Page 42 of Bellini Bound
His eyes were glazed over, delirious with pain.
“Gonna need a little help with this one, boys.” I handed the pliers to Mikey and the blowtorch to Lou. We’d discussed my plans before coming down here, so they knew exactly what I wanted them to do.
Mikey pried open Vito’s mouth, clamping down on the tip of his tongue with the pliers and stretching it as far as it would go. Then it was my turn. Holding up the knife, I let the light catch on the metal.
“You were very quick to bargain with your mother’s life. Didn’t she ever teach you that if you didn’t have something nice to say, you shouldn’t say it at all?”
Without the use of his tongue, only an unintelligible stream of noises sounded in response.
His inability to speak brought me back to last night, when there had been so many things I wanted to say rolling around in my brain that I couldn’t decide on which sentence to let fall past my lips.
Allie, I’m sorry.
Allie, I’ll try to do better.
Allie, I’m not worth crying over.
My eyes slammed shut, a vise tightening around my chest at the memory of the tears cascading down her cheeks, the heartbroken look in her pretty green eyes when she realized the truth: that I was the spawn of a sadistic son of a bitch, that my tattoos concealed the proof of the cruelty I’d endured growing up.
Seeing her cry was like a sledgehammer to the gut, and I would have done just about anything to make it stop. But in the end, I never got a chance to vocalize any attempt to dry her eyes, because Doc came knocking, bursting the fragile bubble of truce surrounding us, and she couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
It was just as well. After all the terrible things I’d done in my life, I didn’t deserve her compassion.
A garbled shout brought me back to the present.
Leaning in, I positioned the edge of the blade against the side of his tongue. It was sharp as hell, cutting through the muscle like butter. Aninhuman wail pierced the air, but before I let Lou cauterize the wound, I gripped a fistful of Vito’s hair, wrenching his head back, and snarling, “You’re a fucking disgrace to everything the Bellinis stand for. Consider yourself relieved of duty. If I ever see your face again, it won’t matter what promises I’ve made to my wife. I will slit your fucking throat and dump your body in Lake Michigan.”
With those parting words, I stormed out of the room.
There were far bigger problems still to be dealt with today.
“What the fuck?” Matteo’s voice boomed, causing me to wince.
His outrage was warranted, given that I’d just dropped the bomb that we no longer owned our weapons warehouse. Hence, the lockout on the alarm system and the cops showing up. In the eyes of the law, we were indeed trespassing.
Nico, our top hacker, stepped forward to place an open laptop on Matteo’s desk. The screen showed the deed of sale, dated six months ago.
Matteo’s eyes scanned the document, which featured his signature at the bottom. “Well, I sure as shit didn’t sign this, so who the fuck did?”
I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “Not to mention, we have no idea where the six mil from the sale went.”
A sharp crack reverberated through the room as my cousin slammed a hand down on his desk. “Motherfucker!”
Cautiously moving closer, I pointed to the line denoting the lawyer who drew up the deed transfer. “This would be a good place to start.”
The familiar name caused a growl to vibrate through Matteo’s chest. “Looks like we need to pay our friend a little after-hours visit.”
A wicked grin curved my lips. “You read my mind.”
The high-rise law office was quiet and dark. There was only a single light on in the back, where the corporate attorney we employed was burning the midnight oil.
It wasn’t a coincidence that he was the last person to leave this evening. Matteo had called earlier with an impossible task, and the blond, pretty-boy lawyer was no doubt frantically working toward that unattainable objective.
With my cousin by my side, we moved past the rows of empty cubicles, stopping at the open door to a glass-walled corner office that looked like a tornado had blown through it. Papers were scattered everywhere. An overturned cup of coffee on the desk had dark liquid dripping onto the hardwood floor below. And in the center of it all sat our normally put-together legal counsel, who was quite literally pulling his hair out by the roots.
“Evening, Bishop.”
At Matteo’s smooth greeting, Aaron Bishop’s head popped up, his eyes wide. “M-Mr. Bellini. You said I had until midnight. I’ll get it done, I swear.”
