Page 16 of Fierce Vows

Benzoit spins his heavy body on a stool that shouldn’t support his girth, waving his hands.“Too much, too much, young fool,” he shouts in our native language, too absorbed in yelling at my companion to see me until he’s stumbled a few steps off the stool.Then he stops and stares, his fleshy mouth agape.“Armand?”

I smile with teeth.“Returned from the grave?I think not.”

“Rafe.You are but a child.”Benzoit chuckles at his little joke, his belly wobbling like a dessert ready to be split.

I tour the small cafe, unable to call the destitute business more than that.“Your books, please, and a drink for my friend.He has work to do.Is your family home?”

“The girls?Like them young, do you?”His eyes take on a dark gleam I recognize from too many nights at the Rhode Island docks liberating Singleton’s handiwork with Dom.

Once again, I feel the absence of my right-hand man, but know he has my back at home in the States.

Cyprus, while still a key territory for the Gallo Empire, is not my place of residence, and it will never be mine.If Eduardo plays this week right, he might claim it as his holdings under my name for the rest of his life.All he has to do is play the next ten minutes well to the right person.

Spoilers—it’s not the fat fuck before us.

I laugh, and it’s a horrific sound that whiplashes back to me before Benzoit can register the threat.“I love women, you child fucker.Specifically, my woman.Not that you’d know, because you didn’t turn up to my father’s funeral or pay your tithe.But I know who and what you are, and I’m here to extract my price.Now, please.Bend over.”

“B-bend over?”His face creases comically.

“It’s my favorite position to fuck in.”

He blinks at me.“I thought you liked women.”

Eduardo snickers and manages to cough when I shoot him a glance.The poker glows in the fireplace.

“Oh, I do.But it’s not me fucking you.And it won’t be a cock.”I pull out my gun and press it to the man’s temple.“Don’t deprive us of our fun.Bend over,” I say softly, nicely, like we’re playing with bondage ropes.

Speaking of ...the asshole probably has some hanging about.A rummage under his bar produces copper wire, and that will do.It’s not like I care about the state his flesh will be in afterward.

I make two loops while Eduardo pulls the filthy fuck’s pants down around his ankles, baring his ass to the world.The wire cuts into his swollen flesh and I secure him over the edge of the small wooden café table by a hangnail.

Then I step back and let my new lieutenant do his work.

Eduardo has a specific style I fast appreciate.He works with perfect efficiency, and in utter silence.

Even when the skin on Benzoit’s ass cheeks sizzle and the stench of burning flesh fills the air along with gasping shrieks better suited to a bad slasher flick he never pauses, just pushes forward, shoving and ramming with the grace of a dancer in a final act.When the poker is buried almost to the handle in the rapist’s body, his jelly tummy still wobbling as he roasts from the inside out, Eduardo looks to me and straightens.He flicks his jacket open, and the job is done.

We walk out to the waiting car while Benzoit is still dying, and I message Suzan that she has some new tenants who need a little TLC.

I owe my new man a drink.

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