Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 193(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 193(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
“There are a lot of doors I can open for you in politics. I can—”
“I pay people to do my politicking, Chanler. I have no desire to do it myself.”
Chet plopped onto one of the chairs in front of me and jiggled a leg up and down anxiously as he contemplated what to offer me next.
Finally, he tossed out another suggestion. “If all you’re looking for is a hole to fuck, I can make sure you have all the asses you want.”
My cool, dispassionate exterior was not a mask. It was genuinely my personality with people other than those I was closest to. However, today…today, I had to fight to keep the rage out of my eyes, to hide the disgust that wanted to twist my expression and stop my voice from shaking with fury.
“I don’t need to pay for pussy, Chanler,” I replied in a perfectly even tone. “Or ass.”
“Then what do you want Vivienne for?” he muttered, confused. “You can’t possibly want someone as plain and fat as her.”
He sounded as if he genuinely believed what he was saying, and it took a monumental effort to keep my hands from clenching.
“What I want with Vivienne is my business.”
“Fucking bullshit!” Chet shouted, jumping to his feet again. “She’s mine!”
I raised an eyebrow but didn’t otherwise react. Which just seemed to infuriate him further.
“You want to do this the hard way, DeLuca?” he yelled. “I will fucking ruin you!”
I sat in silence, letting him spout threat after threat, hoping he’d wind down soon so I could toss him out on his ass and go back to my angel.
Then he took it a step too far.
“I’ll get her from you eventually, you bastard! And when I do, I’ll fucking break her. I’ll—”
I moved before he knew what was happening, and his threats were soon silenced by the barrel of my gun in his mouth.
“What did you say?” I asked as I pulled the slide and racked the pistol.
Terrified, he tried to take a step back but found himself rammed up against a wall of muscle. The second I was out of my chair, Domenico and Dante had moved to stand behind him. Each one took hold of an arm, keeping him in place so he couldn’t dislodge the gun.
“I think it’s time I talked, and you listened. Then you can get the fuck out of my house and never come back. Nod if you understand.”
He looked down at the gun, going cross-eyed. I shoved it so the barrel bumped the back of his throat, though I was careful not to make him gag. This was my favorite piece, but I wasn’t going to clean vomit out of it. If I had to throw the weapon away, it was just one more thing he would owe me for.
“Nod if you understand,” I repeated, my tone turning deadly.
He jerked his head a tiny bit and whimpered when the pistol shifted.
“I don’t get off on killing. It doesn’t make me feel powerful. It’s simply business. But I have to admit, it would give me great pleasure to kill you. To slowly torture you until I’m satisfied that you’d paid for all of your sins. I’d put bullets in just the right spots to inflict the most pain but not make you bleed out quickly. Then I’d remove each of your fingers and toes and make you watch while I fed them to the dogs. Next would be your tiny dick, followed by your nipples. Of course, I’d save your tongue for last. I wouldn’t want anything to prevent you from screaming in agony.”
I held out my free hand, and Domenico handed me his wickedly sharp, big-ass blade.
“I just might borrow Domenico’s knife here and draw blood in several more places, ones that will eventually drain you. But very slowly, of course. Oh, and don’t worry about missing anything by passing out. We have plenty of fun little cocktails to keep you alert. Some of them will even enhance the whole experience….well, for me at least. I don’t think you would agree.”
Chet was doing his best to hide his fear, but the stark terror in his eyes was perfectly clear.
“Unfortunately, my boss doesn’t want to clean up the mess that would inevitably follow your disappearance. Which means today, you are going to walk out of here with…almost”—I sliced off a section of Chet’s earlobe, and Dante slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his pathetic cry—“all of your body intact. But make no mistake, if you won’t stay away from Vivienne, you’ll be declaring war with the DeLucas.” I tapped the knife on his head condescendingly. “And while I think you’re seriously lacking in logic and common sense…and humanity in general…you’re smart enough to know that challenging us would be a very, very stupid thing to do.”