Page 35 of Brutal Queen

Leandro’s eyes snap to mine like he’s shocked I would bestow him with such a compliment. “I don’t know why you’re so surprised. Your father extolled your virtues to my father for years. You were always on his radar,” I explain, trying to put him at ease.

“I guess I just never figured I would get the chance within The Syndicate.”

“The Syndicate is dead now, as are many of the archaic, nepotistic traditions.”

He laughs at that and replies, “I’m your cousin.”

“Meh, second cousin.” I shrug. “But you’re fucking good at the job I’ve assigned you. If you weren’t, I’d move you,” I say with an air of humour that cushions my words without undermining the message. No one’s position is guaranteed for life anymore, nor should it be. It breeds contempt and stagnation.

Leandro nods, and I pull him in for a loose hug, patting him on the back. “Now get out of here. You’re not going to want to see this next bit.” As skilled as he is, torture is not his wheelhouse. Last time he saw Nico at work, I swear I saw him go green.

He bangs on the side of the truck and I hear movement and the scrape of something dragging along the floor. Seconds later, two of Leandro’s men practically toss Manny out of the back into the waiting arms of Benny and Sin. The disdain on their faces as Benny and Sin look him in the eye is a force to be reckoned with. I catch the flinch as Manny tries not to buckle under their scrutiny. He’s never looked smaller to me than he does right now. Bound and gagged, wearing boxers and a ratty-looking tank with scraggly greying chest hair poking above the neckline. His face is drawn and his hair greasy and lank, like he should have showered before now. I expected more from him.

Sin and Benny pull him to the centre of the room while I operate the shutters to let Leandro and his men out before following my target to the scene we have waiting for him. I stop at Nico’s neatly arranged table of toys and run my fingers along the selection, and then I drop the folder next to them.

“Hold him tight and turn him round, boys.”

With my selection made, I go to stand at Manny’s back, dropping the thick length of chain at my feet before I rip the duct tape from his mouth. Picking it back up, I loop the heavy metal around his neck, locking a padlock firmly in place. Just tight enough to make sure it squeezes uncomfortably, threatening to choke him every time he swallows.

I don’t speak as I pull on the end of the chain and lead him like the dog he is, to position him exactly where I want him. He resists, pulling back and looking like he instantly regrets itwhen the metal links tighten and bite into his flesh. “Help our guest, please.”

Sin drags him forward, stopping under the hoist. Manny’s eyes widen when he sees it, the realisation of how truly fucked he is obviously sinking in.

I hand the end of the chain to Nico, flicking my eyes up to the galvanised metal loop bolted into the joist in the ceiling. Being the mountain of a man that he is, it doesn’t take much for Nico to reach up and thread the chain through. He pulls harshly yanking Manny away from Sin’s hold and then securing the end to a hook on the side of the lock up. They’re designed to take the weight of an engine block, so tethering a traitor won’t be a challenge.

Manny’s forced to stand on the balls of his feet, unable to put his heels down. He looks like a yard dog, and I’m about to make him beg for scraps.

I don’t want to start in a manner he’s expecting, and I want him to underestimate me. Picking the folder back up, I flick through the pages, making a show of deciding where to start with him. I drag my index finger through the endless notes before playfully tapping on my starting point.

“So tell me about Teresa, Manny,” I ask in my cheeriest tone. His brows furrow in confusion but that doesn’t stop me continuing. “How long did you know that Salvatore was fucking Benedict’s mother?”

That was an interesting little titbit Sinclair dug up. He found out Salvatore was sleeping with a capo’s wife but it was only by digging through Manny’s emails he found out who it was. Manny was keeping tabs on them, I’m assuming so he could report back to Max. I can see Benny in my peripheral vision, clenching his jaw at his mother’s name. Although things are good with his siblings since his father’s death, he refuses to see her. She stood by his father when hedisownedhim and unlike Etta and Luc, never made an effort to reach out to him. In his mind, she’s dead to him.

That doesn’t mean he’s unaffected, hearing about her fucking a traitor.

“I don’t know what you’re talking abo—” he spits out, cutting off his last word because he over-balances and the leash acts like a choke chain around his neck.

I approach him slowly and hook a finger under his chin, making sure I dig my long talon as far into his jowly neck as possible. “Now, now. Be careful, I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself.”

Gripping his face firmly in one hand, my fingers grip his cheeks extending his neck to its limit. “Teresa, how long?”

“She was just his weekly fuck.”

I step back to consult the file, which has details of exactly when Teresa first started seeing Salvatore De Luca. “She was seeing him for two years, and it would seem you started monitoring her about six months ago. Sending reports on times and locations to an unknown email address.”

“She’s irrelevant. She was too fucking stupid to recognise that she was just a convenient cunt with a loose tongue. Ultimately, she was fucking worthless, just like you are, princess,” he spits, his voice dripping with venomous disdain.

The moniker doesn’t impact me like it used to, but his words irritate me enough to pull back my arm, close my fist, and put my full weight behind the punch I throw, instantly breaking his nose. His spluttering protests cause his nostrils to act like some sort of macabre sprinkler, spraying mists of blood down his white shirt, forcing me to jump back to avoid the spatter.

Shit, that’s going to stain.

I shrug out of my pale button-down shirt, leaving me inonly my black tank and dark cargo pants. What can I say? I’m a sucker for pockets. Practical for both extra knives and lip balm.

“That would explain why she confessed so easily then,” I taunt, adding a playful lilt to my tone. He tries to reply but chokes on the blood obviously pooling in his mouth, forcing him to spit out what he can’t swallow.

When we uncovered proof that Teresa was communicating with Salvatore, we sent Stefano around to discuss it with her. Bearing in mind her precarious position fucking, not only a Bianchi traitor but also his puppet master, she started talking quicker than a rapper on speed. Aside from confirming that she was feeding Salvatore information on her husband, there wasn’t much she knew that was useful to us.

I don’t give a shit that she was as disloyal as her husband. What I want to know is why Manny was keeping tabs on their affair, because it sure as shit wasn’t for my father.

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