Page 30 of Shot For Mercy

Alessandro hangs up, and I lower my cell phone from my ear. I don’t know where Cole could be right now, but I know where I want to be. In that basement, torturing the motherfuckers who dared to step into my territory. And maybe, just maybe, get information from them. It all depends on how loyal they are. But my methods have made many men sing for me.

An hour later, I’m standing in the basement of The Pink Pony Club. My brothers are all with me, standing against a wall and watching the two men tied up in the middle of the room. Their hands are bound behind the chairs, a rope tied around each other’s torsos. For a split moment, I want to kill them and get it over with. But then I remember Cole, and I know I need to figure out why they’re here. Except I’m not all there. My head is definitely elsewhere.

I pace in front of them, and if I could wear a hole into the concrete, I definitely would’ve by now. My brothers all have their eyes on me, most of them with a curious look in their eyes. All except Alessandro, who seems to be more suspicious than curious. He can probably read me better than the rest of them. We’ve always been inseparable, which means not much gets past him. It’s hard for me to lie to him and even harder to keep things from him.

“Emiliano,” Alessandro snaps, and I look at him. His mouth is set in a tight line, his eyes searching my face for what I imagine are answers. “What the fuck is going on?”

“They’re probably here for Cole,” I explain. “As revenge for what happened to Andrey now that he’s out of prison.”

My brother nods slowly.

I turn toward the Russians. “Isn’t that right?”

One of them doesn’t even look at me, keeping his eyes on the ground. It honestly pisses me off. The utter disrespect. The other guy, however, looks right into my eyes defiantly, and I realize it’ll be fun to break them.

“I asked a question,” I tell them. “And I expect an answer.”

The brave one looks right into my eyes and spits on the floor. “Italian scum.”

I laugh, a full belly laugh. “Oh, you’re definitely the brave one, aren’t you? I’ll enjoy breaking you the most.”

“Cole is actually here, Emiliano,” Giovanni says, and I look at him, my heart beating faster. “Do you think he’d like to do the honors?”

“No,” I reply quickly, and Alessandro frowns.

“What aren’t you telling us?” he asks. “What’s wrong with you?”

I sigh. “It’s complicated.”

“We have all night,” Lorenzo says, and I want to throttle him. They may have all night, but now that I know Cole is here, I definitely do not have all night. They’ll be lucky if I stick around for another ten minutes. I need to lay eyes on him. “Spill.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snap.

“Well, you’re going to,” Tony says with a smile. It pisses me off even more that he’s smiling, like he already knows the answer to Alessandro’s question. “We do have all night.”

“Fine,” I growl. “Cole and I had sex.”

The room is so silent you could hear a pin drop. My brothers are all wide-eyed, and if the situation weren’t so serious, it would be comical. I’d be laughing my ass off. Except nothing about this is funny. Cole hates me and now he’s in danger, and something tells me I can’t do anything about it. He wants nothing to do with me if the suitcase and bags on his bed are any indication.

Alessandro is the first to speak up. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t,” I reply dryly. “Clearly.”

“Okay,” Giovanni says, “so you had sex with him. What’s the big deal?”

“Other than the obvious?” I frown. “Maybe the fact that I told him it was a mistake.”

“Ouch.” Lorenzo looks at me with a sympathetic look in his eyes, and I want to punch him in the face until he doesn’t pity me anymore.

“Yeah,that,” Tony chimes in.

I love my brothers, but sometimes I wish they weren’t so overbearing. I want to lick my wounds in peace and in private. I don’t want to expose myself to them, but I know they’re just trying to help me.

“Want me to get him for you?” Giovanni asks.

“No.” I shake my head. “If you do that, he’ll run away. His bags are already packed on his bed.”

“Double fuck,” Lorenzo says, pity in his eyes yet again.

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