15. Name Drop
fifteen
Cristiano let his gaze linger on the beautiful, brown-haired angel passed out in his bed. No, their bed. This was her home as much as his. He probably hadn’t done enough to make that clear, but as soon as these threats were handled, he’d make that a priority. He’d never pictured himself in an overly domestic role before Felicity. Hell, he’d rarely cared to hold any specific woman longer than a weekend. Felicity was the only one he’d put above the family.
Felicity was the only one he’d ever even considered dusting off his mother’s ring for.
He pulled in a deep breath, hand moving to his pocket and curling around the old ring box. He’d given her the ring the previous evening, after finally letting her up from the sofa. But Felicity’s hands weren’t the same as his mother’s, of course, and the ring needed resizing. She wanted nothing else done to it other than some simple cleaning to help it shine like new. So he’d promised to take it to a jeweler he knew to get that process started the next time he went out.
He drank in the sight of her for another thirty seconds, then forced himself to turn and stride silently from the room. Her phone had been moved, volume lowered, to the charger on the bedside table. Beneath it he’d left her a note to make sure she understood why he’d left so early. This morning he didn’t want to disturb her sleep, and it was his hope to be home before lunch. At least long enough to enjoy the meal with her.
That would largely depend on how much information he could squeeze out of her ex-landlord, and how long it took her ex-neighbor to die.
He went through the penthouse quickly, triple-checking the security points, then slipped into the private elevator. He pulled out his phone and raised the volume as he descended, re-reading Ryōma’s latest text. One phone call was all it took to convince the jeweler to open a little ahead of schedule, and a stack of cash persuaded him to get the job done quickly and without running his mouth. Then Cristiano was back on the road, aimed in the opposite direction. In the early morning traffic it only took a few minutes to get to the edge-of-town location Ryōma had chosen for their guests.
Cristiano parked around the side, popped the trunk to grab a particular bag from within, then made his way into the building. There was no one standing guard, but at the first interior door he had to punch in a code to continue inside. Doing so would send a notification to Mikey’s system, just the same as Ryōma’s use of the space would have done when he’d dumped them off and locked it up. Cristiano didn’t care. He had potential information he could get out of these men, and a personal stake. They were allowed personal motivations.
He jogged down into the property-wide basement as the overhead light buzzed on and two off-set groans started to build. A chair scraped as someone struggled in his restraints. Something louder than a groan, too muffled to be clearly distinguished, followed the scraping sound.
Then Cristiano rounded the landing pad and set eyes on the pair of men, bound and gagged to matching chairs which were themselves anchored to the floor. The larger of the men glared back at him, his face red and swollen looking behind the rolled-up cloth wrapped around his jaw. His eyes showed no recognition. The other man, the neighbor, went pale as a fucking sheet and immediately stilled.
Cristiano dropped his duffel to the ground as he moved into position across from them, looked between them for a second, then settled his stare on the one who already had an idea who he was. “Matt. I hear my man found you at a bus station out of town. What did I tell you about running?”
Matt made a sound like a whine, his nostrils flaring as his chest heaved.
Cristiano shifted his focus to the other man. “Chuck. We haven’t met.” He stepped closer and dropped into a crouch to look the overweight piece of shit in the eye. Here, he didn’t have to hide his rage. It worked in his favor to let it show. Chuck started fidgeting in his seat before Cristiano even continued. “You put your hands on my woman yesterday. You drew her blood.”
A bead of visible sweat broke out on Chuck’s forehead, rolling slowly down the side of his face. He tried to speak, the look in his eyes saying his anger had already fizzled into fear.
“Specifically—” Cristiano stood and walked around the captive man. His eyes tracked the limb he needed. “I believe it was this hand you put on her.” He reached out, latched on to Chuck’s offensive hand, and squeezed with his full strength as he twisted. Bone snapped beneath his fingers, surrendering to his superior strength and position.
Chuck screamed through the gag, attempting and failing to wrench his arm free.
Matt screamed.
Cristiano let go, watching as the skin immediately began changing color. He hadn’t broken through the flesh—hadn’t tried to—but he’d certainly crushed a few of the smaller bones in the hand and snapped several others. If he were inclined to let Chuck live, that hand would never be fully usable again.
He walked back up to his bag, unzipped it the full length, and took his time sifting through the contents within while the cowards in the chairs sobbed and attempted to curse him. He knew what he’d brought, of course. But the occasional glimpse of blade or clang of steel would ratchet up their terror. The knife set he chose to take out and spread on the ground for display more than ease of access would heighten their horrified anticipation. The perfectly sharpened machete he slid free, lifted up, and spun around would have them choking back vomit. He made sure to let them glimpse the sledgehammer, and hear the heavy thunk of something they couldn’t see at all. Then he set the machete down beside the knives, picked up the smallest dagger, and made his way back to Chuck.
