Page 80 of Hearts Held
His crying never ceases.
Each wail he releases forces him to move his tongue, increasing the pain being delivered to his body.
“How many women have you tortured, Giorgio?” Brielle asks, surely knowing he cannot fully answer her question. “I have over thirty burns on my body from myex-husband,” she continues, retelling the horror story she lived with her ex-spouse, causing me to grind my teeth, considering my men do not deserve the privilege of knowing her story, her vulnerabilities.
As she tells her history, she circles Giorgio and begins her ministrations, filleting Giorgio’s thighs, much like the Krauts had filleted my skin. I cringe as the dark memory emerges, but push it down.
Brielle takes out a larger knife from the array I equipped her with earlier and slices into the back of both his Achilles tendons.
He screeches and it causes the pigs to scream in the other room.
Brielle stabs into the back of Giorgio’s knees, the blade sticking out from the underside of one kneecap. One of my men vomits in the corner as others grimace and groan, disturbed.
Brielle stands before Giorgio like the goddess of death.
“You will never touch a woman again,” she states, then looks at Kenneth and asks him to obtain something for her.
He nods and replies, “With pleasure, ma’am.” He returns swiftly, holding an adder in gloved hands. Then Brielle points to Giorgio’s groin.
Kenneth outstretches the adder and it lunges for Giorgio’s cock, biting it repeatedly as he kicks his legs in agony.
Then my malicious woman turns toward me, her steps closing the space between us as I see her gaze seeking my approval.
When she is finally within range, I grasp her close and whisper in her ear, “I’m so proud of you.”
Chapter 26: Everett
Bad Reputation, Adelita’s Way
Stacks upon stacks of bloody paperwork sit upon my desk. A month has gone by and we only have a shred of evidence to prove Sabini’s men may be stealing from our supply—not enough for a definitive conclusion.
Kenneth groans beside me, throwing another file upon the desk’s surface as he props his oxfords onto the corner of the desk. “Someone’s taken the piss out of us I think. Things ain’t adding up, brotha. Something is missing.” He pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration.
Before Kenneth may mutter another sentence, Bobby booms into my office. Kenneth and I peer up to find a disturbing sight.
“What the fuck are you wearing?” Kenneth spits out.
Bobby saunters over to the desk, his arms out to show he is in a pair of dark blue denim trousers, a black button-up shirt and with a long thin rope around his collar. The rope has an ornate metal buckle near the neckline, as two metal rings hang on the bottom piece of the rope. “You like it, yeah? Cowboys wear it over in America, so I figured I’d wear it when I go to the stables or the barn.” He tugs on the belt loops of his trousers and then gives us a big grin, looking like a proud young boy that dressed himself for the first time in his life.
Kenneth and I lose it.
I don’t think we’ve laughed this hard in several years.
“You look like a fucking bellend,” Kenneth howls. “Proper cowboy clown!”
Bobby narrows his eyes at us then stares directly at me. “Yeah? And what comment do you ’ave?”
I cock an eyebrow toward him and shake my head slowly. “I don’t have one, brother, I don’t have one at all. Though I have a question. What in the dried-out duck dick is hanging aroundyour neck?”
He narrows his eyes to slits. “Well, you both are just jealous your flat arses wouldn’t fill out pants like these.” He points his thumb toward his rear in defense.
I cock an eyebrow at this ridiculous scenario.
“Also!” he shouts. “This is called a bolo tie, and it is pure silver.”
Kenneth tilts back, clutching his stomach as he bellows out a laugh, then leans too far on his chair, causing him to tip over onto the floor of the office. His eyes are watering from laughing too hard, then he yells, “Why don’t you make the silver feckin’ useful and smelt it into a silver bullet to kill some werewolves in this fantasy you feckin’ live in.”
“Fuck you.” Bobby points in the direction of Kenneth on the floor, then swings his finger toward me. “And respectfully, fuck you too.”
