Chapter Five
Torments Borrowed, Blood Blue
Rafe
M y sister’s untimely reminder we’re needed in more than one place leaves me with a desire to clone myself ten times over. Instead, I make the call I wish I didn’t have to under any other circumstances, and pray he answers.
“Boss,” Dom says without preamble.
Silence fuses the international call as he realizes his mistake.
“Old habits,” I say softly, letting him off, once.
It’s the only time it will happen, and only because I need a favor.
One I know he’ll respect in my sister’s honor.
“What can I do for you?” His tone remains reserved, clipped.
More like my father, even myself than the rough boy who pulled himself off the streets and now heads a Family of his own. A swell of pride fills my chest and it’s my turn to struggle for air.
“Regina had a call from our Irish friends. It appears Konnor wishes to claim her child.”
“That’s ... rough.” Amusement tinges Dom’s voice. “This will be messy.”
I laugh outright. “Bored, brother?”
“You have no idea.” He pauses. “Actually, you probably do. But my staffing problems are not yours. What do you need on this end?”
“I’ll be in Cyprus until the end of the month.
” It’s the earliest I can call the trip off and not affect the plan Willow appears to have in place, all things being equal, which they never fucking are.
It’s my plan to ensure Eduardo understands his place and proves it on his wedding day.
Not just to me and his bride, but to every person on the island.
Armand Gallo will wish he was present for this party.
“And the ends to be tied up?”
“If you could have someone house sit for me, that would be ... nice,” I said formally. “But also, there’s a package at the docks coming in before dawn Tuesday. Collection would be appreciated and returned in due time.”
“I’m sure we can arrange something.”
I smile, knowing he can’t see it. Fuck, I rubbed off on that boy well.
Not that he’s a boy any longer.
“How’s my healer?” I change the subject, too curious not to ask.
“Is this Willow asking, or you, Rafe?” A wash of exhaustion eats at Dom’s tone as business is concluded and we’re back to being friends of over a decade of watching each other’s backs and taking bullets for one another.
“Me,” I say quietly. “Thalia was part of my household for a long time. So were you, my friend.”
“I don’t think that will change.”
I laugh. “It had better not. Konnor means to start a war. I’ll need all the friends I can find.”
“I’m sure we can seek a few extras out for your return.”
“Good man.”
I end the call, flipping my phone over in my palm. Willow is out with Suzan planning a wedding, but there’s a small matter she brought up with one of the wives that doesn’t sit well with me, and that needs to be rectified with the would-be groom before the wedding day.
It’s time for Eduardo to get his hands dirty.
****
E duardo slides into the back of the car, unbuttoning his jacket, his brow creased. “I assume we’re not going drinking?” he says in heavily accented English.
I slap his shoulder hard enough for the blow to sting. “Good man,” I approve of his methods. “And no, at least, not at first. Done well, we will be drinking after. But first we have work. What do you know of the Benzoits?”
His frown deepens. “An ... ass wipe? Is that the right term you use?” He trails off until I nod.
“Yes, an ass wipe of a man, who treats his three daughters and wife poorly. Drinks, gambles, is grossly obese. Small dick.” He lifts one shoulder and stares out the heavily tinted, bullet-proofed windows of my father’s car.
My lips curl. “You speak Americano better than you make out. It’s a good look, my friend. Keep it up. Did you know he rapes them?” I add in. “Almost nightly. The youngest is six, I believe?”
Eduardo swivels to face me, his expression stony. “No. I did not know.” He curses softly, then not so softly. “I am sorry, my Don. Please, take this lapse out on me, and if I may—”
“You will take nothing but deal the punishment out yourself in front of me. Not a test, son ,” I pressed the inflection, and wait for him to argue with me as he did in the house, though from the set of his jaw nothing is forthcoming.
“Yes, my Don,” Eduardo says softly.
I smile in his face. “Good.”
The car pulls up out front of a small, dingy restaurant beside my father’s other flourishing businesses.
I wonder if we shouldn’t burn the singularly decrepit building down later and call it an insurance job, give the women somewhere else to live.
In Suzan’s old house where she’s renovating already, perhaps.
Eduardo steps from the car, buttoning his jacket, his shoulders a hard line. Looking at the younger man is like looking in a mirror of my reflection twenty years ago. It’s a pleasurable experience, and I only wish for the briefest moments that I’d brought Willow to watch the show.
Until we step inside the shithole, and the kid chooses his tool for the day’s work.
He walks straight to the fireplace where embers burn, throwing the poker in, and tosses three logs on, heating the small room past the point of comfort. It’s a simple move, unmissable, but an easy distraction.
I’m the only one watching him.
Benzoit spins his heavy body on a stool that shouldn’t support his girth, waving his hands.
“Too much, too much, young fool,” he shouts in our native language, too absorbed in yelling at my companion to see me until he’s stumbled a few steps off the stool.
Then he stops and stares, his fleshy mouth agape. “Armand?”
I smile with teeth. “Returned from the grave? I think not.”
“Rafe. You are but a child.” Benzoit chuckles at his little joke, his belly wobbling like a dessert ready to be split.
I tour the small cafe, unable to call the destitute business more than that. “Your books, please, and a drink for my friend. He has work to do. Is your family home?”
“The girls? Like them young, do you?” His eyes take on a dark gleam I recognize from too many nights at the Rhode Island docks liberating Singleton’s handiwork with Dom.
Once again, I feel the absence of my right-hand man, but know he has my back at home in the States.
Cyprus, while still a key territory for the Gallo Empire, is not my place of residence, and it will never be mine. If Eduardo plays this week right, he might claim it as his holdings under my name for the rest of his life. All he has to do is play the next ten minutes well to the right person.
Spoilers—it’s not the fat fuck before us.
I laugh, and it’s a horrific sound that whiplashes back to me before Benzoit can register the threat.
“I love women, you child fucker. Specifically, my woman. Not that you’d know, because you didn’t turn up to my father’s funeral or pay your tithe.
But I know who and what you are, and I’m here to extract my price. Now, please. Bend over.”
“B-bend over?” His face creases comically.
“It’s my favorite position to fuck in.”
He blinks at me. “I thought you liked women.”
Eduardo snickers and manages to cough when I shoot him a glance. The poker glows in the fireplace.
“Oh, I do. But it’s not me fucking you. And it won’t be a cock.” I pull out my gun and press it to the man’s temple. “Don’t deprive us of our fun. Bend over,” I say softly, nicely, like we’re playing with bondage ropes.
Speaking of ... the asshole probably has some hanging about. A rummage under his bar produces copper wire, and that will do. It’s not like I care about the state his flesh will be in afterward.
I make two loops while Eduardo pulls the filthy fuck’s pants down around his ankles, baring his ass to the world. The wire cuts into his swollen flesh and I secure him over the edge of the small wooden café table by a hangnail.
Then I step back and let my new lieutenant do his work.
Eduardo has a specific style I fast appreciate. He works with perfect efficiency, and in utter silence.
Even when the skin on Benzoit’s ass cheeks sizzle and the stench of burning flesh fills the air along with gasping shrieks better suited to a bad slasher flick he never pauses, just pushes forward, shoving and ramming with the grace of a dancer in a final act.
When the poker is buried almost to the handle in the rapist’s body, his jelly tummy still wobbling as he roasts from the inside out, Eduardo looks to me and straightens.
He flicks his jacket open, and the job is done.
We walk out to the waiting car while Benzoit is still dying, and I message Suzan that she has some new tenants who need a little TLC.
I owe my new man a drink.