“Fuck you. I don’t have to do?—”
Rocco stepped forward, kicking up under Tad’s chin with a solid thwack, which bent the smaller man’s body in half backward.
“Ouch.”
Rocco grinned. “That’s one of my favorite moves. Sure I can’t kill him.”
Tad startled, then began crying.
“Geez. We barely touched him. What a little bitch.”
He wasn’t wrong. “No. We want people to know how benevolent Don Buccelli is. Things got a little lax with thechanging of the guard, but now we’re cleaning up. Did you hear that, Tad? Don Nico Buccelli has Romeo Caputo and Rocco Buccelli putting his house in order. If anyone asks, you be sure and tell them.”
He spit blood on the floor. “I’m telling the police,” he blubbered.
Rocco snorted. “Tell my Uncle Stan I said hi while you’re at it.”
“That’s the chief of police, in case you didn’t know,” I added.
Tad started shaking. All signs of his bravado were gone. “Let me give you one of the girls. You can have her for free.”
Rocco’s dark brown eyes went black with anger. My hand twitched wanting to reach for my knife. “I don’t know, Romeo. Can I at least chop off his dick? What’s that saying, an eye for an eye and all that shit, am I right?”
Damn, it was so tempting to say yes. “No.”
He rubbed his hands together slowly. “Maybe feed him his balls? What do you say? That’s still benevolent.”
Tad started begging for his life, promising he’d leave town, that he’d do anything, anything if we’d let him go. Sure, he would.
“Still no. We gotta get the ladies. Just—” I waved a hand at Rocco to proceed.
As I opened the door, I heard the solid thunk of Rocco’s fist connecting with flesh and Tad’s scream. Over it, Rocco asked, “Can I scar him, at least?”
Looking over my shoulder, I met Rocco’s gleeful expression with an evil smile of my own. “By all means.”
Chapter
Seven
Cory
It had been a long day.After sleeping all afternoon yesterday and my meltdown last night, I was ready to get back to normalcy. Although, with the discoloration on my face, I spent most of the day hiding in my office. That was fine. There were plenty of things to do.
Knock. Knock.
“Come in.”
Harlow opened the door and stuck his head in. “Charity and I are back from our shopping spree. You said you wanted to see us?”
“Yes.” I jumped out from behind my desk, grabbing a couple of key cards on my way. “Let’s go.”
Harlow backed up, letting me pass, and I almost ran into Charity, who stood staring at Dante. “Are you okay?” I asked.
Without taking her eyes off him, she asked, “Who is that?”
“Uh, Romeo left us with a little hotel security.”
She side-eyed me. “That’s no security guard.”