I smacked Fredo’s cheek. The man groaned before he tried to open his swollen eyes and lift his battered head. I knew he could see me; the little slits of his eyes were open enough.
“I wish we had more time,” I said conversationally and walked around his body, appreciating the view of him clinging to the last bits of his life.
I ran my fingers over the knot Nikolai had tied around Fredo’s wrists.
“Zdorovo, tvoya rabota bezuprechna, brat.” Nice. Your work is impeccable, brother. I glanced over at Nikolai, and he smirked, tossing a blade up in the air and catching it by the handle.
Up and down. Up and down.
“Ya podgotovil na amare.” I’ve been practicing on Amara.
His grin turned from sadistic to something else before he winked.
I curled my lip in disgust and held my hand up. “I know you won’t go further talking about that shit with Amara—what with being a territorial fucker—but I’m still gonna tell you to shut the fuck up. Last thing I want to know is what you do with your wife.”
Nikolai said nothing in response, just kept tossing the knife up and catching it as he stared at me.
I focused on Fredo again. “My imagination is vivid on what I plan on doing to you, cocksucker.” I pressed my finger into a nasty knife wound in his shoulder, and he whimpered.
I had to give the piece of shit credit. For all the begging and pleading he’d done, he kept his mouth shut where Claudia was concerned. There were many times when I was working a guy over that he ran his mouth with insults. And I never fucking cared. I didn’t give one fuck what they said about me before I killed them.
They could spout off whatever they wanted to. But if Fredo would’ve said one nasty thing about Claudia? I wouldn’t have been able to make this last long.
I would’ve killed him right on sight in the most barbaric way. Maybe beating him to death with my bare hands and crushing his chest before ripping it open and tearing out his heart.
“And as much as I want to spend all fucking night here taking my time with you, cutting out piece after piece of your worthless hide, I have more important things to do. I have somebody important to see.”
Fredo struggled minimally. One of his shoulders was dislocated, and his body was too weak from blood loss and having the shit beaten out of him to do much of anything else.
I chuckled low and pulled out my knife. The blade was so sharp that when I pressed it gently to the pad of my thumb, it instantly broke the skin.
A bead of blood welled up, and I dragged my tongue across it before taking the knife and placing it underneath his chin.
“You know who I’m going to go see as soon as I’m done mutilating you?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “Claudia. Did you know she’s mine? She’s been mine for the past two years.” I dragged the knife over his neck, down the center of his torso, and stopped right at his navel. “Of course, she doesn’t know she’s mine, but I’ll change that soon enough.”
His head hung forward, so he wasn’t looking at me, and I gripped his chin and jerked him up, forcing Fredo to look me in the eye as I plunged the knife right through his belly button.
He let out a gargled sound, blood spraying out of his mouth and covering my neck and shirt. Nikolai snickered somewhere behind me.
“I’m going to bring her a little present. Pieces of you,” I said in a deadly voice as I twisted the blade and dragged it up, opening him from belly to throat.
The sounds he made were of a dying animal. His body jerked as if he were having a seizure, his muscle control nonexistent.
“I’m going to rip out that gold tooth in your mouth and take off that ring on your pinky finger and give them to Claudia. Little trophies, so she knows what I’m capable of… the lengths I’ll go to, to make sure she’s safe and protected.”
“Goddamn,” Nikolai said as I stepped back. “And they say I’m the fucking crazy one.”
Fredo’s insides spilled out of him and landed on the cement floor with a wet squelching sound.
I took out a cigarette from the inside of my jacket, my fingers bloody as I placed it between my lips, and then grabbed my lighter.
Once the end flared brightly, I inhaled and watched Fredo struggling to hold on to that last bit of life.
“Look at you fucking smoking as you watch the bastard die.”
I shrugged and exhaled. “It’s a nasty fucking habit, but it relaxes me.”
“That shit will kill you.”
I cut a narrow-eyed glance at Nikolai. “I think smoking a cigarette here and there is the last thing I need to worry about concerning my life span.”