15. Adriano
Adriano
M y fist thuds into the Gray Wolf operative’s chin. His face snaps sideways, and he groans. Blood leaks from a wound in his gut.
Fucking Vittorio did a number on this guy. He’s sliced up and barely alive. The other man is in better shape, only a few broken bones. I have him chained to the wall and drugged into unconsciousness.
This one, though, doesn’t have very long.
“Did Demir send the car?” I ask and hit him again.
It sends a thrill of pleasure into my veins, hurting him like this.
I’m twisted and broken, and all I know is death and suffering.
Like my father, like his father before him.
I am hell. I am sin and suffering. And anyone who gets in my way will break.
“I don’t know,” he murmurs, groaning, his head lolling. He’s tied to a chair set over a drain. The floor beneath him is stained a light rusty red.
“What relationship does Demir have with my wife?” I walk to a nearby table and lift up a rusty carving knife.
“Please.” The man’s eyes widen. He’s in his early thirties with a thick black beard and a scarred face. Clearly, he’s one of Gray Wolf’s street thugs. “I don’t know.”
I stab straight into his hand. He screams, arching his back. I feel the blade scrape over bone.
“Did Demir send the car?” I ask, leaning into the blade. The man’s thumb slices off with a wet sucking noise. It falls to the floor, and he starts shaking in terror. “What relationship does Demir have with my wife?”
“The car!” the man shrieks. “He sent the car!”
I step back, frowning. Blood’s welling up down his midsection now, and he’s very, very pale. “How do you know?”
“I stole it for him. I saw it on the news later. Definitely the one I took. They have explosives—in a warehouse—please, no more. No more!”
I cut off his pinky finger. He sobs as I kick the severed flesh toward the drain. “Give me names. As many as you can think of.”
He starts rattling off Turkish men. I write them down the best I can.
His head begins to loll, and I have to slap him to keep him going.
But he’s obviously at his limit. I get six names before he fades, his breath coming fast and shallow.
Blood’s dripping to the floor, more red stain gathering around the drain.
I step back and consider. Confirmation that Demir sent the car bomb is good, and more names mean a clearer idea of his network. But these men aren’t going to know the important information.
Like was Demir lying about what he said? Did Helena really cut him some deal that involved Lucille?
The car bomb suggests this is about much more than just money.
I toss the bloody knife onto the table, wipe my hands on a towel, and head upstairs. That bastard will die shortly. I’ll have Luca get rid of the body while I work on the other man, but I doubt he’ll give me much more than names.
I wash my hands upstairs. More blood runs from the water. I scrub until it’s all clean and make my way toward my room. I’m running on fumes, exhausted and working through a dozen different problems at once.
And I stop in my tracks when I find my wife unpacking her things.
I watch her silently. She doesn’t notice me at first. Lucy is so graceful and calm as she folds some sweaters and puts them into a set of drawers I left out for her. Each motion is contained and controlled. She hums to herself softly, and my heart stutters.
I could stand right here watching her unpack for the rest of my days, and that would be a life well spent.
“You’re a creep, you know that?” She glances over, frowning a bit. “Are you going to just stare at me?”
“That was the plan.” And all at once, I’m reminded that I can’t let myself get too wrapped up in her. Not when my time is limited. I’ll end up like my father soon enough. When that time comes, I won’t drag anyone down with me.
“How about you come help instead?”
“I can do that.” I join her at the suitcase. “This is a lot of stuff.”
“Believe it or not, I left more back home.”
“Get the rest if you want.”
“You’re so generous.”
“I’m aware.” I lift up a pair of her underwear, black and lacy. My lips press together. “Bring more of these.”
“Stop it,” she says, snatching them away and pulling the bag out of my reach. “Focus on the pants.”
We fold and put things away in silence for a little while.
She keeps glancing at me. I feel the weight of her attention like moth wings on my skin.
I try to focus on what I’m doing, but it’s hard.
She’s always there, a pressure in the back of my mind.
I haven’t been able to shake thinking about her since that night we first met.
“Now you’re the one staring,” I say absently.
“You smell.”
“Not bad, I hope.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Like blood.”
I look down at my hands. “Maybe I should shower.”
“Why do you smell like blood?”
I give her a hard look. Her face pales slightly. “Do you really want to know?”
“I guess not.”
I put a few pairs of shorts away. “I’m going to rinse off. You should know there are going to be some new rules around here for now.”
“New rules? I didn’t know we had any old ones.”
“You need to stay at the house as much as possible. What happened at the wedding wasn’t random.”
She looks at me. I can tell that makes her very nervous. “It was aimed at you, wasn’t it? And it involved me somehow too?”
I frown sharply. “How do you know that?”
“Grandmother apologized to me. It was honestly bizarre.”
I take that in. Demir’s story is starting to seem more and more plausible, but I decide not to scare her. “You’re safe here. Don’t worry about the wedding anymore.”
“Kind of hard not to, given the whole explosion and fire thing.”
“Stay at the house. If you need to leave, make sure you tell Luca first. He’ll be your primary guard.”
“I have babysitters now?”
“You have men making sure you remain alive.”
She doesn’t sulk. I like that about her. Instead, she only turns back to placing shoes in an orderly row. “I’ll see what I can do,” she says.
I open my mouth to argue, but think better of it.
Instead, I go to clean the stink of death off me the best I can.
Though I doubt I’ll ever get it all the way off.