Chapter Seven #2
At the seven-minute mark, his breathing changes. The rigid, defiant set of his body begins to soften. Not surrender, not yet, but the beginning of it. He’s weighing his loyalty to whoever hired him against the very immediate reality of what I’m going to do to him next.
When the ten minutes is up, I stand and move to him again. “Let’s try again. Who hired you?”
His jaw is clenched so tight the tendons in his neck stand out like cables. Blood has soaked his collar and pooled in the hollow of his collarbone from the first ear. He’s pale, sweating, but his eyes are still hard. Still holding.
“I told you,” he rasps. “I don’t know names.”
I nod and pick up the knife from the table. Renzo’s gaze follows it the way a hawk watches a rabbit.
“You’ve got one ear left, Renzo. I want you to think about that.
Really think about it.” I move behind him.
He tries to turn his head to track me but I put my hand on his skull and hold it still.
“One ear left. After that, I take something from between your legs. Maybe your balls. Maybe your cock. Maybe both.”
“If you’re going to kill me anyway, who cares what you take?” Renzo spits out.
Carlo laughs. “Well, that’s an interesting take on things.”
“Who hired you?” I say coldly, ignoring them both.
“I told you, I don’t know who hired me.” Renzo’s voice is tight, strained, but he’s holding the line. He’s tougher than some men might be, but that’s not going to serve him well in the long run. He’s not going to get a trophy. He’s just going to be dismantled piece by bloody piece.
“Yes, you do know who hired you,” I say. “And you’re going to tell me.”
I take the second ear the same way I took the first. Slow.
Deliberate. Letting him feel the blade separate cartilage from skin, the wet sound of it, the strange cold sensation that comes before the pain fully registers.
He tries not to scream. He almost succeeds.
What comes out of him instead is worse, a low, guttural keening that builds from deep in his chest and fills the basement like something dying.
I set the second ear on the table beside the first. The symmetry is obscene. Two small, bloody pieces of a man arranged neatly on steel.
Renzo’s head drops forward. Blood runs freely down both sides of his neck now, soaking his shirt from collar to chest. His breathing is ragged, hitching, and his whole body is shuddering in the chair.
The tough-guy resolve is crumbling. I can see it happening in real time, the way a wall looks solid until the moment it doesn’t, and then it comes down all at once.
“I can keep going,” I say, returning to my chair. I sit. I cross my legs. “Or you can tell me who paid you to kill my husband, and this ends.”
The silence stretches. Gino is sobbing quietly in his chair, horrified by what he’s watching, terrified that it could still happen to him. The sound of his crying mingles with Renzo’s ragged breathing and the slow drip of blood hitting the concrete floor near the drain.
Renzo lifts his head. His face is a ruin.
Blood and tears and sweat. Without his ears, his head looks wrong, exposed, vulnerable in a way that goes beyond the physical.
He looks diminished. His body is shaking.
His whole body vibrating in the chair, the zip ties cutting into his wrists.
Blood is pooling in the hollow of his collarbone from his ears.
“If I talk,” he rasps, “they’ll kill my family.”
“What do you think I’m going to do if you don’t talk?
” I laugh harshly. “You think I’m going to stop here?
Spare them? Come on, Renzo, you’ve been around long enough to know how this shit works.
You die, I move on to the next person in your family.
Even if they don’t know who hired you, it’ll feel good to spill their blood.
Because you tried to hurt what’s mine, so I’ll hurt what’s yours. Capisce?”
The silence stretches. Thirty seconds. A minute. Two minutes. The lights hum overhead. Gino’s ragged breathing fills the gaps. The room smells like blood and the sharp stink of a man whose body is flooding with cortisol and adrenaline.
“We should start with his daughter, Agnese, boss.” Carlo’s tone is conversational. “She’ll be easiest to get to because she sneaks out of the house sometimes.”
“Don’t you dare touch her,” Renzo screams, struggling against his restraints.
“Then talk,” I growl. “Tell me who hired you.”
Renzo hangs his head, defeat written in every line of his body.
“If you think I’m bluffing,” I rumble, “You’re a fool.”
He shudders out a breath. “It… it was someone from a powerful family,” he whispers at last.
I don’t move. I don’t react. I wait a moment, then I ask, “What family?”
He meets my gaze, fear glittering in his eyes. “If I tell you, do you promise you won’t go after my family just because you’re pissed at what I did?”
“Not if you give me a name. What’s the family name?”
He squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m scared of what they’ll do to my family—”
“Worry about what I’ll do to them,” I snarl.
“Okay, okay,” he snivels. Tears track through the blood on his face. “It was the Luccheses.”
The name lands in my chest like a brick.
“Which Lucchese?” I grate out, heart racing.
Would Sandro have gone after Elio? I’m stunned at the very idea.
I find that impossible to believe. Sandro was obviously hurt and angry when I didn’t accept his ultimatum, but so much so that he’d kill my new husband?
Sandro is many things, but a cold-blooded killer?
That just doesn’t fit with the omega I spent two years with.
“It was a woman,” he mumbles.
Relief floods me, although I’m not entirely reassured. It’s possible Sandro was still involved.
Renzo opens his eyes and looks at me. His face is a wreck of terror and resignation. “It was the mother. Valentina.”
Valentina Lucchese put a hit out on Elio? I’m stunned at what he’s saying, but I believe him. I’m pretty sure he’s not lying, although it’s pretty hard to accept that Sandro’s mother put a hit out on Elio. “Did she give you a reason?” I croak.
He grimaces. “She said you disrespected her son. Her family. She wanted your omega dead before he could give you an heir. She said her son should have been the one. She said you owed her family.”
“That bitch,” Carlo snarls. “Marcello Foschini doesn’t owe anyone anything.”
That’s probably not entirely true, but I don’t disagree with his description of Valentina.
That bitch sat at my wedding and congratulated me on my marriage.
Rage spikes in me when I remember how she hugged Elio.
She wished us well and the whole time that bitch was planning Elio’s murder.
“Was it just her or were there other Luccheses involved?” I ask, careful not to show how rattled I feel.
Renzo’s face is gray and he seems weaker now, maybe from loss of blood. “I got the impression it was just her, but I don’t know for sure.”
“And you swear on your daughter’s life that you’re telling the truth?” I ask coldly.
“Yes, I swear.”
I stand and set the bloody knife on the table, glancing at Carlo. “Take Gino upstairs. Clean him up. Have someone drive him home.”
Carlo nods. He moves to Gino’s chair and cuts the zip ties and lifts the shaking man to his feet. Gino can barely stand. Carlo half-carries, half-drags Gino up the stairs, and the door at the top closes behind them.
Renzo and I are alone.
He knows what’s coming. I can see it on his face. The resignation that he’s not going to leave this room. His breathing has gone shallow and fast and he’s gripping the arms of the chair so hard his knuckles are white.
“You promise you won’t hurt my family?” he asks.
“Yes, if what you told me checks out,” I rumble. “I’m not just taking your word for it.”
He winces. “Fair enough, but it’s the truth.”
I study him, anger burning inside of me. “How much did she pay you to come after my omega?”
There’s no fight left in him as he mutters, “Forty thousand. Half up front, half when the job was done.”
I give a harsh laugh. “So you’re dying for twenty grand. Pathetic.”
He drops his head. “I thought I’d succeed.”
I curl my lip. “You think I’d let just anyone drive my omega? You don’t think I’d have one of my best men protecting him? Fucking idiot. No wonder you’re dying today. Some people are too stupid to live.”
He swallows hard. “I needed the money, okay?”
“Yeah?” I snarl. “You came after my omega for a lousy forty grand. That’s not enough payment for a hit that puts the entire Foschini syndicate on your back.
That’s not even enough gas money for the rest of your miserable life on the run.
” I look at him with disgust. “You insulted me twice. First by thinking you could touch what’s mine.
Then by accepting pocket change to do it. ”
“Is that right?” he growls, the veins in his neck bulging. “Then I guess it’s lucky for you Valentina is cheap. If she’d paid for someone better, your omega might not be breathing right now.”
I have to restrain myself from punching him.
Not because he’s wrong. Because he isn’t.
If Valentina had hired a real professional, Elio might be in the morgue.
Dante is a great bodyguard, but sometimes the odds are too great.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you fight or how fast you react. You still lose.
I pull off my gloves, struggling to control my temper. I decide to switch gears. Instead of arguing with Renzo, I should be trying to get as much information out of him as possible. It’s not enough to know Valentina ordered the hit. I have to prove it. Only when I’m sure can I have my revenge.
“How was the money delivered to you?” I ask.
He blows out a harsh breath. “Wire transfer. Through some business. A dry cleaning place, I think.”
“When did the first twenty come through?”
“Four days ago.”
I nod. That’s what I need. A date. I take the stairs up.