Page 4 of Murder & Mayhem

Because of the undisguised disdain Giovanni shows me, the rest of the Famiglia follows his lead. Not a single person in this organization shows me the respect my title deserves. No one except Dante. He’s never given a shit about who my father was or what his crimes were. Possibly because he doesn’t want people to see his father’s actions when they look at him, but maybe not, since Dante strikes more fear into the hearts of people than his father could ever hope to achieve.

A muffled cry draws my attention back to the scene in front of me as Alex’s severed hand drops to the floor with a thunk, blood dripping steadily from his stump onto the white tiles.

“Quiet down,” Dante barks, as the pathetic wimp continues to cry and mumble behind his gag. “We’re only getting started.” Moving to the other side of the chair, Dante tightens his hold on the now bloody kitchen knife before swinging it down. He doesn’t manage to get the hand severed with one clean strike, but with a little sawing action, the hand eventually joins the other one on the floor.

Tears course down Alex’s face as he slumps in the chair, looking like he’s about to pass out. However, Dante isn’t going to let him off that easily. With the crack of a palm across his face, Alex’s eyes snap open, adrenaline coursing through his system once again as he groans.

“You know,” Dante begins, making light work of cutting open Alex’s shirt with the knife. “In medieval times, traitors were flayed alive.”

A renewed string of incoherent mumbles and pleas follow those words as Alex finds enough strength to thrash about in his chair. Even with stumps for hands, he’s not going anywhere.

“Now, I know you’re not technically a traitor,” Dante continues, the calm, relaxed, almost soothing tone of his voice at complete odds with the violence he’s inflicting. “But the Famiglia doesn’t tolerate disloyalty of any kind. And stealing? Well, to us, that’s just as bad.”

Alex is sobbing uncontrollably now as Dante pushes his shirt open, displaying Alex’s unimpressive chest and the slight rolls of his abdomen. He has next to no muscle at all, it’s pathetic. He runs the tip of the knife down the center of his sternum, just enough to leave a red line but not hard enough to break the skin.

“Luckily for you, staying here to peel every inch of skin from your body is not my idea of a fun Saturday night.” Dante’s words are intended to give Alex a false sense of hope that his demise will now come swiftly, and I smirk as his eyes widen with a resigned hope—hope for a quick, clean death.What a fucking idiot.His death will serve as a message to anyone who dares to try and take what isn’t theirs, and well, it wouldn’t be much of a message if we made it painless, would it? Instead, Dante pushes the blade deep into the top of Alex’s stomach and begins to saw through his skin, literally cutting him open until blood pools on the floor beneath his feet, surrounding the chair.

It takes a while, but eventually, Dante stands upright, assessing his handiwork before moving to stand beside me. We both watch Alex, slumped unconscious in his chair. “What do you think? An hour?”

I cast my eyes over Alex’s lifeless form. The blood isn’t freely flowing, so Dante mustn’t have cut any major arteries, and his intestines, while visible, aren’t falling out. “At least. Maybe two.”

After giving it a moment's thought, Dante reaches into his pocket, lifting out a handkerchief and wiping the blood from his hand. Reaching into his pocket again, he moves to crouch in front of the chair, and I hear a faint snap, quickly followed by a gasp as Alex is startled back into the land of the living.

“Welcome back, Alex.” Dante’s voice is laced with dark, malicious intent, and with the handkerchief in his hand, he reaches into Alex’s abdominal cavity and yanks his intestines out none too gently. They hit the floor with a wet splat as Alex groans, slumping forward in his chair. If it weren’t for the bindings on his wrists, he’d probably have followed his insides onto the tiles.

Dropping the handkerchief into the pool of blood, Dante toes off his shoes, careful to avoid getting his socks soaked, and pads over to where I’m standing. He eases his feet into the spare pair we brought exactly for this purpose. “Tell the clean-up crew three hours, that should be plenty of time.”

I place the call to our clean-up crew while Dante washes his hands in the sink, and without a backward glance, we exit Alex’s penthouse. There’s no need for either of us to wait around for the sorry sack of shit to stop breathing or for the clean-up crew to arrive. Even if some poor idiot did stumble across Alex’s disemboweled body, they wouldn’t be stupid enough to intervene or call for help.

