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“Whatever Tony Gagliardi offered you, I can offer more,” I tell him, my words unsteady. “I’ll double it.Tripleit.”
He lets out a delighted cackle. “Gagliardi? You thinkGagliardiis behind this? Who gives a shit about him? I sent him to jail. Why would I be working for the guy whose job I’m about to take?”
I can feel my heart rate getting faster as the scalpel slides down to my neck. “What did you do with Ava?”
He cackles again. “Ava? I didn’t do anything with her. Sal took care of that.”
I mouth wordlessly, my brain trying to process.“Sal?”
“Yes, dumbass, your dear old Uncle Sal. AKA, the obvious person who would have taken over for your grandfather if you didn’t screw him over by butting in. Did you really think all your captains were just going to lay down and let an outsider take the top job?”
Gio drags the scalpel down to my chest and cuts a long, thin line down my right pec. It fucking stings, even though I know the wound is superficial. I growl, trying not to let my pain show.
“So why are you involving Ava in this? Let her go, and I’ll cooperate with you.”
He shrugs. “Sal thought she might make good leverage. Apparently, you’ve been a hard man to kill. Honestly, I’m beginning to think your old boy Sal might be a bit of a fuckup. You know he was supposed to get you and Nazzaro out of the way before you evenmarried Ava? Instead, he only finished half the job. Couldn’t get you with the car bomb, and then he fucks it up again today. Our partnership is purely one of convenience, I assure you.”
I wince as he brings the scalpel to my face again, and he smiles. Then he turns around and goes to his wall of blades, making a show of picking his next one.
“This would be fun, wouldn’t it?” he asks, pointing a hacksaw at me. “But that’s for later. That’s for getting big old you into much smaller pieces.”
I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of an answer. My mind is racing, searching for some method of escape.
It’s not coming up with much.
Gio returns holding a Bowie knife. “Maybe I’ll ask Sal to turn Ava over to me when he and his boys are done with her. She’ll be more fun than Dominic Garcetti, that’s for sure.” He pauses, enjoying my reaction. “I think when I get my hands on Mr. Garcetti, I’m going to feed him to the piranhas. That would be fitting, wouldn’t it? But not you. No, I have special plans for all your bits and pieces. I’m going to encase your skull in resin, isn’t that cool? It’ll be a great centerpiece.”
I’m unable to contain my grunt of pain as he cuts my chest with the Bowie knife, right underneath the other cut.
“It’s so interesting how different knives cut differently, isn’t it?” Gio asks me conversationally, examining his handiwork. “The cut with the scalpel is so much cleaner.”
He shrugs his shoulders, then drops his blade as though it’s a microphone. “Okay, fuck it. I want to try the hacksaw.”
My eyes jump immediately to the knife as it clatters to the ground. He looks amused by my reaction. “Oh, you want this? You think it will help you get out of your little predicament?”
Gio’s eyes flash cruelly. He walks behind the big cross-thing I’m tied to, and to my surprise, he loosens my hands. They fall to my sides, aching.
“Go on,” he sneers. “Do your worst.”
He turns his back and walks lazily to the other side of the room to retrieve his hacksaw. I’m still bound tightly by my ankles and my waist, but I use all of my energy to bend over, trying to grab the Bowie knife.
Gio looks back and sees me just as I manage to wrap my fingers around it. His eyes narrow and he grins. He moves closer to me and stands just out of range as I swipe at him with the weapon, unable to reach.
“Oh, poor, poor you. If only your arms were just alittlebit longer.”
I growl, almost losing my grip on the knife in my effort to stab him with it.
“Okay, okay, you’ve had your fun. Let me get my taser so I can get that knife from you nice and safe, and then we’ll play with the hacksaw the way we’ve both been looking forward to.”
He walks back to his weapon wall and gets a yellow taser, the kind you shoot at someone from a distance. In his other hand, the hacksaw. Doing the only thing I can think of, I try to pass the Bowie knife to my other hand and flip it around so I can hold it by the blade.
My fingers slip. I grasp for it. For that moment that the knife is beyond my grip, it’s like everything slows down. If I don’t catch it, this is all over.
I won’t see Ava again.
And then my fingers close around the blade, the way I’ve practiced so many times with knives designed for throwing. Gio the Butcher spins around. Our eyes meet, and he aims the taser at me.
As he squeezes the trigger, I hurl the knife with every bit of strength and focus that I have. The barbs stick into my chest, shooting electricity through me, and I scream as my body convulses.
