But I also know that Romano treats his men like they’re disposable. It’s what I’m counting on with this little fucker in our back seat.
Phoenix sent over the man’s entire file, and Ari and I read over the whole thing before Phoenix called to force us to listen to him take our girl apart by the seams.
Even now, with the task at hand, I still shudder as I remember her little punched-out moans while Phoenix fucked her pussy until she practically passed out in his arms. He ended the call by promising that I was going to breed her, and my God, I think I know what real obsession is all about now.
But I can’t let myself fall into the trap of fantasy. Not while we have work to do.
Ari’s back to his stoic silence, though he never quite lost it, even when he was choking on my dick. He’s worked up, and usually after jobs like this, he needs Kane to humiliate and humble him a bit before he can break out of it.
The only problem with that is we don’t know what kind of recovery time Kane is going to need. He managed to get us a message on a burner, but it was a single word. It likely means they’re working him over worse than we’re used to.
He’ll have time to heal, of course. This plan is Kane’s long game, but my stomach twists at the thought of him suffering permanent injuries, and I know that Romano wouldn’t hesitate to leave lasting and obvious scars.
I have to keep a level head in this car because between me and Ari, I’m the only one capable of doing it. We need Andrea alive and talking as long as possible. And we need the pain to be bad, but not bad enough that he falls into the torture trap of telling us what we want to hear instead of the truth.
In reality, I’m hoping that our presence alone is enough to scare him into confessing. I’ll still let Ari have his way with him because I have no sympathy for this man. He’s tortured and killed anyone Guido sent him after—including women and children. His only moral compass is doing whatever Guido asks him so he can rise in the ranks.
Right now, Andrea is thoroughly drugged and missing his ring finger, where we found a tracking device embedded in his wedding ring. The little fucker was stuck, so Ari solved the problem by removing the whole thing. I managed to bandage him up as best as I could so he wouldn’t bleed out on us before we got to our destination, but I can’t help my worry.
‘What’s got your panties in a twist?’ The question’s tapped out on my leg, an easy way to read Ari’s signs in the dead of night.
“You should pull over so I can check his vitals,” I tell him. “I want him to regain consciousness before morning.”
Ari scoffs and taps my leg again. ‘Not necessary. Trust me.’
I do trust him, but I can’t help worrying I’ll regret it. When Ari shuts off his emotions, he doesn’t just toy with our marks. Sometimes he toys withus. I want to believe the threat of losing Kane is enough to keep him on task properly, but I’ve made that mistake with him once or twice.
It cost him, of course, not me. Kane punished him thoroughly for losing himself to his own mind, but I worry it’ll happen again. I worry that Ari’s too close to breaking completely. If we lose Kane, I have a feeling we’ll lose whatever humanity’s left in him.
‘We’re almost there,’ Ari points out, releasing my leg to tap on the GPS screen.
He’s right. The coordinates Phoenix sent us for a safe space to work are glowing in the dark, and I can see we’re less than ten minutes away. We just passed a small city, and at the moment, we’re tucked deep in the woods.
It’s almost pitch-black apart from the Jeep’s headlights, but I have no doubt that with the dawn will come a lush, impossibly green landscape. A little paradise that will soon be tainted with blood.
With Kane missing, everything feels different. He’s our god—our king. He put us back together when we were nothing more than shattered pieces. He gave us the promise of a life so much bigger and better than what we’d accepted as our reality before.
And I will not live without him.
The silence hovers in the car as he takes a turn down a small, unmaintained road. The trees above us have formed an unnatural canopy, though I can tell very few people come this way with how it’s overgrown. The sound of branches scraping the Jeep doors has me clenching my jaw and willing Ari to drive faster.
He doesn’t. He takes his time and eventually rolls to a stop in front of a little cabin. In the headlights, I can see it’s run-down and dilapidated, and according to the GPS screen, it’s the only structure around for miles and miles. It’s a place damn near off the grid.
Andrea will be bled dry and buried by sunup. And if he’s ever found, there won’t be anything more than a skeleton to bury.
As Ari and I begin to haul his body inside, he starts to stir, which gets my blood pumping. I leave Ari to set up in the empty living room, and I retrieve the supply bag from the back of the Jeep. I linger a little, just barely able to see the full moon over the tops of the trees, and I stare at a collection of stars.
Straight on ’til morning, I think with a smile,where my little Wendy Darling is waiting with my other lost boy.
Hooking the strap over my shoulder, I make my way back into the house, and Ari takes the bag from me. He has Andrea propped up against the wall with the tarp still around him, his injured arm taped against the plaster at the wrist to staunch the blood flow. The only other things exposed are his head from the neck up and his feet, which are now bare from the ankles down.
I know what that means, and I damn near wince because my creative, psychopathic little lover already has plans to get him talking. I feel a rush of thrill crawling up my spine, knowing we’re in the middle of nowhere and we’re finally a step closer to getting Kane back.
I feel a slight pang of regret, though, when I think about how Phoenix isn’t with us to participate. He’s not as bloodthirsty as Ari, but he’s got a bigger appetite for all this than I do. It had been a slight argument when I left, but ultimately, he was right.
There will be a mission that we’re sent on in the future where Phoenix will come along, but he’s not ready for this one. Not yet. And there’s too much at stake.
Moving into the room, I see Ari has taped Andrea’s neck to the wall, and he’s preparing a syringe, which I know is an adrenaline shot to wake him up. I don’t really feel sorry for him, except in the way that I’m human and I know what that kind of pain feels like.