As the elevator descends to the ground floor, Dante’s phone goes off in his pocket. If his annoyed sigh didn’t clue me in as to who the caller is, then the sharp clip in his tone when he says, “Father,” definitely does.

I can only make out a faint rumble as his father talks, followed a moment later by Dante saying, “Fine, I’m just finishing up a job. I’ll be there in twenty.” Without waiting for a response from his father, Dante hangs up the phone and fixes me with a resigned look. “Looks like we’ll be finishing the night up in Paradiso.”

Oh great, just where I wanted to end the night.In Paradiso é Inferno, or Heaven and Hell, the sex club that caters exclusively to Giovanni and his closest comrades and allies, where all of their dark and twisted fantasies can be made reality.

In a sour mood, I dig my phone out of my pocket, surprised I was able to go this long without checking to see if Sawyer had responded to me. There’s nothing like a little torture show to distract the mind. I hold my breath in anticipation as the screen lights up, and momentarily freeze when I see a message from her. In all honesty, I hadn’t been expecting a response at all. I was convinced I’d have to go to extreme measures to ensure she didn’t block me out of her life altogether—there was absolutely no fucking way I was going to allow her to do that.

Spitfire:2 pm tomorrow. Don’t be late.

Another message has an alternative address, one that I don’t recognize, but I can scope it out tomorrow before our meeting. Her tone is brisk and all business, as per usual, but that’s fine. That, I can work with.

“You coming?” Dante asks, snapping my attention from the phone to find him holding the elevator door open. Damn, I hadn’t even realized we’d stopped.

Feeling lighter than I did a moment ago, I tuck my phone away and follow him out of the building. I’m more than ready to get tonight over with because tomorrow… tomorrow, I’ve got a meeting with a feisty redhead, and I can’t fucking wait for her to throw that fiery temper my way.

Chapter 3

I tap my fingernail impatiently against the laminate tabletop as I stare out the window, barely registering the passing traffic on the street outside. After a long moment, I huff out a sigh, already bored. In fairness, I was half an hour early, so I can’t really complain. Except that it’s because ofhimthat I have to be here half an hour before our meeting, just to stake out the venue and make sure he wasn’t planning to pull a fast one on me.

Pulling my gaze from the window, I look around the otherwise empty shop front, taking in the chalkboard menu high on the wall, the long glass case filled with buckets containing various flavors of ice cream, and the stacks of waffle cones and cups ready to be filled. I snort as I shake my head. It’s the perfect front. It’s the kind of place that would be easily bypassed, yet it’s the perfect setup.

The bell above the door rings, and I stiffen in my seat as I turn to face my two o’clock. Enzo saunters casually into the small parlor, cocking a brow. I can see the humor dancing in his eyes as he takes in the place. While he’s momentarily distracted, I take the opportunity to run my eyes over him, noting how different he is today. He looks ridiculously out of place in this grubby shop with his expensive, perfectly tailored suit that looks like it was handmade specifically for him. Yet, my mouth dries up nevertheless. He’s handsome as fuck, all dressed up like that, with a slight stubble and his blond hair perfectly styled back. It’s immediately noticeable that he is way more at home in a suit than he ever was in jeans and a t-shirt, like he was born to wear one. I fuckingknewregular scruffy clothes didn’t look right on him—because theyaren’thim. This. This right here is the real Enzo, in all his gorgeous, suited-up glory, andholy fuck,can he pull it off.

As he moves toward me, his suit jacket falls open, giving away the fact he’s armed, and I can’t help thinking that he looks like some sort of bad-guy version of James Bond.

“Interesting choice,” he states blandly, sliding into the booth opposite me. His unimpressed tone displays none of the initial humor I saw in his eyes when he first walked in. Nonetheless, his voice snags my attention, and I snap my eyes away from where I was staring at the way his shirt stretches across his chest, up to his face.

I don’t respond, merely staring him down with a cold expression, waiting patiently until his vibrant green gaze—which I swear changes color depending on his mood—swivels to meet mine. Enzo has yet to meet the Reaper. While he is very acquainted with my brazen, brash, sarcastic side, he was never doing business with the Reaper before, and thus I had no reason to subject him to that malicious part of myself. But now, he’s gone and destroyed the thin thread of trust that ran between us. Not only can I no longer trust him, but my agreement with the Rejects places him as my enemy that I need to destroy. It’s the only reason I’m here at all.

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