"They know the drill," I returned, making my way to the freezer door.
"Ryker's inside with his latest toy. You know how he feels about being interrupted." Matteo laughed. Calix took a step back, avoiding the doorway as I wrenched the door open and stepped into the freezer. The sound of something cutting through the air filled the space, the slight and nearly imperceptible whisper of Ryker's hatchet as it traveled through the space between us. I lifted my hand, catching it by the handle before it could sink into my shoulder. The wooden handle I held in my palm was stained with blood that had soaked into the porous surface over years of use, but fresh blood coated it where Ryker had gripped it to throw it at me.
Ryker grinned at me, his face twisting maniacally as my face split into a matching smile. "You missed," I said.
"One of these days," he said, wiping his hands on a rag and glaring at the blood caked beneath his fingernails. Calix and Matteo strolled into the room, sensing the foolish game, that would only stop when one of us was dead, had ended. Men like Ryker and I needed a bit of senseless violence in our lives.
It had been nearly a week since I'd watched the life bleed from someone's eyes. Considering there were only two ways to make a man like me feel alive, fucking and killing, I desperately needed a fix.
How fortuitous for me that a lovely bloodied meatsack sat in a chair, waiting for Ryker to go back to his torture session. "Who is he?" I asked, stripping off my suit jacket. Folding it neatly, I handed it to Matteo's man lurking in the doorway. "If it crumples, so will you," I warned him. He swallowed, nodding and pushing the freezer door closed to lock the other five of us within it.
"Perhaps you would be liked more here if you didn't threaten the men," Simon barked from the corner. He always kept his distance from me. There again, he'd never been a fan of mine.
"I'm uncertain what gave you the impression I want people to like me," I said back, stretching my lips over my teeth in the bastardization of a smile. He scowled at me, rolling his eyes to the ceiling in a move I'd killed men for in the past. Matteo glared at his bodyguard, one harsh look making the other man straighten his posture and disguise his hatred.
Men took it so personally when you fucked their sister.
"He was one of our dealers until about a month ago. Then he just up and disappeared for a few days," Matteo answered. "Didn't hear a word from him, and we figured he was dead. He said he was visiting his sister, but we've had eyes on her. He was never there, so I'd like to know where he's really been."
"I bet he wishes he was with her now," I chuckled, trailing my eyes over Ryker's handiwork. Missing fingernails, entire sections of skin missing from his chest and stomach. "Are you close with your sister?" I asked him, grabbing his forehead and shoving his face until he stared up into my eyes. Touching Ryker's hatchet to his cheek, I let the sharp blade pierce the skin ever so slightly to punctuate my words.
"No," he wheezed, the tiny glance to his left the only sign that the words were a lie.
"Hmm," I said, playing along for the moment. "What about your wife?" I asked, grabbing his left hand and snapping the ring finger back until it cracked and he yelled out in pain.
"She has nothing to do with this," he rasped.
"I'm not a Bellandi, boy. She's about to have everything to do with this if you don't start singing," I said, smiling at him as I slid the wedding band off his finger and tossed it into the air. "Maybe I'll even wear your wedding ring while I fuck her. I always wondered what it was like to be married," I teased. I was many things—a criminal and a murderer among them—but a rapist I was not. He didn't need to know his wife would beg for more if I paid her a visit.
They always did.
He swallowed, glancing to Matteo to see if the other man would interfere with my threat. He wouldn't, because Matteo knew that there were certain lines I wouldn't cross. I clung to my humanity by a shred, and I wouldn't sacrifice the rest of my soul to the devil by forcing myself on a woman who didn't want me. Not when I never lacked for a willing bed companion. No woman was worth that.
"He said he'd rape her and kill her if I didn't do it," he whispered, glancing to Matteo. "I'm sorry, Boss. I didn't—"
"Do what, Jake?"
"There's a bomb in the cash bag. He has the detonator. He's supposed to monitor Sandro after he picks it up and detonate it when he goes to collect fromIndulgence. Sandro parks the car close enough to do decent damage to the back, and the hope is he'll take out Lino and Enzo in the process," Jake admitted, hanging his head. "That's all I know. Just, please, get my wife out of town before Murphy comes for her." The name Murphy made anger flood my veins. He was a man who wanted nothing more than to take Matteo’s city from him and turn it into a trafficking hub.
"He should leave her to die for your betrayal. If you had come to him in the first place, that's when he could have offered to protect her," I snapped, stepping out of the man's space. There was nothing I detested more than a traitor who turned his back on the organization that gave him a home and put food on his table, when others might have condemned him.
"I'll see that she and your sister get a ticket out of Chicago. That's the best I can do, given the circumstances," Matteo said. He nodded to Ryker, who held out his hand for his hatchet, waiting for me to hand it over so he could deal the killing blow.
I smiled at him instead, swinging the hatchet into Jake's forehead so it lodged directly between his eyes. Blood trickled down the sides of the blade, running over his lips until his head slumped forward and the handle propped him up slightly when it hit his chest. Ryker pouted as Calix chuckled, shaking his head as if it was childish that Ryker and I fought for the right to kill people.
Turning for the door, I tugged it open and accepted my jacket from the man who foisted it on me anxiously. Patting his cheek briefly to thank him for keeping it pristine, I shrugged it on and made my way for the front of the warehouse. "Where are you going?" Matteo asked.
"I think I'll pay my friend Enzo a visit!" I called back as Calix hurried to keep up with me.
The fucking icy wind of winter greeted me the moment we stepped outside.
Why couldn't war come in July?