here after all. “Hello, Jack,” I murmur, coming to a stop in front of him. “It’s been too long. How’s the family?”
His eyes are bloodshot, making their already icy color stand out in sharp contrast as he glares at me with pure, seething hatred. Good. Let him hate me. Let him reflect on the pain he’s endured so far. I crouch slowly, my gaze locked with his. “There’s something I want you to remember for the rest of your increasingly short life: everything that’s happened to you so far is your doing. You chose to turn this into a war. You hijacked my shipments and attacked my business. You partnered up with Amanda. You kidnapped Bianca and my daughter. You set all of this into motion. There is no one to blame but yourself for what is about to happen.”
I break eye contact only long enough to look over my shoulder at the weeping girl who will soon become a Costello. “You lost your only son as a result, and you were desperate enough to hand your daughter over to a man who double-crossed you. Look at all you’ve lost. All you threw away.”
His face is beet red, and the hatred radiating from his eyes intensifies as I stand. “Get him in a chair. I want him sitting up for this.”
“Dad… no…” The girl tries in vain to fight against her captors, straining and tugging against their grasps.
“Take her out to the car,” Sebastian orders his brother. “I’ll be out when it’s over. No one touches the girl, or I’ll cut off their hands.” The girl’s cries echo through the warehouse as the men drag her out, fading until they go silent when a car door slams outside.
Romero pulls up a wooden chair for Sebastian’s remaining men to haul Jack off the floor and drop him onto it. I circle him slowly, savoring the rapid rise and fall of his shoulders. “How do you feel right now, Jack?” I ponder aloud. “Maybe you feel the way Bianca did when you held her captive. Then again, no. You don’t have a life growing inside you that you’re hoping to protect.”
I blurt out a laugh on coming to a stop in front of him. “You couldn’t even protect the kids you already had. But then it was always about you, right?”
His head snaps to the side when I backhand him. “Every day, I’ve imagined what I would do to you once I had you in this position. I’ve had a lot of time to come up with elaborate scenarios involving jumper cables and waterboarding and… well, it got graphic. In the absence of those props, we’ll have to settle for a good, old-fashioned beating.”
I backhand him again, then tighten my hand into a fist, crashing against his cheekbone. His eyes. His nose. Blood pours from it by the time I’m finished, coating his mouth and chin before dripping onto a shirt that used to be white.
“He’s suffocating,” Romero observes in a flat voice. He might as well be commenting on the weather. “He’ll need to lose the gag unless you want to end this soon.”
No fucking way. I’m just getting started.I yank the gag free, and he gasps, sucking in as much air as he can. “You… made your point… fucker.”
“Not even close.” I bend to free the knife sheathed at my ankle, then hold it up for him to see. “We’re just getting started.”
His chin quivers while he stares at the blade. Let him pretend he’s not out of his mind with terror. “How does it feel, knowing your life is almost over?” I wonder aloud. “The way Dominic knew once that first bullet pierced his chest that it had to be the end. He died on his back, flopping around and gasping for air with nobody around to comfort him in those final moments. Bianca told me all about it. I wish I could’ve seen it for myself.”
“You made your point.” He spits out blood before lifting his split lip in a grotesque snarl. “Kill me. Get it over with.”
“Oh I plan to.” I grin.
He doesn’t scream, not at first, when the blade slices through his pants and sinks inside something soft between his legs. It takes a moment for his brain to catch up to the sensation, but once it does, a shriek unlike anything I’ve ever heard fills the warehouse, the echoes overlapping until I’m surrounded by the sweet symphony of Jack Moroni’s agony. The dark-red spot that quickly spreads across his crotch and down his thighs heightens my pleasure until I can’t help but sink the knife in again. When I back away, his blood drips from the chair and begins to pool beneath it.
His voice is nothing more than a weak croak once his screams die off. “Just… end it…” he sobs, his head hanging, the sweat that drips from his hair mixing with his blood.
I take a handful of that hair in my hand and yank his head back until we’re eye to eye. “Oh no,” I whisper, beaming down at his anguished face before dragging the bloody blade along his cheek. “You’re going to suffer until you bleed out. This is nowhere near over.”
For Bianca. For Tatum. For my baby.
“I’m going to teach you the meaning of pain and regret before you die,” I promise, savoring his agonized sob before making my next slice.
I won’t stop until he’s unrecognizable, until he’s dead at my feet.
BIANCA
Idon’t know what stirs me awake. There’s no loud sound, like a gunshot. There’s nothing but the beating of my heart, racing now that something startled me.
