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Even though we hadn’t been able to see what happened in Kasen’s office, being carried out the way that she’d been,she could only have been drugged or knocked out, and both possibilities needed medical attention. Plus, as much as I hated to think about it, I had no idea what was being done to her at the farmhouse. It was a sickening feeling, but everyone knew what the go-to for breaking a woman was. While it wouldn’t make a difference to me in how I saw and felt about her, rape changed a woman, and how could it not? I had no idea if my wife would ever let me touch her again, and even if they hadn’t touched her in that way, did I even deserve to? The thought of never being able to touch Kasen again was almost crippling. However, it wasn’t worse than the idea of needing to touch another woman to satisfy myself if my wife never came around.
“Fuck!”
No one moved as the lampslammed up against the wall, the entire thing shattering into a million pieces everywhere. The end table was next, and it wasn’t until Aurelio was yanking another lamp out of my hand that he ordered me to go have another cigarette, though he’d said it low enough for my ears only. After all, while he was the only other person in the room that knew how I truly felt about my wife, he still knew his place in public.
I listened, though I knew that having a cigarette wasn’t going to do shit.
Chapter 28
Kasen~
Iwas standing on the sagging porch of the deserted farmhouse, and the only positive thing that I could say at this point was that the guard-didn’t know his name-had been kind enough to hold onto the arm that hadn’t been shot.
Small favors.
When Emil Schulzhad walked back into the farmhouse to call Nero, leaving the call on speaker again, he had agreed to the exchange, warning Nero that it’d better only be the two soldiers driving up to the address. After Nero had casually agreed, Emil had ordered the three guys inside to get rid of the two dead bodies, directing them to leave the corpses out in the woods for the animals. It hadn’t been until I’d been escorted outside that I could see just how remote the farmhouse was. I imagined that they probably used this place a lot for this kind of thing.
I’d also been surprised at how many men with guns were here. Of course, they’d been expecting the Sartori Underboss to show up, so I could see how they might have felt the need for so many guns, but still. Close to twenty guys just for Nero Sartori?
“There they come,” the guard uttered as a pair of headlights cut through the night. While there was a dim porch light adding a soft glow, it wasn’t much to put a real dentin all the darkness around us. If a serial killer needed a place to take his victims, this place would definitely be ideal.
As the car came to a stop,I could feel my heart start beating faster in my chest. I wasn’t sure if it was nervousness or anger that was causing it, but it was beating hard enough for everyone to hear if they tried. As far as I was concerned, I wasn’t safe until I was miles away from this goddamn place and not a minute sooner. The place was littered with armed men, most of them angry that their plan had failed.
When I saw the car doors open, the guy on the left walked to the backseat, then opened the door, yanking a very alive Ryan Buckner out of the car. Even from a distance, I could see what a blubbering mess he was. Granted, he’d just been delivered to his death, but still. Ryan had no one to blame but himself for this mess, and in all honesty, he’d already been a dead man the minute that he’d decided to borrow money from these people.
Once it was clear that no one else had come, Emil Schulz came out from inside the farmhouse, and nothing was worse than a coward, really. He’d been so tough just a few hours ago, but now he was just another bitch trying to overcompensate for his spinelessness.
“We’ll let her go-”
“No,” the guy not holding Ryan called back, interrupting Emil’s instructions.“We get her first.”
“We trade them at the same time,” Emil insisted.
The guy shook his head. “We have our orders, and if you think that we’re going to risk our lives for disobeying them, you’re wrong.”
“Kasen, I’m sorry!” Ryan cried out, and that’s when Irealized that my heart was beating erratically in anger, not nervousness.
Looking at Ryan now, it was hard to believe that I had actually considered him a friendonce. I had actually looked back on our brief fling with fondness whenever I’d thought about it. I could remember all our late nights working, the laughs, the rants, the stress…all of it. I could even remember the hot sex, even though it’d been so long ago. We’d been somewhere between friends and a little more, and he had sold me out to settle a gambling debt.
Yeah, I was angry.
“No hard feelings, yeah?” Emil Schulz said as he looked back over at me. “After all, it was just business,mein schatz.”
The sad thing was that he wasn’t lying. It was always ‘just business’ when it came to the Mafia. It wasalways about the bottom line, and if they couldn’t profit from something, then they had no use for it. Ryan owed Emil money, and when he had presented his stupid plan to Franz, greed had prevented Franz from seeing all the flaws in Ryan’s plan. All these men had overestimated my importance, and now they were all going to pay for it. Regardless of how disposable I was, there was no way that Nero, Elio, and Marco Sartori were going to let this slight go unpunished.
“No hard feelings,” I repeated, finding that I actually meant it. Everyone had choices, and all Emil had done was try to capitalize on an opportunity that had been presented to him.
Turning back to the Sartori soldiers, Emil said, “Let’s get this over with, then. Send him over as soon as she’s safely in the car, all nice and civil.”
As soon as the guard let go of my arm, I stepped off the porch, and clutching my blouse closed, I walked in between thetwo rows of armed men, getting angrier and angrier by the second. Yeah, everyone had choices, and I had chosen to marry Nero when Papa had given me the choice not to. Nevertheless, that didn’t take away from how angry I was feeling with each step.
In this life, it didn’t matter if Nero never loved me.In this life, it didn’t matter if he was unfaithful to me. In this life, it didn’t even matter if he fathered children that weren’t mine. The only thing that Nero Sartori was supposed to have done was keep me safe, and he hadn’t. He hadn’t because he hadn’t been prepared for me; he hadn’t been prepared for a wife with a demanding career. I had also underestimated what being a Mafia wifetrulymeant. Even though I had grown up in this world, for almost fifteen years, I’d been allowed to do whatever I’d wanted, and I had naïvely believed that I could continue to do so.
So, yeah, I was angry.
I was angry at everyone, including myself.
“Kasen,you have to believe me,” Ryan sobbed as soon as I was standing in front of him, and that was all it took for me to lose my goddamn mind.
