Manacled Hearts: an Age Gap Mafia Romance (The Sanctum Syndicate Book 3)

CHAPTER 11

You don’t know what your world did to mine.

Evelyn’s soft voice wraps around the threads of my mind for the hundredth time.

After a few days of wondering what had been done to her, I went to barge into Katya’s and demand she tell me what she knows. I managed to turn around just in time. A little horrible voice in my head had to repeat to me over and over that Evelyn Shaw was trouble, and getting close, knowing more about her, will destroy me.

All over again.

I barely stopped myself when, after over a week of being haunted by those words, I wanted to call Carter and ask him to find out every single aspect of her life. It was a horrible invasion of privacy and trust, but I couldn’t bear those words anymore. Everything in me was demanding to know what she meant. That horrible voice I know to be mine, raged at me to back away from her. Far, far away, where the feelings taking root inside of me could rot and die before the tendrils could reach too deep. I stopped myself, nonetheless.

Weeks have passed now, and I’m just as clueless about the meaning of those words as I was when she all but spit them in my face. I haven’t laid eyes on Evelyn in just as much time.

Their meaning is a mystery, but they offend me too. What did she mean about my world? What did I, or us, ever do to her? We saved her, damn it! We helped her. Offered her shelter, food, money, even a one-way ticket back to where she came from.

Yet, as the tip of the stiletto knife draws the slowest drop of blood from under the chin of the long-haired bastard currently strapped to a chair before me, and his condescending beady eyes attempt to stare me down, I understand Evelyn’s words just a little more.

My worldis this one. Where men like him roam the streets freely, kill families, rape little children, sell boys and girls, and use people like they’re worth less than cattle. My world ripped her and her little sister out of theirs and tried to take their innocence away.

Though, I can’t help but be angry and downright offended that she thinks I fit in the same category as him. What she thinks of me shouldn’t affect me like this, and I hate her because it does. I hate myself more for allowing it.

There’s no worth in me for a woman like her. My world will ruin her… I’ll find her naked body, broken gruesomely, dead in a pool of her own blood, before I can reach her. I won’t save her. I will only damn her. Just like I did Hanna.

There is no other outcome.

It doesn’t matter that Roberto Bartiste was the one who wielded the blade that cut the soul out of her; I might as well have handed it to him.

My brother, Ronan, and Vincent are idiots for bringing women they love into this world. My brother left for this reason, but I don’t think he can ever be truly out. Crime is not our job, this is not a goddamn profession. It’s a force that lives in our blood and the fibers that form our being, programming our brain from its early development. Eventually, this life will find my brother, his wife, their son, and drag them back into it. For their sake, I hope they can skirt at the edge of it rather than submerge themselves back in its enticing clutches.

Because it is enticing. I could never live a different life devoid of this power, adrenaline, and blood. This is where I belong, and no woman should be here with me.

“Who is your boss?” I ask the man tied to the chair in the middle of the warehouse we found him in.

I don’t wait for words to fall out of his mouth and sink the tip of the knife deeper into the hollow part under his chin. If I go deep enough, I’ll impale the tendons first, then his tongue.

Not yet though, I need to know who he works for. All we have are two untraceable names that are leading us in circles. And the only men who could have given us the information are dead—Morrigan’s father, Liam O’Rourke, her ex, Ryan Holt, and Vincent’s father, Lester Boseman. Now we know they were just a connection to the docks of Queenscove and the trading routes, and the operation is bigger, run by a whole other organization.

Right now, we’re almost two hundred miles away from Queenscove, on the tip Dietrich, Loreley’s father gave us. We’re finally face to face with someone higher up in the organization we’re trying to find. Higher, but not fucking high enough.

“You’re pathetic. All of you,” the guy says, laughing maniacally like he has a leg to stand on. “You came all this way, and you don’t even know who you’re looking for. Who are you people?”

I ignore the question about who we are. It’s not like he’ll be alive long enough for the answer to matter.

“You think that we would have found you if we didn’t know something? We need real names!” I say, watching his blood drip down the shiny silver, quicker after I push the blade deeper holding the back of his head steady at the same time.

A mangled cry escapes his exposed throat and satisfaction blooms. No words do, though.

