Page 31 of Iron Cross

“I don’t know,” the man whimpered.

Pathetic, really. Morelli didn’t cry this much when I bled him over the course of days. This one would be ready to sell his grandmother by the end of the afternoon.

“No one has looked in this direction, so if she’s still in the area… I-I thought… I thought…” He blubbered like a scolded child.

So he was here by process of elimination.It wasn’t a terrible strategy. The Italians had scoured every other place, I supposed, so coming in this direction made sense.

“Someone in the Irish said that… that…cazzo!” Alfredo let out a long, pained wail, even though we weren’t laying a hand on him. “Someone in the Green Enterprises company said that you would come out here. You or that Irish or British fuck…” He winced, finally realizing that insulting his captors was probably not the best idea.

“You’re saying that there’s a traitor among the Irish?” I straightened, as his words sank in, my skin prickling with his claim.

“Who?” Shiny said, bringing the blade to his throat, the tip lightly grazing his skin, like she was about to give him a close shave.

“I don’t know,” he said pathetically as his mouth opened in a long, pathetic cry.

The reward for Kira, my spies told me, had gone to seven figures. Not that Durante would ever pay that money. The old miser would rather slit a throat than pay out a dime.

“I don’t know,” he said, this time his words were defeated. “I just needed to show Uncle Eugenio that I could do something right…”

And that cracked my blackened heart, just a little bit. Because I understood that feeling. I could appreciate that desire.

“I feel for you,” I said, truly meaning it. “I truly do. But a bit of life advice from me to you? You’re never gonna make them happy. Not until one of you is dead.”

I left the quiet part out - the one that saidhewould be the one to die first. He’d die right here, and be disposed of here as well. This was the last place he would ever see.

Hours passed, as Shiny used him like a punching bag. It didn’t take long to be certain he knew nothing. Shiny was exhausted, her knuckles bruised. Still, her eyes shone with sadistic glee. I hadn’t interrupted… yet. But at some point, I’d have to, if for no other reason than we had to get rid of Alfredo before dawn, when the normal employees would come back for their work.

“Shiny, why haven’t you put him out of his misery yet?” I finally asked, as she pummeled his face like he owed her money.

“Do you know how these men treat their women?” she said, between breaths. “Do you know what this one has done?”

I did. Another loan shark like Mario Morelli - the man that had disappeared after his encounter with my beloved.

I didn’t need to read his dossier to know that, though. Any man with a Bugatti was probably a bastard.

Alfredo’s whimper was high, echoing through the crematorium.

“Sorry, mate,” I said in a faux apology to our unwanted guest. “It seems you’re falling victim to her feminine rage.”

A streak of blood marred Shiny’s face as she looked at me and scowled, missing my sarcasm completely.

She picked up a roll of duct tape and loudly unfurled it. Then she started taping his mouth shut, wrapping it around his head.

“Why Kira?” Shiny asked, casually, as she started dragging the tape over Alfredo’s ears.

I wasn’t sure who she was talking to at first, until I looked up to see her staring right at me. “What do you mean?”

“I get she’s a great woman, and blah-blah-blah,” she said, as she jerked to unspool more of the duct tape, almost covering Alfredo’s full head. “But really? Why her? Why so obsessed? You knew her for what… a week? You’ve been apart longer than you have been together. So why all of this?” She gestured to Alfredo,and our surroundings. Though I knew she meant the entirety of my purpose for the past three years.

No one had ever questioned it. Not to my face at least. Only Morelli would have the stones to do it, and he never asked because he understood me. He and I were alike.

But how could I describe the touch of her skin and the electricity of her warm gaze? How could I explain that my Muse’s face contorted in pleasure was the closest thing to peace I had ever experienced? How to explain that to the unsentimental fool like Sinead Flanagan-LeBlanc?

“She's like a snow day,” I blurted out, as Shiny pulled apart another strip of duct tape, the loud squeal of it echoing in my ears before she cut it with her teeth.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“When I first laid eyes on her, I was in a dark place. Dairo was gone. You were gone. Mum was…” I sighed, remembering that bleak time of my existence. “My father was insane and cruel. I had reconciled with the fact that my life was going to be nothing but empty blackness. I’d go from one misery to the next.”

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