Page 29 of I Would Die For You

“Jasir?” I ask, drawing out his name. “Jasssiiiirrrr?”

“What…no…stop…”

I glance at Gianluigi and roll my eyes. “I gave him the ketamine, didn’t I?”

Cazzojust smiles softly.

“What…what is that?” Aldo asks behind me.

Across the room, I can also feel Valentino’s attention on me, asking the same thing.

“Ketamine. Wonderful anesthetic, amazing pain reliever, too. But that’s mainly the case for children. In adults, not so much, thanks to its psychotropic effects.” I shrug. “Jasir, how are those hallucinations?”

“Fu…fuck you.”

He’s still not going to crack. He planned to hurt an innocent woman, not to mention all the innocents he abused in his sex trafficking rings. I know what they’ve done to these girls. The branding and mutilation alone…

I’m going to have fun with this one. And I have just the right idea. I wave at the brothers.

“Guys, come here.”

When they step into Jasir Daku’s eyesight, the man visibly recoils. This isn’t a hallucination, though—he is indeed looking at a triple-vision oddity, since it’s not every day you come across identical triplets.

I send them away, and we’re all laughing now, even Aldo. Val, not so much. I’m sure my cousin must think I’m crazy, but this is Italy, the cradle of the Mafia, and not the gentle and peaceful New Jersey he’s from. He’d do well to see the real, grimy, gory side of the crime life before taking the reins of hisBorgataone day.

“Jasir,” I coax again. “What is it you planned to do to Kaya Norton?”

Valentino’s sharp inhale is audible even from here. Ah, now he gets it. It’s this woman at stake. The woman I lo— Well, that stick up his ass is coming out, and he’s taking a few steps toward us.

“Make him talk,” my cousin spit out.

“Gladly,” I say, my tone stone-cold sober.

I’ve got another trick up my sleeve, and between this and the ketamine, I can go on all night. After all, I have a doctor right here—Gianluigi will make sure we can always bring this fucker back from the brink.

I take the other syringe and push its contents into the IV line.

Daku’s eyes start to boggle. Strangled sounds come from his throat, until only silence permeates even as he stares at me with horror-filled eyes.

“Suxamethonium chloride,” I tell Val and Aldo. “It’s a muscle relaxant of sorts, paralyzes a person when it’s administered. It’s usually used in anesthesia or emergencies to intubate someone safely.”

I watch him choke for a few seconds. It can’t be pleasant to feel all his muscles seizing up and jerking to a halt, even his lungs. Combined with the hallucinations the ketamine must still be producing, he’s in a quandary. Hopefully, this will make him think twice about not answering my questions.

I can see when his eyes start to show his panic, then there’s a heaving intake of air. Shouldn’t have taken long to clear from his system, but I wonder in what shape his liver is. If he’s not been living the too-good life, it won’t be much longer before his plasma cholinesterase starts to degrade the Sux. He’ll be ready, though out of breath, in a short while.

Soon enough, he’s breathing again. It’s ragged and a tad irregular, but he’s functioning properly.

I stare at him for long seconds, then pull my stool closer. “Kaya Norton. What. Have. You. Planned?”

When he fails to answer, Gianluigi hands me a vial of colorless liquid with no label attached. Guess we’re playing this version of Russian roulette again. Like I said, I’ve got all night. I’m not getting out of here—and Jasir Daku certainly isn’t—until we can all make sure Kaya will be safe.

Chapter 10 Kaya

Thetalkhepromisedme never came.

It’s been almost three weeks since that night at Demos, when I thought Stefano was engaged, and he showed me in no uncertain terms there’s only one woman occupying his mind, and that woman is me.

But everything’s changed since then. Don Giacomo called him into his office, Stefano came out a little while later with lines etched on his face and the weight of the world on his shoulders, and before he left, he grabbed me and held me close in the club. The gentle kiss he deposited on my temple just about broke my heart, because I knew I was losing him in that moment.

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