Page 67 of Rescued By the Mafia

Paul had been thoroughly bested. Somewhere deep inside, even he had to know that now. But Dante had done more than simply destroy the monster that had hurt her. By letting her watch, by letting her participate in even a small way, by letting her have influence when and how she wanted and by giving her permission to remove herself at any point—Dante had destroyed the fear inside of her, too.

“You’re one sick little scumbag, aren’t you?” Dante said as he came to a stop in front of Paul. He stood almost directly between them, obscuring Paul’s line of sight to her. “All those injuries and you still managed to pop a stiffy watching the woman you tried to own getting fucked better than you ever could.”

Realization dawned with the calming of her heart and an errant laugh barked out of her. Iris brought a hand up to her mouth on reflex, sucked in a breath, and said, “He always did like his homemade porn. I almost forgot.” She’d become so obsessed with his secret room, the home office she hadn’t been allowed into, that she couldn’t believe it had slipped her mind. She’d convinced herself he had all his deep, dark secrets locked away in that room. Over time, her idea of what those secrets might have been had varied from proof of his affairs to proof of his assorted crimes.

She’d been downright disappointed when she’d finally broken in and only found some old sex tapes of Paul with previous lovers. There might have been more to find, but she hadn’t had the opportunity to linger, and the disappointment coupled with the beating she’d received for her trespass hadn’t inclined her to try again.

“That’s because you were holding o—”

Dante snapped the once folded leather belt across Paul’s face, interrupting the stupid thing he’d been saying and whipping his head sharply to the side. The leather cracked against Paul’s skin and the chain rattled some more as Paul slumped against the pillar. “I think it’s time to collect on your debts before we spice things up in here,” Dante said. He took a single step backward and let out a sharp, shrill whistle.

Three seconds later, the door opened and the men he’d sent out filed back in.

Dante motioned to the still-panting man in chains. “His debt’s come due. Take four.” He stayed out of the way while the pair who’d been handling the tooth extractions moved in again, this time wearing gloves. Dante tossed his belt aside as Paul started yelling and squirming in an attempt to fight off his punishment, and turned toward the man Iris had recognized from the garage incident. “Get my torch ready. We’re moving to the next stage.”

Something curled in her chest, a little tight, but also warm. It felt like anticipation. Iris understood that Dante would have waited to bring out the fire until he was ready to wrap things up. She also understood that introducing the fire to Paul’s torture didn’t mean they were about to be done.

As if reading her mind, Dante locked his stare onto her again. “Do you have your clips?”

Iris smiled. “You have them, actually.” Her current dress didn’t have pockets, and she hadn’t opted to bring her purse into the building.

Dante’s expression softened faintly and his lips twitched with a passing flicker of amusement. He walked back up to her, dug his hand into his pocket, and pulled out the packet she’d asked him to hold for her when they’d climbed from the SUV. “So I do.” He held it out. “You’ll want these soon.” When their fingers touched he bent down and pressed his lips to her temple, then straightened again and turned back to face the scene across from them.

Paul had stopped shrieking and was mostly moaning, sporadically twitching, as Dante’s men walked away and deposited more teeth into the bag. Paul lay on his back on the ground, making no move to roll over or push to a seated position.

Dante stalked forward. “Trying to drown yourself in your own blood, Bishop?” He shoved a foot under Paul’s hip and forcefully rolled the man onto his side, then kicked Paul’s back just hard enough to force him to cough up whatever blood he’d swallowed. “I don’t remember giving you permission to do that. And no one dies in this building without my say-so.”

“F-fu-fuck you,” Paul rasped.

Dante let his lips lift in an almost feral smile. “I have a woman who does that quite well already, so I think I’ll pass.”

Paul groaned.

Dante’s expression hardened. “Sit the fuck up, coward.”

Paul spat more blood out onto the concrete floor, shifted, and moved to put weight on his injured foot. He wheezed in pain, leg immediately going lax, and began panting anew. “Please,” he said breathlessly, “please, I can’t…”

“Can’t?” Dante reached down and took a fistful of Paul’s hair, stretching it as far as it would go in order to pull him to his ass. “You can’t? Did that work when you felt like losing your temper on her? When Iris asked you to stop—begged you to stop—did you fucking listen?”

Paul made a stammering sound, starting and stopping again as if he didn’t know the right way to answer the question. Perhaps realizing there was no safe answer.

Dante released Paul’s hair, leaving him on his ass, and held out his hand. “Torch.”

Paul’s eyes grew wide and he somehow went paler. “Fuck…” His eyes darted to the bucket, still off to the side. Iris could practically see him remembering Mark’s terribly burned head. “No,” Paul said, the sound strained. “I-I’ll leave, I’ll disappear, I won’t tell anyone how this happened. I fucking swear! J-just don’t—”

“Oh, it’s much, much too late for that, Bishop.” Dante took a moment to examine the handheld machine that had been provided to him.

Iris took the opportunity to slip her nose plugs into place.

Paul’s eyes were frantic, darting around the space, as he seemed to notice everyone doing much the same. “F-fuck, you can’t—that’s fucking crazy—you can’t just burn people!”

Dante motioned someone else over and took a familiar blade from their hand before crouching down in front of Paul. “I’m the fucking Dragon.” Paul made a noise of panic. The knife was tossed aside again, but Paul hadn’t screamed in pain and Iris hadn’t been able to see exactly what he’d done with it. Then the torch was flicked on and the fear on Paul’s face spiked into sheer terror. “I can do whatever the hell I want,” Dante said.

One of the men moved up, grabbing hold of Paul’s nearest leg and holding it away from Dante.

Paul started to plead again, another tear leaked from his eye, and he let out a piercing scream as the fire met his skin.

It took a moment, but Iris realized what Dante was doing and she was immediately overcome with a sense of peace. Dante was setting fire to Paul’s genitals. Reinforcing exactly how defeated her demon truly was.

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