Page 142 of Vito

"Yours?" Amazu groans as I jerk him in front of me to use him as a human shield as we push toward the door. He's in one hand, and I pull my gun back out with the other.

"Watch your right!" Raf yells, and I swing us around, keeping Amazu in front as Lixin comes through the smoke, wildly slashing a knife.

Amazu screams as Lixin slashes his other shoulder. He falls to his knees with hands tied behind his back, and I let him crumple. He's where he belongs: bleeding and at my mercy at Eden's feet.

Turning my attention to Lixin, I fist his hair, jerking his shocked face closer to mine. "I'm so going to enjoy what comes next, you pompous, elitist fuck."

Lixin is an intelligent and sly bastard—he has to be to have pulled the wool over the Chamber's eyes for so long—and he puts two and two together rapidly. "You think you can have Eden—"

I headbutt him, hitting with the ridge of my mask. I know I've shattered his nose even before he wails in pain.

"You don't say her name," I spit with venom, jerking him against me. I'm taller, and I block his view of Eden. "You don't look at her." Raf comes behind Lixin and yanks his hands back to zip tie them. "And I don'tthinkI can have her. I. Do."

"You. Fucking. Bastard," he seethes, trying to get around me to Eden.

She steps out from behind me and presses the barrel of the gun I'd given her to Lixin's temple. He stills as she cocks the hammer of the SIG Sauer P226. "He's a fucking cunt."

I smile, and Eden side-eyes me. In that quick look, I see her love before her hazel eyes turn cold and lethal and swing back to Lixin. Her face is stone cold as she holds the gun to his head;it's ready to shoot, she just has to squeeze the trigger. Her hand shakes, but I don't stop her.

If she needs this kill, I won't stop her, even if I'd rather the blood soil my soul than hers.

We now know what's on the USB, but I know it's not everything. Eden has learned more as her captors got cocky, thinking they were in control. Crispin got audio into the room a bit earlier, but Massimo refused to let me be on that feed. However, from the terse updates I've gotten, the details that these four motherfuckers revealed to Eden are worse than we imagined.

But Eden doesn't pull the trigger. She lowers the gun and presses the de-cocking lever to disengage it. I yank on Lixin's hair, twisting his head and allowing him to look at her.

Her beautiful face shifts from stony coldness to burning wrath, seething with vengeful hate for the man who killed her brother.

Then she smiles—malicious and gorgeous. "Vito… Do your absolute unhinged worst."

"With pleasure, baby." I grin, twisting Lixin's face back to mine. "With fucking pleasure."

It's a sick man, a monster, who derives happiness from seeing your enemy piss their pants in fear of you. As reality hits home for Lixin—really hits home—I'm happy to say that I'm that man and monster.

Grinning like a fucking psycho who just got their ultimate Christmas present, I ask Raf, "Where's Mancini and Novak?"

"Tied together like pigs waiting for the slaughter in the corner."

On cue, Axin speaks through the comms. "Factory is secure. You can bring Eden out."

"Well, that was quick," Raf taunts Lixin and Amazu. "Didn't even take ten minutes to take control of your pathetic forces."

We had prepared for war with the artillery and the number of men. Between the Santoros and Ohith and Axin's crew, we had over a hundred. We easily outmatched their numbers, plus they were unprepared that we were onto them.

That is just like Lixin and Amazu—thinking they're better and above everyone else. But their arrogant, pompous cockiness worked well for us today.

"Bring them," I say to Raf, jerking my chin at where Mancini and Novak are a pile of entangled limbs restrained together.

The smoke has cleared enough not to be irritating, and I push my face mask up onto the top of my head.

Amazu is crumpled on the floor, whimpering in pain from his blown-out knee and knife wounds. Lixin is standing with his bloody, broken nose.

Deciding that Lixin's not bloody enough yet for my liking, I pull out my KA-BAR knife. Then stab it into his side, twisting it into the hilt. I twist it the other way when I yank it out.

His screams are like a symphony to me.

It is really too bad that I won't have days, weeks…monthsto draw this out. Ohith and Massimo agreed we can only linger here, extracting our payment for an hour. It's not enough, not for what they did to Eden, but we'll make it the longest, most brutal hour of their lives.

I pull Amazu up by the scruff of his neck, half holding him up so he can walk, and push my gun into the back of Lixin's head. "Walk."

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