Page 52 of Ruthless Vow

Danila is about fifty feet back, and he has the gun.

Fuck. Fuck!

Heart pounding, I spin and slam into something that stops me in my tracks.

Something tall and broad and made of hard, unyielding lines. And suddenly, I’m having a déjà vu to the cemetery when I was running away from Luca.

I lift my head and meet Leo Russo’s fierce gaze.

“Leo?” I manage. “How are you here?”

His jaw tenses as he touches my cheek. “Who the fuck hurt you?”

18

Leo

Overhead,the flickering fluorescent light buzzes. I turn one of the wooden chairs so its back is toward the man hanging from the chain attached to the ceiling. He’s hanging by his wrists above the drain in the concrete floor, his head drooping forward, his chin on his chest.

He moans and raises his head. One eye is swollen shut. The other focuses on me. Blood drips from a cut in his eyebrow, from his split lip, and from the deep cuts in his wrists where the rigid metal of the cuffs has split skin.

I take my time removing my suit jacket and hanging it over the back of the chair. Then I straddle the chair and wait.

“This can end, Danila,” I say after a long moment, my voice calm and low. “Just answer my questions and this ends. No more pain.”

I hope he decides not to answer. I hope he decides to be as stubborn as they come. Because he laid hands on Nicole. He threatened my little wolf, hit her, bruised her. I want to make him beg, make him piss himself in fear and agony. I want him to suffer for daring to touch her.

I’d brought Nicole back to the city with Luca while Damian, Dante, and Cassio had checked out the house where Nicole had been held by her aunt. It was empty. Deserted.

Something had alerted Nicole’s aunt that her plan had gone awry and she had disappeared, taking the location of Nicole’s sister with her.

Damian was able to discover that Bianca did not own the house, had been renting it on a month to month basis. The landlord had no information of value.

I am not happy about that. Luckily, Danila is here to be the recipient of my displeasure.

He turns his head and glances at the wheeled, stainless steel service cart that sits off to one side. It holds an array of tools. I’ve already used the hammer, bringing it down with a solid thud on each of his fingers, starting with the furthest knuckle and working my way along, smashing them one at a time.

That was before we strung him up. He’d been sitting in this exact chair, his hand on the table, anchored in place by Luca. He’d been stoic at first. Made it through his left hand without too much fuss. But by the time I’d started in his right, he’d been in quite a frantic state.

He’d even offered up some vague information about the Chicago syndicate. Nothing of real value.

But I’d gently explained that these hands had hit Nicole, hurt her, bruised her. So I would break every finger he’d laid on her. Funny, I hadn’t understood why Damian killed Enzo Bianchi for touching Alina. I think that maybe now I do.

It wasn’t until after I’d smashed Danila’s fingers and strung him up that my inquisition truly began.

Now, I rise and circle around behind Danila to hit a switch. There’s the whir of a motor and the chain holding him shortens, pulling him up higher on his toes, so the tips barely graze the ground.

“That has to hurt, your full body weight hanging on those mangled hands.” I glance over at Luca who stands silently in the corner. “That has to hurt, right?”

“Has to hurt,” Luca agrees with a nod, his tone friendly, conversational. “Those hands are swollen to the size of baseballs. Those cuffs must be painful.” He walks closer to Danila. “Just tell us what we want to know. I hate to see you suffer like this.”

“Fuck you,” Danila says, his voice tight with pain, rough from screaming.

I cross to the cart and pick up a scalpel, I balance it across my fingers then set it down again. I pick up a crowbar and swish it through the air, creating a sharp whoosh of sound.

Danila twitches, his one good eye locked on my hands.

I spin, the crowbar making a wide arc, slamming into the chain above Danila’s head. Danila yells and tries to jerk away, but there’s nowhere for him to go.

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