Page 41 of Sin City Obsession

Even Lou, half-conscious, was aware enough to pull away.

Rocco watched Em rip off a sheet of plastic and pass it to Alessa. From his perspective, it looked like something small was wrapped into the plastic. Then Em stood, pot in hand and lips pulled thin the way he often did when he was uncomfortable, and stepped away.

“Keep it cool until we’re done here!” Alessa called, her voice barely projecting over the ceaseless shrieks and convulsion-likestruggles coming from Gwathney. She stood, stepping backward away from the men and the pole, holding the wire strippers low in one hand.

It took Rocco a moment before he spotted the blood sprinkled across her shirt and seemingly dribbled over the top of one leg. She didn’t have nearly as much blood on her as he did, objectively, and he knew none of it was hers. But the idea made him want to go to her. It made him want to run his hands over her skin, to check for injuries that shouldn’t be there, to make absolutely sure.

Alessa dropped the wire strippers onto the growing pile of used tools and crouched down in front of her remaining selection again. Again without a glance in his direction.

Rocco drew a hard breath. He shouldn’t interfere. He’d already interfered once, and this was the result. For all he knew, she was just punishing him.

Her fingers hovered over the hack saw and he swore he heard her let out a low, almost disappointed, hum. Then she shifted her weight and grabbed up the nearest of the handheld blowtorches. She pushed to her feet as she examined the device, turned, and with her back to him and the newly returned Em, said, “This next part’s not for the faint of heart, or stomach. Neither of you has to stick around if you don’t want to.”

Rocco saw Em’s head turn his way, but he never removed his eyes from Alessa. Something had definitely shifted. Something he couldn’t put his finger on. “Alessa—”

“If you’re going to stay,” she added suddenly, “tryto hold your breath.”

She just wanted to get it done. There was no point whatsoever in drawing out these men’s suffering and she could feel Rocco’s eyes on her, staring holes into her back, like a lead chain had been wound around her lungs. It cinched ever tighter with every passing second. But she couldn’t leave this place until she’d finished off her captives. And to do that, she had to comply with one final order.

Alessa stepped up to Gwathney’s side one final time, angling in front of him and not bothering with her fake smile. “I would tell you the pain will be over soon,” she said. She raised the torch. “But it’s going to get a lot worse before that happens.”

His half-lidded eyes managed to fly open wide and he sucked in a wet gasp for air. Having his thumb twisted and ripped off with a single pair of wire strippers had really taken it out of him. “I-is that a…?”

Alessa triggered the ignition, watching him watch the flame catch.

Gwathney whimpered.

“See,” she said, speaking quietly, “this is what you did wrong, Erik.” She paused and hardened her tone. “You sent that shitbag into our territory, and specifically instructed him to do harm to the next Mrs. De Salvo. And that’s where I come in.” She lowered the torch with measured, slow movements.Before it could kiss the skin over his heart, she delivered the message. “You do not fuck with the De Salvo family. Period.”

Gwathney’s lips trembled and tears leaked from his eyes.

Alessa tipped the torch the rest of the way forward, the way she’d seen the Dragon do several times. She’d never imagined she would be performing the act herself. She’d never set someone aflame before. But in this case, it was her job to be his voice. And he had been specific.

So she tuned out Gwathney’s immediate, if not weakened, shrieking. She ignored the squirming and the natural attempts at retreat. There was nowhere for Gwathney to retreat to and no way for him to fight back. She’d eliminated all of those things. All that was left was this. All that was left was enduring the horrendous, acrid stench of melting flesh as she swept the torch the way she wanted across the bared region of his torso.

If she’d had the tools she had originally requested, she would have been much more artsy with this part. At least, that had been her plan. But it hadn’t turned out that way.

So, as a backup idea, she burned a swirly letterDinto his chest. Large, centered, and nasty looking. It’d blend in with what she planned for their corpses, but if those were found, and someone was thorough, this portion of his burn would be identifiable as having been delivered perimortem. That was enough.

Once Gwathney was sufficiently marked, and finally unconscious, Alessa stepped up to beaten, bloody, and barely conscious Lou. Lou had done his best to shimmy to what amounted to the other side of the pole, managing to lookas terrified as any man in his state could look. It was mildly satisfying.

Alessa raised the torch as she knelt near him. “You’re the one who would have been sent next, right? The guy that creep would’ve tossed our way if George just failed to deliver, maybe never came home?” She raked her eyes over him, noting a few developing bruises below his collarbone, too.

Rocco had really gone to town.

I wonder if he regrets it now.

Alessa reignited the torch, but this time, she aimed for his massacred face. This one had no need for a message. This one just needed to be destroyed. “Yeah,” she said, barely remembering her own punchline, “Mikey wouldn’t have liked that.”

She held her breath the best she could as she seared all the already wounded, exposed areas and all the sensitized flesh around them. She watched skin bubble and blister while her stomach mimicked the sensation she was seeing. There was a good reason even the Dragon wore nose plugs, and she wished like hell she had some on her.

Finally, she felt satisfied—and satisfied that her boss would accept the work—and pushed to her feet. “Sorry boys. I won’t be hand-delivering you to the Devil today.” She set the torch between their limp bodies and turned back toward her supplies.

She was a bit surprised to see both Rocco and Emanuele had remained. Even if Emanuele looked like he wanted to be sick.

Alessa pretended not to notice and began gathering up the garbage pile they’d deliberately kept—the boxes, the packaging, the paper goods. She carried all of it back to the bodies,spread it between them, then carefully took apart the torch she had been using. She drizzled what was left of the fuel on the edges of the piles over each body, dotted some on their clothes, and set the canister down.

This time, when she walked back to the others, she said, “We’re going to send them off like a bonfire. It’ll be messy.” She indicated her used equipment. “I’ll put those with the dead guys, they should be unsalvageable. But we want to be elsewhere quickly. Let’s wipe down any other space our prints might be and grab that thumb.”

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