5. Savage
Chapter 5
Savage
“You sure about this place?” I ask Vito as we pull up to the massive wrought-iron gates outside Nico’s property.
“You said the nearest safe house, Savage. This is it.” He pulls out his phone, accesses a security app, and taps the screen. We both stare at the gate. It’s still closed. “What’s this street called again?”
“How many fucknests do you have?” I say, swiping the phone out of his hand.
I don’t even know what app this is, but it looks like it’s some kind of way for Vito to access his fucknests without the annoyance—I assume—of having to carry around a hundred remote controls.
Now I’m starting to call his safe houses that. But honestly, it’s not like he actually ever needs to use them as a safe house. Before me and Nyx hid out at his apartment close to that food truck where she’d been used as bait for Bogota, there’d never been anything “safe” about it.
Except the massive amount of condoms I saw in the vanity. At least my cousin practices safe sex.
“Is it really that difficult to punch in a keycode?” I grumble, finally recognizing the address we’re at and tapping on the ‘Open’ button.
Vito chuckles. “Usually have my hands full at the time. Plus, how the hell am I supposed to remember every sicario’s fucking pin code?”
My eyes close briefly to inhale some patience as we’re cruising through the gate. Nico’s cartel-owned mansion isn’t as grand as some I’ve been to in the past, but it’s big enough that we can’t even see the main house from the drive. Too many bushes and palm trees in the way.
Vito turns off the main gravel drive and detours around a large pond before stopping under an awning of bougainvillea-covered trellises.
The cute cottage comes as a complete surprise.
“Not exactly your style,” I say as I climb out and head for the trunk.
“Some of the girls mention that when I bring them here.” He’s grinning as he comes around to help me open the trunk and haul the strawberry-blond woman out of the trunk. His voice is strained as he adds, “Multiple orgasms always change their minds.”
I thought he was going to help me carry her, but he just drops her feet and leaves me there. Cursing under my breath, I bite back a groan as I lift with my legs, slinging the woman over my shoulder.
I’m skipping leg day tomorrow, that’s for sure.
Vito swings open the door and ushers me in with a wide grin, then closes and locks the door behind us. As soon as I set the woman down on the couch, her eyelids begin fluttering. The fan of blood from her broken nose is congealing, forming sticky red streaks over her lips and chin and a puffy bruise has sprung up where Vito punched her.
“Faster. She’s coming round,” I tell Vito, eyeing the woman in case she decides to make a run for it.
My cousin pushes back the distressed wood coffee table and sets down a wooden dining room chair in front of it. The interior looks like a beach house furnished with whatever washed up on the shore after a shipwreck. Sandy colored walls, a thick jute rug, bits of driftwood as candleholders. The chair is made out of more bleached wood, a basket weave pattern for the backrest.
We maneuver the woman onto the chair and lash her down with some rope Vito brings from down the hall.
Normally I don’t care what I tie people down with, as long as it’s strong enough to hold them.
But this rope’s black, and suspiciously silky.
“Why are there tassels on this rope?” When I catch sight of Vito’s sly smile, I groan and pluck my hands away. “Fuck!”
“Ladies don’t dig the rough stuff.” He pauses, narrowing his eyes. “Rope, I mean. They absolutely love the rough?—”
“Is it strong enough to hold her?” I regret the question the moment it’s past my gritted teeth.
“Well, if it was strong enough to?—”
“Christ.” I swipe my hand through the air. “Forget I asked.”
He looks heartbroken that I didn’t let him continue. But now that this woman’s awake, we need to start bleeding her for information, not discussing the kinky shit Vito does in his spare time.
There’s still some daylight left. If we hurry this up, I’ll be back at the villa in time for the dinner date I promised Nyx. Then I can finally get her up to speed with everything we’ve found out about her sisters’ abduction.
Which is not much.
She’d better not be spoiling her appetite with all that sushi.
Despite both my bodyguards watching her, I’m still uneasy about Nyx being out in the wild. She’d have been safer at the villa. Someone would have to drop a nuke on the place to get at her. But my guys sent me the address of the restaurant—as luck would have it, she’s only a few blocks away.
Of all the people in the villa I’d thought Nyx would spend time with, Dad’s girlfriend never crossed my mind.
I grimace as Strawberry opens her eyes and focuses blearily on me. When she spots my face, she snaps to full alertness.
She glances around in shock, then up at me with wide-eyed concern. “How long was I out for?”
Not a typical question for a captive. I used to things like, “Where am I?” or more commonly, “Please, God, don’t hurt me, I’ll tell you everything.”