Carter stands behind the man, and need sparks in his hazel eyes as he looks down at him. He’s The Carver after all, a nickname he has thoroughly earned in the last two, three years. Carving is not my thing, but torturing for information, pouring emotions into an instrument that draws blood, I do thoroughly enjoy sometimes. But Carter… he needs this. I’m not sure if blood is what he sees when he peels the skin off his victims. I don’t think it’s emotions he draws on either. It always looks more like punishment. Of his victims or him, I don’t know.

Carter is twitching now as I interrogate this man, but this one is mine.

“Give me a name. You think that there’s no point in talking since we’re gonna kill you anyway, right?” I wait and he just stares at me, afraid to breathe so my knife doesn’t sink deeper in his flesh. “But keep in mind that you’re not alone in this world. You seem to have made some commendable efforts to hide your family, but…”

His eyes widen with fear as I pause for a reaction, and what I’m seeing is what I need.

“It wasn’t enough to hide them from us,” I continue.

“Your wife is pretty…” Vincent appears on my right, phone in hand, showing our prisoner a photo of his betrothed in front of their lavish house in a secure, gated community.

“How did you get in?” The man dares to speak and hisses in pain as the knife sinks a little deeper with the movement of his jaw.

“You can get in anywhere as long as you know the right information about the right people. Everyone has a weak spot to exploit, and information is always the key,” I explain.

“For example,” Vincent continues, “I know that this photo of your wife will make you twitch, but it’s the next one that will loosen your tongue and make you spill your secrets.”

He swipes once on the screen and the man all but jumps off the chair when he sees his dear mother on it. I pull the knife down to avoid this idiot slicing his own throat on it.

Finding out he’s a mama’s boy was easy, finding out that the sick bastard has had an inappropriate relationship with her for years was a bit harder. But we did. Anyone who loves their mother that much will sacrifice their wife for her.

“Leave her the fuck alone! Where is she?!” he bellows.

“Give. Me. A. Name!” I scream right in his face, and his ass hits the chair with a thud.

“I don’t know it!” he cries.

He actually fucking cries, and I exchange looks with Carter and Vincent. Carter looks bored and Vincent shrugs.

“He told us to call him Vassallo, but only some of us know it’s not his real name. None of us know what it is though. The only one who might, is Frankie B,” he says.

Frankie B. What a stupid fucking name.

But we already know these names, we need the real fucking ones. However, it is interesting to find out that not only do people in their organization not know Vassallo’s real name, but most don’t even know it isn’t. So, we’ll need to go straight to the top.

“What is the guy for the organization?” I ask.

“He comes across like an idiot, but he’s Vassallo’s right-hand man. Young, half his age maybe. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but even that blunt edge could do some damage.”

I know for a fact it does. Evelyn’s memory from that night is patchy, she has more gaps than information. When Maddox found her, he said she was out of her fucking mind, in a trance from how heavily she was drugged. She refused to tell us if she remembers what happened to her after she was separated from her sister. I noticed a few winces, some straining when she moved or sat down, so I know the motherfucker hurt her, she doesn’t need to spell it out for me. I’ll crucify Frankie either way, slice him from throat to dick, and deliver his guts to her.

I owe her that much.

Goddammit… why is this just dawning on me?Was she seeking drugs that night because she’s starting to remember more?

I take one deep breath, looking at the man panicking before me, and wonder if there’s any more I can get out of him.

“Where is their headquarters?” I ask.

“Not with the rest of us. There are multiple centers of operations. He visits, but he has his Sergeants who handle each one. Vassallo prefers to meet in random locations for briefings, missions, and others. He only comes when an important shipment arrives. I don’t know where the other centers are, he keeps his operation fragmented so if something happens, we don’t all go down. My center is in Eastling, North of the city in an old asylum. It’s big, but I don’t even know if it’s the biggest one. Now, is my mother going to be okay?”

The man spilled the information like it was nothing, all loyalties and fears gone when it came to his dear mother.

“Vassallo only comes when big shipments arrive?” I ask.

“He used to, but rumor has it one of them got raided a month or so ago by someone, and if they would have come half an hour earlier or something, they would have found him there. He hasn’t intercepted shipments since,” he answers.