Chuck had stopped screaming, stopped trying to curse him, and even mostly stopped whimpering. He was still breathing hard and still red-faced, but that was fine. That was preferred.
Cristiano ripped the gag from his mouth. “Now, I hear you might have something useful to tell me.” He lifted the bladed weapon in his hand. “Feel like talking?”
Chuck’s eyes darted to the knife and he swallowed hard. “F-fuck you.”
Cristiano rolled his eyes. “Not very original, Chuck. You get one more chance. My girl tells me you have information I want to know.”
The anger sparked again in Chuck’s eyes. “That bitch doesn’t—”
Cristiano sliced the blade over the top of Chuck’s nearest bared foot. Feet held a lot of nerves. Even a shallow wound would hurt.
Chuck cried out again, his eyes half rolling up as his whole body spasmed briefly. It seemed he had a low pain threshold, too.
Even better.Cristiano reached out with his free hand and curled his fist into Chuck’s shirt collar, snapping him upright. “No more warnings, Chuck. I know you sold out to the Ink Blots. What the fuck was your deal, who was your contact—tell me every goddamn detail. Because if you think you’re in pain now, you don’t want me to get serious.”
Chuck sucked in a noisy breath, gaping at him. “Wh-who the fuck are you?” He swallowed hard.
Cristiano offered the fool a vicious smile. “Cristiano De Salvo. Felicity’s fiancé.”
Chuck’s mouth fell open.
Matt made a loud, indecipherable sound. At least he had enough brains to be listening in.
“Fuck,” Chuck muttered, his gaze dropping to the weapons still on display. “Fuck me.”
“You’re starting to get it.” Cristiano brought his blade to Chuck’s belly. “Lots of places I could cut you here that would hurt real fucking bad, but leave you alive for a long-ass time. I’m very good at this, Chuck. So I’ll ask you again, because I’m in a good mood, what—”
“It was Tristán,” Chuck said quickly, the words rushing out of him. “Felicity’s brother. That lunatic came barging into my office a couple months after she moved in, with some other guy I’d never seen before. Real scary looking Hispanic fucker.”
Classy.Cristiano kept the remark to himself and waited. So far, that didn’t illuminate anything useful.
Chuck kept rambling. “Garcia did most of the talking. Told me who he was, said Felicity was—I think he said ‘going through a phase’ or something—and not really talking to him, but he was worried about his little sister living in such a grungy neighborhood. The other guy only spoke up when I took offense to that, saying they were there to offer me a real sweet deal. He said they’d offer my whole property protection with the crew they were putting together, I wouldn’t even have to pay ‘em, if I kept an eye on his sister. Maybe sometimes reported in to him, especially if I ever caught a guy snooping around her place. She’s a pretty girl, he didn’t want some dirtbag taking advantage of his sister. I think he said that, too.”
Cristiano let his head tilt to the side. “Did you ever get the other guy’s name?”
“Uh…” Chuck’s gaze darted sideways, toward Matt. More sweat dripped down his chin. “Barros, I think. I never saw him again, but he … supposedly he sent that jackass over when one of the other apartments on her floor opened up. I was told to report that, too.”
That was uncomfortable information. Felicity wouldn’t appreciate learning the neighbor she’d already had problems with had been a spy for her half-brother, or that she might have had other neighbors on the Ink Blot’s proverbial payroll. From Chuck’s answer, if it was true, the gang was looking to take over the building one apartment at a time. Bastard wanted to trap her in.
Matt made another sound, this one angrier. Cristiano took it as at least partial confirmation.
Keeping his stare on Chuck, Cristiano asked, “You have any way to get in touch with Tristán currently? Or with someone who can?”
Chuck licked his lips. “Y-yeah! I have a number. He doesn’t like when I call, but he always texts back.”
If the responses came via text, it was possible the number didn’t lead directly to the brother. But a lead was a lead. Cristiano dug a small notepad and attached pen from one of his pockets, switched the blade to his other hand, and said, “Give it to me.”
Chuck paused. “It’s in my phone.”
Cristiano stared up at the dumbass. “You really expect me to hit pause here, go find where we stashed your phone, and bring it in, power it on, so you can take your time remembering which contact you hid him under?”
“N-no! I just mean, I don’t have it memorized.” Chuck licked his lips, breathing hard again. “It’s under TG, for Tristán Garcia. I don’t have a number for anyone else, except this guy.” He tipped his head sideways toward Matt.
Cristiano tucked his notepad away, biting back a sigh. He’d have Ryōma verify that later. “Sit tight, then, Chuck. You’ve either been very smart or very fucking stupid. Time will tell.”
“P-please, let me go,” Chuck said as Cristiano turned away. “My hand hurts so bad … I swear I’ll stay quiet. I never saw the guy that grabbed me, anyway!”
