Page 56 of Hexed
There are things my uncle does out there no one can know about. Things Enzo canneverknow.
I pat Sean’s cheek. “Good boy.”
And then I place the antidote down and pick up the cleaver. Sean’s eyes grow wide, and he thrashes against the chains, his body flopping.
“I thought we had a deal!” he screams.
“Are you implying I’m not holding up my end?” I ask, affronted. “You tried to steal from me, Sean. And even worse, you’re here tospyon someone who’s about to be my family. You can’t possibly think I’d let you walk away with no repercussions?”
I lift the cleaver and then slam it down on his wrist, gliding it back and forth like a seesaw and smiling when he screams.
THIRTEEN
ENZO
Goddamn.
She’s unhinged in a visceral way that makes her ruthlessness look like art, and I’m hypnotized by the sight of her.
I’ve always knownIwas depraved, but it’s not until this very moment I see how deep that depravity runs because watching Venesa cut off someone’s hand has me realizing that violence does, in fact, turn me on.
It was hard to not intervene after the man wouldn’t stop disrespecting her, but I’m glad she stepped in when she did because I probably would have lost control and killed him, after torturing answers out of him, and that would raise too many issues back home.
In the Cosa Nostra, you’re not allowed to kill freely. There’s a system in place, one that’s been there since the old country, and it works for a reason. The boss—in this case, my pops—gives his approval on every single contracted hit. Unsanctioned killings just don’t happen, and if they do, there are grave consequences, meaning a bullet in the back of the head. My being the underboss doesn’t change that fact, and neither does being in an unfamiliar state with different people.
There’s a code. An honor system.
It freaks me out how quickly I would have let all that slip away because I couldn’t control my emotions over someone treating Venesa like trash.
And then he says someone sent him to South Carolina forme, and it took every ounce of self-control to keep from taking over everything. From shoving her out of the way and torturing the answers out of him myself, but I’m not sure I want Venesa to hear the answers I’d get.
If he’s from New Jersey, I have to assume it’s the De Luca family who sent him, and if they have a message for me, they can say it tomedirectly.
I glance over.
Venesa’s breathing heavily, her arms at her sides and the meat cleaver she just used on the man dangling from her fingers. There are blood spatters decorating her skin and a pool of red beneath the guy’s sawed-off hand, leaking over the side of the table and onto the concrete floors. He’s passed out, most likely from the stonefish venom she injected him with earlier, and my eyes flick back and forth between her and the gruesome scene.
“Well, now he definitely won’t say anything,” I joke.
Her lips twitch, her shoulders relaxing. “He will.”
I nod, kicking off the wall and taking a few steps toward her. “So what now?”
“Now I inject him with the antivenom so he doesn’t die, and I call Bas to make sure our little thief here tells him everything he knows.”
“He’ll get him to talk?”
Venesa nods, and a few strands of her icy-white hair fall onto her forehead. She swipes them away with the back of her hand, leaving behind a smear of red. “He always does… I’ll tell you if he says anything, you know? About why he was here following you.”
Good. Hopefully I can find out who he was because I’m finding it increasingly difficult to believe that New Jersey popping up again is a coincidence. Usually, we let the De Luca family do their own thing, as long as they understand it’s stillusthey answer to, but if they’re down here causing issues unsanctioned, then…
I should tell Pops immediately, but something holds me back. I’m not sure how he’ll respond, and the last thing I need is for him to learn information that could make him volatile when I’m not there to try and keep him in check. Besides, if I call him again, he might take it as a personal insult, considering he’s convinced we’re being tapped.
There’s a small rolling table at Venesa’s side with two glass bottles and a couple of syringes, and she picks up one of each, flipping the bottle upside down and inserting the needle’s tip until the liquid moves into the empty tube. Then she injects it into the man’s remaining hand, right between his first two fingers, the same way she originally injected the poison.
Watching her question him felt oddly carnal, like I was witnessing her purge the blackest parts of her soul. It was invigorating and something I’ve never experienced before—intimate in a toxic type of way, her darkness enabling my own and making it vibrate beneath my skin, desperate to come out and play.
She walks toward the door and gestures for me to follow. “You coming, Lover Boy?”
