28. Titus
TITUS
Cyrus is alone. That’s a problem. A big fucking problem.
The moment I see him, I tense up and the next moment I realize that he’s alone, I reach for my gun.
He stops a few feet away from me as he sees me reach.
“Where is my son?” I growl at him.
“You really think I’d be stupid enough to bring him with me?” he says with a tilt of his head. “You didn’t train me to be a complete idiot.”
My hand holds the grip of my gun as I stare him down. He crosses his arms.
“If you kill me, you’ll never find him. You have to know that.”
Shit. Sofia’s watching right now. She’s probably waiting for me to make a move before she shoots. If she jumps the gun—
“Your backup isn’t there, Titus,” he says, his black eyes boring into me. Then they narrow, seeing something in my face that he doesn’t expect. “I’ll be damned. Don’t tell me your little ally can shoot, too? I can see why you caged her. She’s a rare bird.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.” He laughs. “Cyril probably tried to take her down, but I’m willing to bet that she did the smart thing and ran for her life as she should have done ages ago. You didn’t really think you could trust the little bitch, did you? She’s the daughter of your sworn enemy, remember?”
I don’t believe him. And even if that were true, I simply can’t believe that she would abandon me and Luka like this. “You’re a fucking liar.”
“Maybe,” he says. “But if I am, then I’m a fucking liar that knows where your kid is.”
He takes another step toward me and my hand itches on my gun’s handle.
“What was the plan here supposed to be, exactly?” he asks. “My brother and I and your son show up and she shoots us? In a populated area from a high building office, no less? How good of a shot is she supposed to be?”
“Better than you think,” I say. “If your brother failed, you’re going to find out any second now.”
His face splits into a slow smile. “Oh, I doubt that. I’ve got my own snipers around, you know.
” He waves a finger around me. I glance around and see several faces that I know.
Disguised with sunglasses and hats, all with guns hidden by newspapers in their laps and in their pockets. No doubt trained on me.
“Take your hand off the gun, Titus.”
I don’t want to. Every instinct I have is telling me not to. I want nothing more than to put a bullet in his fucking head.
“It’s over,” he says. “You’ve lost the game.”
“If your plan is to kill me, Cyrus,” I say, “You’d better do it now. Because if so much as a hair is out of place on my son’s head, I will not stop until you and your entire line have been wiped clean of this planet.”
His smile falters a little. “I remember when that threat held weight. You’ve lost your edge, old man.
Who would have thought a little pussy would have you making such weak choices?
” He adjusts his jacket and adds, “You’re going to die today.
Unlike you, I never planned on doing it here in public.
I would much rather you die as alone as you’ve managed to make yourself during this misguided death mission gone wrong. ”
I still don’t move, my mind trying to find some way to shoot him in the head and get away with it.
“Take your hand off the gun,” he says, his smile dropping. “Or else I will risk a massacre to make sure you’re put down.”
“You will pay for this,” I say as I take my hand off my gun slowly. “If it’s the last thing I ever do.”
He snickers. “Stand up.”
I stand and he walks up to me. He reaches around me and pulls the gun out of my belt, keeping his eyes on me. He takes a couple of steps back and says, “Don’t worry. I have no plans on killing your son. He’ll do fine in foster care, I’m sure.”
The cold on my skin and in my bones switches to fire as rage rushes through my body. “You son of a bitch.”
He pulls a small box from his pocket and before I can move, a bolt of electricity leaps out at me, sending electrical shocks through my body in rivers. My body shakes out of control and my knees give. I fall to the ground, unconscious.
I wake up in the dark, ice water drenching me and shocking my body back to life.
I gasp, my arms straining against their bonds.
I peer through the darkness as water drips down into my eyes.
A hot light comes on over my head and the familiar setting comes back to me.
I’m in one of the many rooms in the warehouse. I’d know these walls anywhere.
A quick rush of panic reaches me as I jerk my hands. The bonds don’t feel like metal. I pull at them and they cut into my wrists.
“Wakey-wakey,” Cyrus says as he sets an empty water bucket down. “Time to pay the piper for your crimes.”
“You must be out of your mind,” I growl at him. “When I get out of here—”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he says, clasping his hands together. The blade of a long knife protrudes from his gloved hands. So, that’s to be my proposed torture.
I snicker. “You’re going to cut me? That’s the best you’ve got?”
His smile drops.
“I thought I taught you better than this, Cyrus,” I go on. “Knives are fine for information. Not for torture unless you’ve got the skill for it.”
“You talk too much,” he says, twisting the knife in his hands. “You know, you also taught me there’s more than way to torture someone. More than one way to bring them to their knees. Sometimes, you can make it happen without laying a hand on them. Right?”
I glare at him, all the while analyzing the thing that’s holding my wrists. Are these… zip ties? I could almost smile at him for that mistake.