Cristiano stopped and narrowed his eyes in Chuck’s direction again. “Chuck. Let’s be clear. You’re not bartering for your freedom. You’re bartering for a less-painful death.”
Chuck opened his mouth to protest.
“You put your hands on my fiancée. You’ve already lived longer than you deserve.” He resumed his path, then, up to Matt. “Now, it’s your turn. I was just going to whale on you. But it turns out you might have information I need, too.” Cristiano ripped the gag from Matt’s mouth. “You only get one chance, though. Because I really, really want to beat the fucking shit out of you for all the torment you’ve put her through.”
Matt promptly spit on him. “You’re both full of shit, you fucking rent-a-cop.”
Cristiano dipped his chin to properly crop his gaze to the soiled spot on his shirt, below his shoulder. It wasn’t as if he’d thought he’d be leaving this room sparkly clean, but letting this scum get a shot of any kind in grated on him. For a split-second, he debated unlocking his cousin’s trademark blowtorch and giving the shithead something new to smoke. But he let the urge pass him by. Fire was Dante’s thing. He didn’t want to step on any more of Dante’s toes than he had to.
Instead, Cristiano stepped around behind Matt and took firm hold of the hand Matt had put on Felicity’s throat the day before. “Come to think of it, I seem to remember finding you with your hand on my woman, too.”
Matt tensed. “Sh-she’s not yours!”
Cristiano forced Matt’s fingers apart and pressed the point of his blade against the tip of Matt’s index finger. “Oh, she’s mine.” He leaned closer as if he were going to whisper some secret into the shithead’s ear. “And she’s told me about you, Matt. The way you harass her. The way you insult her. The way you would show up at her job and say misleading things about her to her colleagues. You scared her, Matt. That’s not something I can let go.” He offered no other warning before slipping the blade beneath the man’s nail, slicing it off.
Matt shrieked, his arm jerking, shoulders wrenching.
Cristiano released his grip, letting the hand hang limply in its restraint, and stepped into Matt’s line of sight again. “If you think that hurts, you probably should have opted for the window.” He let his lips lift in an expression he’d been told made his own men uncomfortable. “No, you definitely should have opted for the window.”
Matt’s lips actually quivered. “People will notice if I disappear.”
Cristiano lowered to eye-level with the other male. “What people?”
Matt did his best to glare back at him.
“Just fucking answer him!” Chuck snapped.
Matt whipped his head to the side. “Shut up, fat-ass!”
Cristiano scowled, but Chuck responded faster. “Thought you liked a few extra pounds, the way you were always yankin’ it for that dumb bitch.”
Matt opened his mouth again and Cristiano shoved the handle of his dagger past Matt’s teeth. Matt’s eyes flew wide and the blade wobbled, but he managed to bite down fast enough to keep it from falling.
Cristiano stood and strode back to his pile of weapons. He lifted the sledgehammer from the bag, spun it around in his hands, and walked straight up to Chuck. “That was really fucking stupid, Chuck.” Then he swung, the hammer connecting with Chuck’s lower leg.
The room filled with screams and writhing, restrained bodies. Blood splattered across the floor, Chuck’s opposite leg, and dripped off his ankle. Cristiano set the sledge down in exchange for a length of rope, came back, and wound that rope around Chuck’s upper leg just above the knee. He pulled it good and tight before tying it in place, a makeshift torniquet, and straightened. Then he looked Chuck in the eyes and said, “One more derogatory word about my fiancée, and I come for an organ.”
Chuck heaved, gasping and trembling in place. “Y-y-you’re a monster…”
“Yes. Yes, I am.” Cristiano turned back to Matt, who was staring wide-eyed and paler than chalk, at Chuck’s bleeding leg. From his angle he couldn’t necessarily see the exposed bone, but he could absolutely see the blood.
Matt’s stare followed Cristiano’s trail until he was looking forward again and the knife wobbled in his mouth as he whimpered. He fucking whimpered.
Cristiano reached out and retrieved the dagger. “Thanks for holding on to this.” He spun the blade around and wiped the handle on his clothes before letting it rest against his palm again. “Now, where were we?”
“Th-the Ink Blots,” Matt said, continuing to dart quick, frightened glances to the side. “C-Cezar Barros is the other guy Chuck was talking about. The one who called to set me up with the apartment.”
Barros again.Miguel had mentioned that name, too. Cristiano kept the observation to himself and ran a different direction. “What was your job?”
Matt swallowed hard. “Keep an eye on T’s sister. Report any changes in her routine, any visitors.”
Cristiano crouched down again and rested the blade of his knife on Matt’s leg, just above the knee. “Was it your job to harass her? To try and get in her pants and make her uncomfortable?”
Matt gave a jerkish shake of his head. “No! No, man, I just … she … she’s so…. You know?”
Cristiano tapped the knife deliberately. “We’re not going to be friends, Matt. Don’t try.”
