Chapter 14
14
RAFFAELE
I hated leaving Vivienne, not being there to watch over her and know for certain that she was safe. But eliminating the threat was more important than my obsessive need to be the one who gave her everything she needed or wanted.
My cousin Matteo—or Ink as his motorcycle club brothers called him—phoned this morning to tell me that the Hounds of Hellfire picked up the men Chet had hired to try to snatch Vivienne.
They hadn’t made it past my security, but just attempting to take something that belonged to the King of the South warranted a response. They had earned my wrath, but it was also an opportunity to make a clear statement about what happened to people who fucked with the Mafia.
The would-be kidnappers had been good enough to give us the slip while we chased their asses from our territory. But Marco had managed to track them down, and King, the Hounds’ president, offered to send some of his guys to retrieve the assholes and take them to a warehouse in Tennessee owned by the Iron Rogues.
Alec and our best tracker, Liam, had joined up with a couple of Fox’s men to snatch Chet and meet us there as well. The little bastard was in hiding too, but he didn’t have the skills to disappear like the men he hired.
I hopped into the driver’s seat of my Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut, dismissing Domenico’s grumbling. As my bodyguard, he preferred to drive, but I needed a distraction, and my very fast, very expensive vehicle was perfect for it.
When we reached the gate, the enforcer operating the post opened it but waved at me to stop by the guard shack. I rolled down my window when he approached, shifting my focus to Domenico when I felt him stiffen. He was staring out the windshield, and my eyes followed his line of sight.
“I didn’t figure you would miss them,” my enforcer drawled. “But I wanted to give you a heads-up anyway.”
“ Grazie ,” I murmured.
Three large, tattooed men wearing jeans, boots, and leather vests were sitting on idling Harleys a few yards away.
I hadn’t expected them to show up, but perhaps I should have.
They kicked up their stands and rode over to us. Then the oldest of the three, who had the commanding presence of a leader, climbed off his hog and ambled over to my open window.
“Not sure why the fuck I had to hear about this shit from Ink last night,” Jared “Mac” Mackenzie—the president of the Silver Saints Motorcycle Club—said gruffly.
Mac was married to Bridget, another of my cousins. She was closer to my mother’s age and had been extremely close with Matteo after he moved to Georgia when he was ten. They were also located in Tennessee, but Matteo visited them frequently. So it didn’t surprise me that he’d filled them in.
“He told you the Hounds have the men who tried to take Vivienne?”
Mac nodded. “And your enforcers are rounding up the piece of shit who hurt your woman.”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “We’re going to interview them at one of the Rogue’s warehouses.”
“Know you don’t need more backup, but you’re family,” Mac grunted. “Gonna be there, just in case. Besides, my old lady would be pissed as fuck if she found out we weren’t.”
One corner of my mouth twitched. I would’ve loved to give him shit for being whipped. But while her mother had been a DeLuca—my father’s sister—Bridget was the embodiment of an Irish redhead. Her temper was fierce, and no one enjoyed being the target of her fury. And after meeting Vivienne, I no longer had room to talk since I was thoroughly wrapped around my woman’s fingers.
“We’ll see you there,” I murmured. He nodded and returned to his bike, climbing on just as I hit the gas and flew down the road.
Fox opened the door to the warehouse just as Domenico and I walked up to it.
“Waiting on you in the back,” he muttered as he greeted me with a clasp of the shoulder and a slap on the back. Then he shifted out of the way so we could enter.
“ Bene .”
Mac was right behind me, though the two enforcers he’d brought stayed outside with the men Fox and King had left to guard the building.
Fox led us down a hallway with offices on both sides, then through a large, open area that had rows of shelving with boxes on them.
My phone beeped, and I withdrew it from the pocket of my jeans and read the text. “Alec says they’ve located Chet and should be arriving with him by tomorrow morning,” I announced.
Domenico chuckled. “You’re going to borrow my knife and steal all my fun, aren’t you, DeLuca?” he grumped.
A wicked smile curved my mouth. “I’d hate to go back on my promise.”
Fox glanced back at me with a curious expression, and Domenico gave him a quick explanation of what had transpired between Chet and me when we’d last met.
Mac made a sound that was basically the equivalent of a laugh for him. “Got a little dramatic flair from those Italian genes. Respect that.”