“For the record, you were right about one thing,” he says. “I did lie to you back at Center Parkway. About your Penza bitch.”
I glare at him. My rage warms my skin, brightening something in my chest.
“She never ran,” he goes on. “Cyril said something about her devotion after that last dust up with her. She’s passionate about those people she cares about. I’ll give her that.”
“Don’t you talk about her.”
“Oh, but I think you want to know what I have to say,” he says.
“You see, Cyril figured that if you somehow convinced her that her brother was still alive, then she’d most likely have given up any plans of running or taking her revenge on you.
That was confirmed when you brought her to the warehouse to see him.
Pretty smart for a bonehead like him, huh? I was impressed.”
He starts to pace, and I start to twist my wrists together, testing the boundaries of the ties.
“Did you know her story? About her training, I mean. So, apparently, she trained with Stasio as a child,” he says brightly. “You didn’t know that, did you? I’ll bet she never said anything about it either.”
My skin goes cold. Of course. That’s where she knows how to handle a gun. I should have guessed it. And I should have guess that Cyrus would find that out as well.
“Well, according to Stasio, she is very good with a gun.” He laughs. “Almost better than she is at hand to hand combat. If she were a man, she’d have been such a fucking asset to her father’s Bratva.’
“Anyway, we rented out the one office in the perfect spot in this building and emptied it out, and Cyril waited. We didn’t think that she would be the one to show up with as many choices as you’ve had, but…”
He leaves the last part hanging and a icy slice of panic runs through me. Shit. Shit. Sons of bitches. I could kill them. I could kill them both with my bare hands.
“Don’t worry about her,” he says. “I’ve got no plans to kill her…
yet. You haven’t used her up entirely, so after you’re dead, we’ll take over where you left off.
” He smiles broadly at me, all of his teeth displayed.
“She’s a nice piece of ass, isn’t she? A body like that should last quite a while. Can’t wait to get a taste.”
“You will not touch her.”
“Sure, Titus,” he says. He lifts the knife and walks toward me. “When I’m fucking her in the ass tonight, I’ll make sure to let her know that. I’ll also tell her how you screamed like the pig you are as you died.”
He raises the knife to my face and I take my chance, lifting my arms and slamming them against the metal of the chair. The zip ties break and I grab his wrist.
He freezes, looking up at me with terror in his eyes as I stand up.
“Your first mistake was believing that I’d gone soft,” I growl. I twist his wrist back and his mouth drops as a strangled moan leaps from his lips. “And then zip ties, Cyrus? After I went through all the fucking effort to outfit these rooms with chains?”
I twist his wrist up sharply. The bones in his shoulder twist and break under my grip as the knife falls from his hands. His knees buckle and he drops. I let him go and he lies on the floor in the fetal position, holding his arm.
“Fuck,” he says. “My fucking shoulder!”
I kick him in the stomach and he makes a gagging groan as he twists himself forward more. I put my foot on his shoulder and kick him on his back. He wails out in agony.
“You know what the penalty for treason is, don’t you?” I say, picking up his knife. “So what’s it going to be, Cyrus? Balls or head?”
His eyes flicker with shock. “Wh-What?”
“I need to hang something up at the gate around my house so the rest of the idiots foolish enough to follow you know better than to ever cross me again.”
Sheer panic is in his eyes as he mutters an anguished yell and tries to scramble away. I stomp on his ankle, and more bones break under my boot. He cries out in agony.
“I tried my best with you,” I say. He turns over and tries to crawl away, half dragging himself and half trying to get to his feet. I stomp out his ankle. It crunches loudly under my heel.
“FUCK!”
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” I say as I walk around to block him. I kneel down in front of him, yanking him by the hair. “If you tell me where my son and Sofia are, I’ll make it quick.”
“I-If you k-kill me, h-he will d-die,” he stammers.
I nod. “So, torture it is, then. I was hoping you’d choose that.”
“N-No. Titus, please!”
I hold him by the head and drive the knife into his eyelid, cutting through it and digging it into the cavity above his eyeball. He screams in agonizing pain, twitching under my hand.
“Tell me where he is and it stops,” I say over his screams. I slice his lid open and a river of blood pours down his face. “Now.”
“He’s, he’s in the warehouse! Both of them! Please! Titus! Please don’t kill me! The boy’s here! Bottom floor, first room! I swear to God!”
I look down into his bloodied face as he begs me for mercy. “Was that so hard?”
“L-Let me go,” he whimpers. “Please, Titus—”
“That is not how this works,” I say and slice his throat. I let him go and he writhes on the floor, holding his throat as blood pours out of him. I watch him die, the life draining from him in seconds. When he’s still, I wipe the blood off the knife and pocket it. Now, to find—
A scream splits the air somewhere downstairs, bloodcurdlingly high and rough. Sofia!
I run out of the room toward the scream.