I snorted, thinking about what an idiot he could be sometimes. “Smart shit? It’s idioms, Vico.”
“I don’t give a fuck what it is. It’s stupid.”
I scoffed at him, trying to ignore the fact that my little brother was starting to turn into a fucking jock, trying to act all cool with his slang, his ridiculous walk, which only made him seem arrogant and stupid rather than confident. And then there was that God-awful handshake he and his buddies always seemed to give each other. It was embarrassing to even witness.
Tatum moved, and I glanced at the monitor. When she reached out and finally picked up the box, adrenaline surged through my veins. I leaned with my hands on the table, next to Vico, fully focusing all my attention on her. I wanted to see her face when she opened that box, when she realized this wasn’t a dream but a goddamn nightmare—hernightmare.
“Open it,donna diavolo.” I gripped the edges of the table, feeling the thrill and the frustration burn in my gut.
Vico snorted. “Devil woman? Nice. Suits this bitch perfectly.”
I ignored him, since I was too busy willing Tatum to open the goddamn box.
Slowly, she pulled the white string, and as it fell to the sides, she leaned back while she stared at the box like she expected something to jump out of it.
“Open it,” I muttered, leaning closer to the monitor, fighting the urge to burst in there and force her to open it with my goddamn gun against her fucking skull.
She bit her thumbnail, and I could already hear the thoughts running through her mind, some telling her to leave the damn box alone, others urging her to open it, to find out what was inside.
Finally, the latter won.
As she opened the box, my spine started tingling with expectation. God, it felt like I was seconds away from getting a fucking hard-on.
She looked down, and I knew exactly when she noticed what was inside. Her entire face turned a ghostly white just before she screamed and scampered off the bed, falling against the wall.
“Oh my God,” I heard her voice through the speakers. “Jesus Christ! What the fuck is this?” she screamed between tears.
It was fucking beautiful. It was almost poetic watching her crack, witnessing as her mind started to spin in a thousand different directions. Finally, after all these months of planning and plotting, the time had come—the time for me to exact the revenge I had vowed from the Linscotts. She had taken from me what I could never get back, and the only way I would be free of this burden I carried around deep in my soul was by spilling blood…her blood.
Vico glanced my way. “Game on, brother.”
I smiled as I started to taste the victory on my tongue. “Game on.”
Chapter 4
TATUM
“Oh my God.” I rocked back and forth, clutching my knees against my chest, my face buried between my arms. I didn’t want to look up. I couldn’t. What the fuck was happening? Who were these goddamn people? And why the fuck was there a severed finger in that motherfucking box?
Better yet, whose finger was it?
No, I didn’t want to know. All I wanted was to wake up and realize this was just the mother of all goddamn nightmares. Unfortunately, the longer I sat there, the more I realized this was all real. I’d been kidnapped. Carlo was dead. And his twin brother just left me a human finger in a box.
How could the Carlo I knew be a part of this family?
The Carlo I knew…
Did I really know him? Was the Carlo I knew the real Carlo, or was he pretending to be someone he wasn’t? Judging by what Castello told me, it seemed to be the latter, since I didn’t even know his real surname, and I sure as hell didn’t know his family.
Tears continued down my face, and my mind kept spinning in a thousand different directions at once. What did they plan to do me?
Would they kill me? Torture me? Hurt me?
Did my family even know I was missing yet?
Thinking of my mom, my dad, my brother, and how they quite possibly might not even know what was going on had me shaking as more tears streamed down my face. For the first time since I decided to leave home, to go to New York to get away from my family, I regretted it. If I had stayed home like my dad wanted me to, they would have known I had been kidnapped. But because I was a stubborn girl who tried to survive on her own without being labeled as William Linscott’s daughter, I might never see my family again. I might be dead by the time they realized I was missing. And since I wasn’t exactly good at checking in with them as often as I should, it might be days before they started to suspect something was wrong.
My body ached, my lungs pleading for air while my tears choked every last breath out of me. It wasn’t like I wanted to cry. I hated crying. I cried for weeks after I thought Carlo had left me. I couldn’t believe I was so heartbroken over a guy I didn’t know for even two months. It wasn’t like we were on the brink of getting married or anything. We only had sex a few times, for God’s sake. But I was so in love with him, and somewhere deep inside my heart, I convinced myself that Carlo was the one. He didn’t seem to know who my family was and didn’t seem to care, which was a big bonus for me. Guys tended to swarm around me because of my surname, associating me with bank accounts filled with millions, expensive tropical vacations, trips around the world, and multi-million-dollar yachts to play on every fucking day. But Carlo, he was the first guy who didn’t seem to give a fuck about who my dad was, and that was probably why I gave him my heart so soon and why I spent hours, days, weeks crying over a guy I thought left me…a guy I didn’t know.