Page 28 of Courting Danger

I clearly remembered the head of the Bianchi family taking a bullet in the arm. I’d been half hidden behind a bench at the time, so I hadn’t gotten a clear view, but the man’s blond hair was impossible to mistake.

“That’s not enough. We need solid answers. My mother is with the survivors now, right?”

The main part of the house looked no different than any other residence in Mantoloking. Each grand building encroached on its neighbors without actually touching. The Mariano family’s estate wasn’t the largest in the area, though it came close.

Its true uniqueness was found in what lay below ground level.

The only word I had for it was a dungeon. Concrete walls were insulated to block out all sound, and plexiglass walls divided the area into separate cells. It ensured that prisoners could see each other, but not hear anything.

The physiological warfare it caused worked wonders. Often people would crack just from seeing what was happening to others, knowing it would soon happen to them. In that way, you could torture a dozen people simply by hurting one.

Several of the cells were currently filled, each holding one person strapped to a chair. Some only had minor injuries, while some were barely hanging on to life. One of the cells held a man I vaguely recognized. Not enough to know the man’s name, but enough to know he worked for our family.

At least he did, until now.

The man in the cell was in the worst condition out of everyone. Stripped naked and castrated, both his hands and feet had been removed so his limbs ended in mangled stumps.

Watching the man for a moment, I realized I couldn’t see any chest movement. The man was already dead, propped up on the chair like a child’s doll.

Perhaps my mother had decided to keep the corpse on display as a message to the other prisoners.

I found her in a cell with another prisoner. She stood over the bound man with a pair of bloody pliers. Several of the man’s teeth and fingernails already sat in a bowl on a nearby table. The interrogation had come to a halt as my mother decided what piece to remove next.

Yet, surprisingly, instead of cowering in fear, the prisoner was laughing.

“You think your family is untouchable, but we came so close to killing your brat. Would have succeeded if not for that so-called bodyguard of his. We thought it was just another boy toy. He’s had so many before. It was only bad luck that this one turned out to be a trained soldier.”

At the word toy several images flashed through my brain at once.

A bridge with a bloody handprint.

Wine dripping down the wall, and a bent iron headboard.

Club lights casting a halo around Garrison when the man protected me the first time.

Lightning flashing as Garrison walked away.

The knife was in my hand before I realized what I was doing. I practically knelt on the chair over the bound man, pressing the tip of my knife between his grinning blood-spattered lips.

“Say that again.”

The man didn’t answer, unable to talk around the blade stabbing into his tongue.

Fury twisted my face until my lips pulled back over my teeth. I yanked the knife to the side, slicing through the side of the man’s mouth.

“Come on. Say it again. Call him a toy again.”

Bright crimson blood flowed like wet Jello from the man’s open cheek. He babbled something, but the words were lost in the gore flowing down his chin and over his chest.

My vision blurred around the edges, coating the world in a red mist. I didn’t feel the impact as I drove my knife into the man’s throat over and over. I didn’t smell the blood or hear the last gasp of air escape from dying lungs.

Harsh hands grabbed me and pulled me back.

“Alex.” My mother shook me several times to get my attention. “Alex, get a hold of yourself.”

I had just enough mental clarity to make sure the knife didn’t cut my mother as I shoved her away. “Fucker deserved it.” Blood dripped down the blade over my hand, my fingers sticking together with the gore.

My mother grabbed the knife from me and started cleaning the blade. “Of course he deserved it. He tried to kill you. But we can’t get information out of a corpse. I taught you better self-control than that.”

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