“The only chance is to catch him if he meets with his Sergeants or visits a center?” Vincent asks.

“Most likely. What about my mother?!” he asks impatiently.

“Give me the name of the Sergeants.” I ignore his plea.

“Is my mother safe?” he rages, fear reddening his eyes.

“The names, motherfucker!” I slam my knife right under his balls, scratching his suite trousers, his mouth gaping as he attempts to move backward in the chair. Carter is truly bored now, and he already walks toward the exit. Vincent moves away, ready to follow.

“We don’t have knowledge of the others.” He shakes as I push the blade up just enough to make him sweat, and breathes out loudly when I decide to retreat and pack it in my rib holster. “Mine, the one who’s supposed to come here today to make sure this warehouse is ready for the next shipment, is called Leopold Gr—”

The word sticks in his throat as his head whips backward with a bullet lodged in the middle of his forehead. I jump to the left, ducking and rolling onto the dirty, concrete floor, just as gunfire and grunts erupt all at once.

We weren’t stupid enough to come here alone. A whole team is outside, and from the sounds of it, they’re all fighting. I catch a faint flashing light at the other end of the warehouse, between some old, rusty equipment forgotten here, and I draw my gun as I duck behind a concrete column. I’m strung out so goddamn tight, a buzzing grows in my ears, and my hands twitch to squeeze the trigger and release this pressure.

A moment later a bullet lodges itself at the edge of the pillar, and I lower myself, taking aim toward its source. Three more shots, a loud thud, and the gunshots aimed at me stop.

“I think it was a stray. Clear!” I hear Vin somewhere behind me.

He was caught close to the exit, but ducked behind some rusty machinery. That was quick. Yet, the pressure in my head hasn’t eased, and the buzzing is still there.

Slowly, the commotion dies down outside, and we move toward the exit. The door creaks open, and both Vin and I take aim. Carter steps through, a thick streak of blood running from the base of his throat, down to his crotch, stray splatters everywhere.

“Yours?” I ask quickly.

“No.” He turns and exits, leaving Vin and I with no further explanation.

“Okay, I guess.” I gesture at The Serpent to walk out, and I follow.

“I’ll call the clean-up crew,” one of our men say.

And boy are we gonna need them. In this thirty-second massacre, at least twenty bodies dropped. I spot a couple more around the corner as we head to our car, and one more in the bushes. I’ll have to give Madds a pat on the back, because he’s damn good at training our men.

“I need a driver, rest of you stay here and wait for the clean-up crew. Leave the bodies where they are, but hide and guard the outside perimeter in case more come,” Vincent orders our men.

“I’m staying. I think a shipment is coming. If it is, I want to coordinate the rescue.” Carter steps away from us.

“Okay. What’s the plan if it is?” I ask.

“Kill all the bad guys, clean it up, and give an anonymous tip to the local police to deal with the shipment. They’ll interview the victims, and I’ll get all the info from their system after,” he answers.

I nod, liking the idea. As much as it would be nice of us to deal with this shipment, we don’t have the capacity to accommodate more people. The last rescue operation was so complex mainly because we had to figure out who all those kids belonged to. It was fucking expensive to protect their families after we returned them, and it ate a lot of our time, leaving us uncomfortably vulnerable. We really weren’t, but it felt like it.

“Let’s go then.” I gesture to Vin, turning and heading toward our car.

I climb in the back seat, rubbing a hand over my face and wondering just how I’m gonna burn out through this gnawing pressure that’s making me twitch. My usual method, getting pinned under a woman bouncing away on my cock, isn’t going to work. It hasn’t worked for weeks… no matter how much I tried. I’m not even excited over a blow job anymore. When lips wrapped around me, it was like slugs sliming their way up my length.

Twice I managed to fuck to completion… and both times I left their place like I was being chased away. I couldn’t bear looking them in the eyes and holding a conversation, not when they were a cheap version of the one woman who haunts my dreams and fills every conscious thought when I’m awake.

“Take me home,” I say to the driver who climbs in after Vin.

Though I plan on going a few floors below mine.

Maybe this time she’ll actually be there.