Fox chuckled and yanked open another door, gesturing for us to enter first.
“Rafa,” King drawled in greeting. He was leaning up against the wall to my right, arms crossed and feet braced wide. But he pushed upright when I walked inside, and we did a manly shake as well. “You didn’t show up in the next half hour, I was gonna start without you.”
He was teasing, but not many people would recognize that since there was no crack in the scowl that seemed to be his permanent expression. Unless he was looking at his wife or kid.
“Your patience is appreciated,” I murmured dryly.
Muffled noises came from the center of the room, and I turned to see two men strung up to the ceiling by their hands over their heads. They weren’t fully off the ground, but the chains had been shortened just enough to have them on their toes.
“How long have they been like this?” I queried as I removed my moto-style black leather jacket and tossed it to Domenico before rolling up my sleeves.
“An hour, give or take,” King answered.
“ Eccellente .” Their arms wouldn’t be quite numb, but they would be tingling and sensations would be heightened.
I walked over to stand a few feet away from them and crossed my arms over my chest. “Do you know who I am?”
Both of them nodded, looking terrified.
“Then you should know better than to try to take something that belongs to me.”
The smaller man of the two—a skinny, balding weasel with bulging eyes and a large mouth—whimpered like a little bitch. “We didn’t know she was yours! I swear!”
“Domenico?” I called, never taking my cold, intense eyes off the hired goons.
“ Sì , boss?”
“Perhaps you should demonstrate what happens to people who lie to me.”
“Con piacere.”
I let Domenico have some fun with his knife, watching dispassionately as they cried and bled. Eventually, I called a halt to it, and he walked over to a table that had a bowl of water and a rag. He dipped the cloth into the liquid and wiped the blade clean, then returned it to his pocket.
“Please,” the taller, even skinner, guy begged. “I’m sorry. We’ll never come anywhere near her again!”
I raised an eyebrow. “ Mi dispiace . Did we somehow give you the impression that you would be leaving this place alive? Non ci credo .”
Slowly, I prowled over to the balding one and stopped right in front of him. “Then again,” I murmured objectively. “It might be beneficial to leave one of you alive to spread a warning to anyone who is considering touching something that belongs to the King of the South.”
I grabbed both sides of his nose near the bridge and jerked it sharply to one side, causing it to break.
“Or you could just string up their broken and bloodied bodies on a flagpole in downtown Camillia Falls,” Mac suggested in a bored voice.
I cocked my head to the side thoughtfully. “That idea has merit as well. Though I prefer the message to reach much farther than that.”
King chuckled darkly. “Give Wizard pictures. He’ll make sure they end up in the hands of all the right people.”
Wizard was one of King’s patches, a tech genius who could find just about anything or anyone.
“Another solid suggestion. I might need time to consider my options.”
Moving to stand in front of the other pathetic bastard, I reached up to where his wrists were bound and pressed down on the scaphoid bone near the base of his thumb on his left hand. While putting a significant amount of pressure on it, I twisted until I heard a pop, and he cried out. When I let go, his hand was limp. If the bones weren’t broken, they were certainly severely damaged.
I spent another half hour making them pay for their stupidity, but I was careful not to kill them. They had one more purpose before I made an example of them.
“I think that’s enough for tonight,” I announced.
Fox was sitting in a chair near the little table, reading. He nodded at my statement and set aside the book as he got to his feet. “Don’t want them losing feeling in their arms. Gonna secure them in the next room for tonight, and I’ll have Blade make sure they don’t bleed out.”
“ Grazie mille ,” I thanked him.
“How are you, cara ?” I asked Vivienne over a video call on my phone as I paced outside the warehouse the following morning. Alec and Liam were due to arrive with Chet any minute.
“I miss going outside,” she muttered.
I smiled at her cute little pout. “Ah, but you miss me more, don’t you?”
She tried not to smile, but her mouth curved up, and she sighed. “ Sì .”
Heat raced through my body, and I knew she could see the flames of desire in my eyes when I growled, “Fuck, cara . Don’t ever speak Italian to anyone but me.”
She frowned. “Didn’t I say it right?”
“You did. That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is?” she asked, obviously confused.
“Vivienne, hearing you speak Italian makes me hot as hell and desperate to fuck you. I want to hear you screaming in it how much you love my cock being buried inside you.”
