“Fuck, Dante. Not too deep.” Cole’s voice was tinged with concern. I wasn’t sure if it was for me or worry about what killing me might do to his friend. I wanted to put him at ease. Dante knew what he was doing. The cuts bled, but they were superficial. I doubted they would even leave a scar. I could handle what he was giving me. More even if I really wanted to.
Looking over at him, I let my eyes and face soften a little. I tried to convey to him silently that I was alright. Now wasn’t the time to try and talk to him about his worry for me.
“She’s fine. She’s already covered in scars. How did you get those? Self-harm? Truly into knife play like you say?” Jealousy warped Dante’s words at the end of his questions. He didn’t like the thought of anyone other than him making me feel pleasure at the tip of their knife.
“Neither. Training.”
“Training?” Cole asked as he moved closer to me.
“You don’t think I was able to dispatch your men the way I did out of sheer luck, did you?” I wasn’t sure how I felt by the astonishment on all three of their faces. They’d seen me fight before. I know they saw at least Marcus’ after I was done with him. It was a little insulting that they thought I wasn’t trained.
A hiss slipped between my teeth as Dante’s blade cut across the skin of my chest right above the gauze wrapped around my torso. My blood soaking into the white material staining it red. As if he couldn’t help himself, Dante dipped the tips of his fingers into the red liquid that was rolling down my chest. He kept silent, his eyes mesmerized by the blood he was painting my chest in. It might be sick as fuck, but I liked knowing there was something about me that could hold my cold little psychopaths attention.
“Dante baby, you can play as long as you like, but if you fuck up my tattoos, I’ll beat the shit out of you,” I told him on a whisper. I didn’t want him to stop what he was doing, but I thought it was the best course of action to remind him that I was an actual person he was playing with.
His eyes snapped up to mine, and I could see the shock in them. He had realized what he was doing until I interrupted him. I let him see every ounce of desire I had for him in hopes that he wouldn’t stop. He snatched his hand away from the cut and straightened into a standing position.
I should’ve kept my fucking mouth shut. One day I’ll learn.
“Why would you be cut up like that during training?” The look on Nico’s face was appalled by that thought.
“When you’re ten years old and don’t know how to use a blade you get cut. It’s the fastest way to teach someone. It’s called pain by association. I learned really fast that if I didn’t want to feel the bite of the knife then I needed to learn to block.”
There were a lot of things that I didn’t share with anyone. Not even Jasper. He was my best friend, but I couldn’t ever bring myself to tell him everything that happened during the early days of my training. By the time Jasper came into my life I already knew how to handle myself against the people my uncle Tony put me up against. When he asked about the scars, I told him I missed a block and left it at that. He knew when he could push for answers and when he couldn’t.
He didn’t push for more answers there.
I wasn’t sure why I was telling the Valentino boys where my scars came from. There were so many things I wasn’t willing to tell them. Why I was coming after Gio, or how I planned for this all to end. But here I was telling them some of the dark parts of my life. Parts that I didn’t like to look too closely at.
All three of them stopped moving as I told them that I’d basically been mutilated at a young age by indifference and nonchalance. I didn’t want their pity or their concern. Now that I’d told them I was regretting it.
“Why were you training like that so young?” The question came from Dante in that deadly quiet voice he had. The one that generally made everyone around him piss their pants. The same voice that made my pussy clench and weep at the same time.
“There were goals I’d set for myself that I wouldn’t be able to accomplish if I continued to be the same little girl that was unable to do anything other than color inside the lines. I had to make sure there wouldn’t be anything I couldn’t come up against and beat.”
“That leads us back to the original question. What is your end goal here? No one comes into our territory and fucks with us. You had to know we would eventually find out about you. If you thought my father was going to take it easy on you because you’re a woman, then you’re thinking wrong. My father is going to look at you as the murderer you are and then order your death.” Nico’s anger was getting the better of him again. His chest rose and fell with his exaggerated breathing. His fists clenched and opened repeatedly at his sides. With every word he spoke he moved closer to me.
“I have no doubt that Gio will be putting a bullet through my brain for what I’ve done. I wouldn’t expect anything less. In fact, he’ll probably have you do it.” The thought of Nico being the person to put me down caused a spark of sadness to flare in my heart.
When all this started, I’d entertained the thought of getting to Gio by killing Nico. It hadn’t taken me long to decide that wasn’t the course of action I wanted to take. He might be the heir to the Valentino crime family. His father might be training him to take over the syndicate one day, but he wasn’t an evil person. He was a young man that had a future in front of him. A future that he could make into anything he wanted. Of course, the chance that he would choose something to do with his life away from his family’s business was a long shot.
“What have you been after, little fighter? What was so important that you would risk your life?” Cole questioned as he stood before me. Concern and a little bit of fear contorted the gorgeous plains of his face.
I wasn’t comfortable telling my reasons for wanting Gio dead at my feet, but I could tell them why I’d been going after his men lately. For months I’d been after answers to one specific question. Who better to ask than Nico and his boys?
“I’ve been after the time and date of when the next shipment of kidnapped girls was coming in.” All the warm and fuzzies I’d been feeling towards them evaporated the moment I thought of those girls. Girls whose lives were stripped away from them. The more I thought about that shipment the more enraged I became at what Gio and his organization was responsible for.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You father has his fingers wrist deep in the human trafficking pie. He’s been taking girls off the streets and selling them to the highest bidder. I’ve been after the information needed to intercept the shipment and get the girls to safety.”
The look of confusion on Nico’s face made my stomach twist with apprehension. He was a part of almost every part of his family’s business. He would know about the girls. The fact that he was looking at me as if I’d lost my mind wasn’t giving me much hope that I was going to get the information I’d been killing for all these months.
“I don't know what you’re talking about. My family is into a lot of things, but human trafficking isn’t something we deal in.”
“You were at the docks waiting for the shipment of girls to come in.” That was the only reason I’d been on that cargo ship for him to shoot and then capture me.
“We were at the docks waiting for the person who was watching us and had been killing off our men. There was no shipment of anything coming into that dock. We were waiting for you.”