Page 58 of Into the Woods

“Shame on you, Christophe. Never brought sweet Winifred here when you wereles enfants.”

My eyes dart around the room, taking in his sentry to my left, pistol pointed straight at my head. I mark the position of Alain’s hand and the gun he has pressed hard under Winnie’s chin.

The other hand…

“So sweet. So soft and wet.” He groans as that other goddamn hand snakes between her thighs to cup her sex, his middle finger sliding along the seam of her bare pussy. “You should feel this—how wet she is. Fucking dying for my cock.” He spreads his fingers and asks, “Can you see her cunt weeping for me?”

Winnie’s chest heaves as a silent sob rips through her and my vision goes red.

I push back the mindless fury, banking it for later. Right now, I need to be calm. Calculating.

One step toward them, towardher, and Alain slides his finger back into place, rubbing, probing, assaulting her. And on theother hand?—that finger leaves the guard, instead caressing the trigger in a heavy warning.

“Careful, nephew. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to this sweet little treat before we get a chance to taste her.” Alain scoffs and shakes his head. “Oh, but you’ve already had a taste, haven’t you? Presumptuous little shit, just like your father was. He thought he was better than me, too. Thought he was untouchable. Unreachable.”

Teague steps over the threshold, joining me in this nightmare, and draws the aim of the sentry’s second gun.

Alain nods in Teague’s direction. “Mind your tiger before he pounces and does something rash. Someone could get killed with his kind of carelessness.”

It’s the smug smile on Alain’s face that has me recalculating the risk involved with just fucking shooting him.

The arrogant prick stole into my house, took my woman. He bound her hands and has his all over her. Touching her where only I’ve touched her.

He made her cry.

He fucking made her bleed.

He’s got to die.

“It’s simply delicious watching you squirm. Your thoughts are written across your face, plain as day. That’s not such a good trait to have in this business…or this family. It’s one of the things that got your father killed.” Alain shifts and settles his legs farther out to the sides, spreading Winnie open even more. Her soft brown eyes plead with me, begging for me to help her.

“My father was murdered by the Irish mob. Don’t embellish the story, your aggrandizement is too much, even for you, Alain.”

His body goes rigid at my familiar use of his name.

Anything to throw him off his game, praying the distraction will give me the opening I need.

The whites of his eye are visible all around his black irises as a red flush creeps across his face. Spittle flies as he roars, “You will show me fucking respect, boy. I’m the head of this organization. The head of this family. I sit behind this desk. I’m the one who holds the power now. Alexandre was a soft-hearted fool…making accords with the Italians and then the Irish. What the hell was that? What was he thinking, working withde salauds? Made him look weak…madele milieulook weak.”

There’s a moment, a split second where I think I’ll have a chance to make a move, but it passes in the blink of an eye and he becomes even more enraged, digging the barrel of his gun harder into Winnie’s neck. I want to rip him to shreds with my bare hands. Wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until I feel the life seep out of him. Instead, I’m listening to him rant, looking for my opportunity.

“I am youroncle, Parrain—Caïd—of this family and I demand you give me the respect I’m due. Years of negotiations, promises of allegiance”—he turns his head and spits his disgust to the thick Persian rug—“I brought this family back from the brink of ruin. It took my brilliance, my cunning and my huge set ofcouillesto fix what your father did. The Italians? The fucking Irish? Who aligns with the fucking Irish?”

He sits up straight, shoving his body forward, folding in over Winnie and making her flinch at the ever increasing intrusion.

He needs to die.

“A few well-placed comments that the Italians were getting preferential treatment, more favorable terms, the hint that they were being lured in so they could be taken care of, removed from the equation, and the Irish were more than happy to help clear my way to the top. We didn’t even have to get our hands dirty.”

Every time he mentions the Irish, Teague stiffens beside me. The distinction, the dismissal, hits with the force Alain intends and the air in the room shifts even darker.

“I thought I could keep you under my thumb, Christo, and I did for a very long time. Gave you the territories no one else wanted, the impossible accounts that no one could get to fall in line—the fucking L’Oursons for Christ’s sake. Instead, you took care of their daughter. Gave her money, made sure she had what she needed. You bought her little gifts, leaving them on her doorstep when she needed them—food, clothing—and now, what, you fall for her? I dumped them on you in order to watch you fail. Become further indebted to me.

“But you’ve very kindly shown me that’s no longer a viable option, there’s no place in thisfamillefor you any more than there was for Alexandre. I rid this world of your father and I will happily dispose of you in similar fashion. All I ask is for one move, a flinch, something to assuage my complicity in your expungement.”

I’m shocked.

I’m stuck.

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