Page 20 of Syndicate of Sin Bundle

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she sneered at Marco, ripping her arm away from his when he grabbed it. She crossed her arms and walked to the door she had come in through. “I can walk myself.”

“Then, fucking walk,” I said to her, gesturing to an SUV. I looked at some of my other trustworthy men. “Take the drugs and secure them. I have business to deal with at the family house. Marco, you’re with me.”

Roxie growled and slid into the backseat. I glanced into the rearview mirror at her, but she kept herself turned away from me the entire time to stare out the window. “I fucking hate you,” she said under her breath but loud enough for me to hear. The way she tried to get my attention was almost cute, if it hadn’t been for her fiancé trying to steal half my shipment for tomorrow.

Marco drove us to the house as I put on a pair of sunglasses and glanced at Roxie through the rearview mirror. No more Mr. Nice Guy. She had decided she didn’t want that when she left with that fucking asshole late last night.

Now, I vowed to be the cruel Mafia boss she thought I was.

And if she wanted out of her debt, she’d prove it to me by doing the one thing Ben hadn’t had the fucking guts to do. It would be her first assignment as the bratty new addition to the Ricci family.

When Marco pulled up to the house, I started toward it, where guards were already waiting for me.

“Bring her to the basement,” I said. “She’s going to watch everything that happens around here from now on.”

Marco grabbed Roxie forcefully this time and pulled her down the stone steps on the side of the house toward the torture chambers, where Charlie was waiting for his punishment for taking all those children to his bedroom and forcing them to touch him in ways a child never should.

I turned the lights on in the creaky, musty chambers.

Slumped against a concrete wall, Charlie opened his eyes and stumbled to his feet. “Cristian,” he said, voice old and dried the fuck out. “I’m glad you’re here. We need to talk. I didn’t do anything.”

As soon as the blatant lies spilled out of that man’s mouth, I looked at another one of the guards. “Take him out and put him on the cross.”

Charlie looked back and forth between me and the torture cross, shaking his head. “Please, don’t do this. I’m innocent, Cristian. You have to believe me.”

The guards hooked his wrists to either side of the big X-shaped wooden beams, which leaned against the concrete wall.

Just as I walked up to him, Marco and Roxie emerged from the door. Roxie stopped dead in her tracks, swallowing hard and looking at Charlie tied up. I pulled up a chair for her and gestured for her to sit at the side of the room. Breathing rapidly, she hesitantly sat and gripped the arms.

“A woman shouldn’t be down here, watching you torture your own uncle, Cristian,” Charlie said to me, staring Roxie up and down like she was a piece of fucking meat.

But I wasn’t taking any shit from anyone today. I was still pissed the fuck off that Roxie had the fucking audacity to leave with that fucking asshole.

I grabbed the power drill from the tools lined up, deciding to give him hell. “She watched me kill her fiancé,” I said to him, clicking the drill on. “This will be icing on the cake for her, Charlie.”

Roxie flared her nostrils at me from the side of the room, crossing her arms over her chest and giving me the death glare she had given me before I fucked it out of her earlier.

“How many fucking children?” I asked, walking toward him.

“None,” Charlie spat, struggling to get out of his restraints as he stared at the power drill.

He deserved to burn for this, and I was the Manhattan devil.

I placed the drill bit on his kneecap and turned the drill on the lowest setting, so he could feel every ounce of pain. The drill bit sank into his flesh, twisting and ripping away the first few layers of skin and sinking into his muscle.

Charlie pleaded for me to stop, his body convulsing under the restraints. Blood splattered everywhere. Chunks of muscle flung in every direction, one piece landing at Roxie’s feet. She screamed and jumped back.

I stopped the drill and stared her in the eye. “Watch me, Roxie. I want you to know what will happen to you if you disobey me like your fiancé did.”

Turning back to Charlie, I snatched his chin. “How many children?”

“I told you, I didn’t do anything!” he shouted at me.

After starting the drill again, I placed the drill bit on his other kneecap and drilled until I heard the bone crack. Charlie screamed out, tears streaming down his blotchy, red face. This man disgusted me more than my own father had.

“Twelve!” Charlie shouted as I rested the drill bit on the chelidon of his arm. “There were twelve. Please,” he pleaded. “Please, stop and let me go. I fucking promise you, I won’t do it ever again.”

“Twelve,” I repeated to him, pulling away the power drill. “That’s all?”

---