“Oh,” she whispered breathlessly. “Could you…um…” Her cheeks turned bright pink, but she seemed to gather some courage before continuing. “Would you say dirty things to me in Italian? After you tell me what they mean, of course.”
“Sei sexy, cara. Ti voglio scopare ,” I crooned. “Voglio seppellire il mio cazzo nella tua figa stretta. Voglio sentirti urlare di piacere mentre cavalchi il mio cazzo. Spalancherai le gambe per me come una brava ragazza e ti scoperò così forte che non avrai dubbi a chi appartiene quella figa. ”
Vivienne’s face was flushed, and she stared at me with her mouth open and her blue eyes burning with need.
“Like that?” I practically purred.
“Um, yes,” she squeaked.
The sound of tires on gravel alerted me that it was time to hang up. “Shit. I have to go, cara . I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
She smiled sadly and said goodbye before hanging up. Dragging me away from her, especially after outing me, was just another reason to want Chet dead.
The car came to a stop beside me, and Alec hopped out of the driver’s seat. Liam came around from the other side and popped the trunk, then they pulled a bound and gagged Chet out before slamming it shut again.
They set him on his feet, and an evil smile sliced across my face as I moved to stand directly in front of him.
I had a solid reputation as someone who was cold, unreadable, and emotionless. When Chet saw my expression, he seemed to understand that I had gone beyond that level, which meant I didn’t have a tight grip on my control. Without it, chaos would reign.
And the person or people my wrath was directed at should be as terrified as if they were facing the devil himself.
“We meet again, Chanler. And this time, you have a penance to pay.”
“You said your boss won’t let you kill me,” he whined.
“True. But when it comes to Vivienne, I’m pretty much unhinged. I’ll do whatever I think is necessary to keep her safe and happy. And honestly, I can’t say I won’t enjoy taking payment for what you’ve cost her. Us.”
He began to cry, and I rolled my eyes, then looked at Alec and jerked my head toward the warehouse. Dragging Chet with them, they followed me inside and back to the room where the would-be kidnappers were once again strung up.
“I know you never actually met the idiots you hired to snatch my woman, so let me introduce you. Well, I don’t actually know or care what their names are. I’ve come up with many creative ones to use. I digress, though. A face-to-face meeting wasn’t the purpose for our stop along the way to the room I have set up, just for you.”
Chet struggled against his bindings, and Liam boxed his ear. “Stop squirming and pay attention to the boss’s lesson, asshole.”
For the next twenty or so minutes, Chet was forced to stand there and watch as I tortured the goons, then ultimately shot them between the eyes.
King handed me a wet rag to clean my blood-soaked hands as I turned to look at Chet. “Your turn.”
After several hours of making Chet regret he was ever born, much less the things he’d done to women over the years, I contemplated just how far I wanted to push my relationship with Nic. He had several valid reasons for wanting Chet to remain alive. And the sick bastard would be monitored for the rest of his life.
Sighing, I began to put away the tools I’d used. “I can get away with a lot of shit since I’m Nic’s right-hand man and cousin. Of course, I’ve earned that leniency because I’ve rarely defied him. You, I’ve decided, are not worth the friction that killing you would put between me and the boss. So today is the luckiest day you’re ever going to have.”
I walked over to stand directly in front of Chet and felt the presence of several men creating a wall behind me.
“When you leave here, I expect you to crawl into the shadows and stay the fuck there. If I see you in the spotlight, for even one minute, or if I catch a glimpse of you within hundreds of miles of Vivienne, it will be the last time you see anything at all.”
Chet whimpered, and I shoved my fist into his gut one last time.
“And know this, there is nowhere on this earth that you can go where we can’t find you. You won’t be just hiding from the Family.”
“You’ll have the Silver Saints on your ass,” Mac growled.
“And the Iron Rogues,” Fox added.
“We won’t watch you. If you attract the attention of the Hounds of Hellfire, I’ll probably just kill you,” King drawled.
“The Family’s associates are every-fucking-where,” I told him, the dispassionate and calm side of me taking over once more.
I pivoted and lifted my chin at my brothers in silent thanks, receiving nods from each of them as well.
“Dump him somewhere his family will find him,” I ordered Alec. “I’m going home.”