It’s all screaming after that.
Vito wiggles his hand. “About?—”
I snap my fingers, and he cocks an offended eyebrow at me in return.
“You want her to know how far away from Doc’s house we are?” I mutter.
He purses his lips, nodding slowly when he pieces it together.
Strawberry makes an angry sound in the back of her throat. “That’s not why I’m asking. Ten minutes, and I should be okay. Twenty minutes, and we’re looking at a concussion. Possibly even swelling on the brain.”
I hold out a hand, tilting my head to the side. “Relax. Some aspirin and you’ll be right as fucking rain.”
She glares at me for this, but her face clears the moment I hinge at the hips to put our eyes on the same level.
“Now who the fuck are you?”
“You don’t scare me,” she says, despite the flickering unease in her eyes as she tries to keep both me and Vito in sight. He’s pacing up and down beside her, squinting like he’s trying to remember if he left the iron on.
I reach instinctively for my jacket pocket to get my knife out, then I remember I’m not wearing my fucking jacket. I snap my fingers at Vito instead. When he just stands there staring at Strawberry, I pin him with a long-suffering stare.
He widens his eyes, shrugging.
“Give me something to hurt her with,” I grind out.
“I’m not part of the cartel,” she says calmly.
“Which cartel aren’t you part of?”
“Any of them. I’m a civilian.”
I huff through my nose as Vito walks back, my eyes fixed on the woman’s. She’s younger than I thought, maybe two years older than me. The more I look at her, the more familiar she seems.
It’s fucking haunting me.
When I hold out my hand, Vito puts a red leather flogger in it. I stare at it, then at him, then at the woman.
“I’m nobody!” she blurts out, her eyes growing wild. She yanks at the ropes holding her in place. “Please!”
That’s more like it.
“I swear to God, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time!” she yells, frantic.
Never thought a fucking whip could cause this much panic, but I’m leaning into it. For fuck’s sake, he should know better, but he seems distracted. Maybe he took offense at the whole rope thing.
I’ll talk to Vito about appropriate torture devices later. Possibly while using some of them on him to demonstrate.
I flick the whip, catching Strawberry on the side of her leg. I doubt she can even feel it through her jeans, but she flinches and lets out a terrified whimper, her eyes practically bulging out of her head.
“Wrong place, wrong time? No shit. At the scene of a murder, with blood on your clothes.”
“Then there’s the gun, of course,” Vito adds.
“Of course I had a gun!” She squirms in her chair as I flick the whip, getting ready to use it again. “It’s a dangerous fucking neighborhood!”
“She’s not wrong,” Vito murmurs, as he goes to stand behind her.
When I glare at him, he lifts his hands and steps back like I’m about to explode. I guess I’m giving off some dangerous vibes, because even Strawberry is biting the inside of her lip, watching me like she’s expecting her life to be over soon.
“Name.”
She swallows. “Jane.”
I cock my head. She tosses hers.
“Fine,” she mutters. “Doe. Jane Doe.”
My eyes roll as I stand to crack my neck. I don’t have the fucking patience for this, not while I’m holding a fucking flogger.
I walk around the chair and shove the thing against Vito’s chest.
“Why the fuck is it so sticky?” I mutter, immediately showing him my palm so he doesn’t feel compelled to answer my rhetorical.
Then I remember her pocket knife I stashed in my pocket at Doc’s house. I take it out, flick it open. It’s small, but sharp.
I’m pretty sure I can draw blood with it. If I press really hard.
Vito’s phone starts ringing.
“What?” he asks, sounding as irritated as I feel. “Are you kidding? Because I’m telling you now, Savage won’t think that’s funny.”
I come to stand in front of Jane, making sure she can see the knife in my hand, but my eyes are on Vito. He looks at me, and somehow I already know.
He mouths, “Nyx,” and hands me his phone. I swap it with the pocket knife, ignoring the fact that he looks at it much like I did his flogger.
He says to Jane, “This isn’t really my thing,” as I’m headed out the door.
“What?” I growl into the phone.
“She went to the bathroom,” comes Matt’s voice. “Vito told us to call if?—”
I pause only long enough for an annoyed, “Fuck!” and then I’m charging toward the SUV.
“Hey!” Vito calls, hurrying to the cottage’s front door. “You just gonna leave me here with her?”
“You’ll be fine.” I slam the Expedition’s driver side door closed behind me. I press the starter, shaking my head when Vito comes out of the cottage.
“Savage!”
I lower the window and lean out. “If she talks, call me. If she doesn’t, get creative.”