Page 2 of Loyalties & Longings

Even I know Dad wouldn’t run the risk of snatching someone and practically torturing them to give up information unless he had it on good authority that they knew something. My father is a fact-driven man, after all.

“Blaze said he saw this idiot trying to distribute to our client usingmy product.Now, the fool doesn’t want to speak. Not because he doesn’t know anything, but he is flat-out refusing. Lying.” Dad’s voice begins to rise. “Are you saying you don’t trust what Blaze is saying or that I am a poor judge of character in having him work for me?”

My eyes flick to Blaze, the muscles in his chest and arms twitch, and I’ll be damned if I don’t feel a little turned on right now—he is hot. But it’s absolutely freezing out here, and I regret not having grabbed an overcoat or at least my bathrobe. My thin cotton pajamas aren’t doing much in the way of keeping me warm.

Watching Blaze beat on this guy is definitely doing something to me, though. It probably has more to do with the fact that I could get caught down here than that I’m a teen getting a littlerush from watching this twenty-something-year-old brute with his big muscles and ridiculously good looks.

I shake out my hands and feet a little to get some blood flowing into them and warm up a bit, accidentally knocking my toe on the shed as I do it. I bite my lip so I don’t cry out, feel my eyes go wide, and hold my breath.

Shit, they are going to know I am here.

There’s silence for a few beats before the guy yells out.

“Help!”

The cry is followed by another wet thwack. Slowly and carefully, I put my eye back to the gap. Everyone is still and unmoving, except the guy being interrogated, whose head is lolling from side to side.

“It was probably just a damn opossum,” Massimo remarks.

Dad ignores Massimo and turns to the guy in the chair, slowly inching toward him and dropping his voice so it’s barely audible.

“Why were you inmycity, trying to distribute to one ofmyclients with my own product nonetheless?”

Blaze is now around the back of the chair behind the guy, grabbing a fistful of his hair. He yanks the guy’s head back, forcing him to look up at my dad.

“I said. I ain’t. Talking,” the guy grits out through his clenched teeth.

Even now, I can’t take my eyes off Blaze. I’m utterly transfixed. He is mean, he is raw, but he is also new. I realize that one of my hands has dropped to between my thighs, and I’m rubbing myself through my pajamas.

As Blaze heats a metal plate with a blowtorch, I rub myself steadily. I continue watching as he takes the metal plate by its long handle and presses its flat surface against the back of the guy’s hand.

While the guy screams, my thoughts jumble. I’m confused about my actions, yet I can’t stop what I am doing. Again, I bitedown on my lip in a bid to keep quiet.

Am I enjoying watching Blaze, or is it the thrill of getting caught?

I don’t know, but it all feels so good—watching Blaze torture this guy, being out here where I know I shouldn’t be, and running the risk of getting caught—all of it.

Ishouldprobably be fantasizing about some lame-ass kid from school while touching myself up in my room, yet here I am.

I’ve never had typical relationships, though. I’ve never been interested in forming friendships or intimate relationships. After Mom died, I felt like I needed to have my focus on Dad. I couldn’t bear to lose him, too, so year after year, I became more withdrawn, slowly falling out of friendship with the two girls I was close to. My goal was to be the perfect daughter he needed me to be.

“This can get a lot worse for you, you know. You don’t want to make us torture you anymore.” Dad’s voice is back to being nonchalant.

“Fuck you! You’re going to have to kill me!” The guy spits out.

With that, my father nods and turns to exit through the door on the opposite side of the shed. Shaking his head, he slams the door behind him yelling, “Cazzo!”

Blaze pulls out a gun from the holster at his side, attaches a silencer, and shoots the guy point-blank in the head.

I keep rubbing myself so steadily. It feels so fucking good. Adding the sound of the muffled gunshot, watching the guy’s body droop, and then watching Blaze turn without even flinching has made my toes begin to tingle. I abruptly stop the assault on myself and sneak back up to the house before I get caught.

I have no idea what the hellthatwas, but I am definitely one fucked-up kid.

Chapter Two

Lake

Twenty-two Years Old

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