Matt’s nostrils flared as he sucked in a deep, chest-puffing breath. Indignation filled his eyes. “You can’t fucking do this to me, okay? Yeah, so I got a little pushy with the girl you think you’re gonna marry, big fuckin’ deal.” Cristiano’s eyes narrowed, but Matt didn’t stop.
“You got a name? Well, guess what jackass, I got a buddy with a name, too. You wanna know how I got into the Blots in the first place? Coughlan. Brendan Coughlan. He’s the guy who’ll notice if I disappear.”
Cristiano drew back, his head spinning. “What did you just say to me?”
Whispers of old memories that should have been locked away played at the back of his mind. Echoes of voices he didn’t really remember anymore.
Matt had the audacity to look smug. “Rings a bell, De Salvo?”
Brendan motherfucking Coughlan.He hadn’t heard that name in well over a decade. It would always be too soon. Cristiano stood, towering over the piece of shit. “Coughlan’s the money behind the Ink Blots?” He probably didn’t even need to ask. Thinking about it, that answer explained everything.
Matt shrugged. “Brendan got me in, the Blots keep me protected. ‘S all I can say.” He smirked. “Well, that, and there’s nothing quite like jacking off in that girl’s shower when it’s still warm and wet after she’s gone for work.”
Cristiano saw red. He plunged his dagger down, stabbing straight into the bastard’s obviously oversized balls.
Matt let out a shrill, piercing scream, his body straining immediately and making the wound worse.
Cristiano left the knife where it was, took one step back, and let his fist fly into the fucker’s face. He didn’t need anything else from this piece of shit. He didn’t need anything else from either of them—except their agonizing deaths. And with the decades’ old fury fueling him, that was exactly what each man was going to get.
He swung on Matt until the jaw shattered beneath his fists, until blood smeared with his every blow, and well past when Matt’s ear-splitting wailing gurgled to a stop. Then he returned to his supplies, picked up a curved knife, and stalked back to Matt. Matt would die first. Matt would pay for every moment of torment he’d put Felicity through. Matt would bleed for putting hands on her, and invading her space.
Matt would die for speaking that name in Cristiano’s presence.
Cristiano ignored Matt’s low, ceaseless groans, grabbed him by the hair, and twisted his head forward. Matt’s face was a bloodied mess, but he was still conscious. For how much longer remained to be seen. “Since you’re friends with that motherfucking family, you don’t mind sharing their blood debt, do you?”
Matt’s throat constricted as the cadence of his gurgling changed. Tears leaked from his eyes.
Cristiano released his hair and reached down, hooking the blade around the pinky farthest from him. “Some names—” He gave a quick jerk of his wrist, severing the toe from the foot. More blood squirted to the floor as fresh, garbled cries filled the air. “Should never—” He moved his knife two toes over and repeated the move. “Be spoken.”
He stepped to the side, reached out with his free hand, and extracted the small dagger from between Matt’s legs. He made a mental note to tell the clean-up crew to melt the thing into scrap, because no amount of sanitization would make him comfortable putting it back in rotation, but for this it was fine. He didn’t give a fuck about stabbing Matt with his own blood or piss. So, ignoring the sounds coming from the man he couldn’t torture badly enough, he moved behind the man to his almost undamaged hands and raised the more soiled blade. He used that to draw deep lines across Matt’s arm, carefully avoiding the major veins, before coming into view again.
Matt was shaking, his head hanging back and eyes half-open. He was slipping straight into shock.
Cristiano clicked his tongue. “You don’t get to skip out on me, Matt. I’m not done making you suffer.” He looked down at the mess of dripping blood and other things quickly fouling the air. “What do you know? I almost forgot one.” He promptly stabbed the small blade into approximately the space Matt’s other testicle should be and, sure enough, that got a fresh jolt out of the shithead.
Then he raised his curved blade again, opting to leave the tiny knife where it was. “Now you die.” He waited only long enough to meet Matt’s wide, wild stare one more time before swinging into his torso. It wasn’t quick. It wasn’t effortless. What it was, was cruel, violent, and not nearly enough to satisfy the rage that had been roused in him.
It was also effective.
Cristiano tossed the curved blade to the side and strode back to his supply stash, this time lifting his machete. He could still feel the heat of his anger, rough like the surface of a sea in a storm, but he wasn’t so lost that he didn’t know where to aim it. Chuck had hurt Felicity. Chuck had set her up to be nowhere near as far removed from her half-brother as she’d hoped to be. But Chuck had not, that he’d yet confessed to or now likely would, had any association with the Coughlan name. That was one miniscule notch in his favor.
Chuck was breathing hard, already looking like he might pass out, when Cristiano stepped in front of him. “No, no please, I won’t—”
Cristiano swung without bothering to listen. He needed nothing from this man anymore.