Holy shit, what the hell was that? Maybe it’s just the alcohol.
One thing I know for sure, though. I can never kiss Emilio Lopez again. Because if I do, I might not stop. No, I need to stay the hell away from him. The problem is, he’s always there, savingme like the white knight in the fairy tales my dad used to read to me as a kid.
Chapter Three
PRESENT
It’s Christmas Eve and I’m expected to be at the Giulianis’ house in an hour. I look at my watch and curse the asshole in front of me who won’t fucking talk.
“You know we’ve got plans, right? Hurry this up, Emilio,” Elias says while my other two brothers, Esterio and Ezekiel, chuckle.
“You want to have a go?” I point to the guy currently laid out on a metal table, ankles and wrists tied in leather straps.
“Nope, you said you wanted this one,” Elias replies.
I did want this. I need a way to burn through my anxiety about going to the Giulianis’ house. I needed to fall into the darkness and stay there. Because that way, I might not feel anything when I have to see her. Fucking Frankie, the bane of my existence, the one woman I would do anything for and who wants nothing to do with me.
I can still remember how her lips felt against mine three years ago. I kissed her on her eighteenth birthday. I know she felt it and whatever happened scared the shit out of her. She ran and has been running ever since. And me? Well, I let her.
“Heard Frankie was bringing some guy home for Christmas this year,” Esterio says.
That one sentence has me seeing fucking red. Over my dead fucking body is she parading some asshole around in front of me. She knows how I feel about her. She’s too smart not to. She’s also seen the lengths I’ll go to for her. If she thinks I’m going to sit back and watch her play house with another guy, she can fucking think again. That’s not happening.
With a renewed rage, I turn to the asshole laid out on the table and yank the gag out of his mouth. “This is what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell me where that fucking containeris within the next five seconds or I’m going to take this pair of scissors and cut your balls off. Then I’m going to stake them to that metal rod over there before shoving it up your fucking ass,” I tell him, holding up a pair of shears. “One, two, three, four…”
I lean over, lining the scissors up with his ball sac.
“Wrong move, trying to call my bluff. I’m not bluffing, asshole,” I hiss out as I begin to close the scissors around his skin.
“Okay, argh. Fuck! Okay, okay! Stop! I’ll tell you!”
I pause. “Start talking.”
“It’s in Arizona, a storage yard. The address is in my phone,” he says.
I look over at Ezekiel, who picks up the phone. He walks over and holds the screen above the asshole’s face.
“Where?” I grunt.
“Under the contact that says Lopez,” he tells me.
Ezekiel nods when he finds it. He pulls out his own phone, takes a screenshot, and then tosses the guy’s device onto the ground. Stomping on it and cracking the screen.
Elias nods at me. “Finish it,” he says.
I look back at the table.
“I told you. I can go now,” the guy says.
I lift one shoulder and smirk. “You took too long.”
I snap the scissors closed, cutting his balls off. He screams, blood splattering everywhere. Esterio comes up and hands me a gun. I aim it at the guy’s head and put him out of his misery.
“Was that really necessary?” Elias asks.
“I thought so.” I shrug, picking up a towel.
“I’ll see you all at the Giulianis’,” I tell my brothers before walking out of the warehouse.