“What do you mean?” Lucifer asks. He speaks every word crisply while the red-haired man rants and raves behind him.
“Stupid bitch. I nearly lost two of my men trying to grab her—”
“How did you know where I would be?” I ask. The car was late that night by nearly fifteen minutes. Even in his madness, Vinny was always punctual. Someone else must have orchestrated this little plot on his behalf. “You had a man on the inside,” I guess, thinking out loud. “Someone who gave you the intel...only you merely thought he was working for you. He was really Vinny’s all along.”
I rack my mind and frown as the answer becomes clear. There’s only one man with that kind of clout. Only one man Vinny would trust to spin a web around his naughty, disobedient Lynn.
“Gino.” I glance up, scanning both men’s faces for recognition. “Big man. Polish accent. Blond. Maybe he approached one of your men. Maybe you approached him. For a hefty price, he’d tell you what time Vincent Stacatto’s fiancée would be leaving the hotel and where you could intercept.”
No one tries to disagree with what I’ve said, so I keep talking.
“You thought it was too good to be true, but you needed your revenge. How could you pass it up? Little did you realize thatVinny had men following you, seeking out every bit of intel he could use to wipe you out.”
It’s a plan Vinny himself gloated over to one of the men he was torturing—how he’d let a rival drug dealer steal from him once, just to watch him“scurry right back to his doghouse. It’s like catching a fucking rat in a trap.”
Lucifer’s face reveals nothing, but the red-haired man’s face hardens. “How did you—”
I laugh again. I can’t help it. “Too easy,” I say. “Vinny doesn’t make sloppy mistakes.”
Such as hiring a man who arrives late or allowing his fiancée to travel unguarded. I was such a fool not to realize it until now. The fun part of his game is that I knew without a doubt that Arno Mackenzie wasn’t even his true target. The man may have tried to have him killed, but there was no insult greater than rejecting Vincent Stacatto’s hard-earned name.
“Hewantedyou to hurt me.” Not merely to cause me pain—oh, no. To serve as a reminder. A lesson delivered every bit as well-intentioned as when he first taught me those words of English I’d guarded in my heart for so long. “You might as well kill me now... We’re already dead.”
“She’s a psycho little—”
“What next?” Lucifer asks. His hands grip my shoulders on either side, forcing me to face him. “What will happen next?”
My tongue flicks out to wet my lips. The next part of the game? He won. Checkmate. The naughty pawn would be brought back to her master, and another one of his opponents would be swept off the board. There is only one way I can save myself and at least take some of his fun away. I slide my hand along the floor, scanning the room in search of the knife.
“No.” Lucifer catches my chin in the flat of his hand, wrenching my head around to face him again. “Think.”
My gaze drifts over to the cell phone and I read the time. 7:49—I know without even having to check that the message arrivedat seven on the dot. “You...you have ten minutes,” I tell him. Even when he plotted murder and revenge, Vinny liked to run a tight schedule. “By eight. They’ll be here, though he probably already has men watching all of the doors—”
“Do you have any way out of this shithole that doesn’t open directly onto the streets?” Lucifer demands of the red-haired man.
Arno blinks. Then he snaps his fingers and jerks his chin toward the walls. “Yeah. There’s an old tunnel that leads into an abandoned warehouse across the street. I’m not stupid enough to box myself in. I learned my lesson after the last time, eh, Dante?”
The two men share a nod, referring to some event in their past. Fools. I shift onto my knees and spot something gleaming from the corner of my eye. My fingers tremble when I reach for it only to have them batted away seconds before brushing the handle of the knife.
A sharp sting flares through the uninjured side of my face. It’s nothing like the brutality contained in the hands of the red-haired man. A single slap. Confused, I glance up and find Lucifer standing over me, his hand outstretched. So he does have the potential to hit me after all.
“You have a choice,” he tells me, his voice inspiring shivers that threaten to shatter my body into a million pieces. “Give up now. Kill yourself.” He kicks the knife over to me, and I have to dig my nails into my palm to stop from reaching for it. “Or you can do something the bastardwouldn’t expect.”
“Like what?” I croak. I’m too tired for this; there’s a war raging within myself. Lynn is quivering with fear, while Daniela is resigned and exhausted.
He doesn’t even get the point—Vinnywouldn’texpect me to kill myself, not his precious, scared little Lynn. But I’m curious as to what knowledge of my beloved fiancé he’s already gleaned. His dark eyes brim with countless horrors I can only pray that I never have to fully experience.
“You fight back,” he says as if it were that simple.
Maybe it is. My little stunt with the camera pushed Vinny beyond his limit, just enough to make him tip his hand so that I’d feel him coming for me. His arrogance has bought us ten minutes. During the childhood games we used to play, I could turn one of his inevitable wins around in ten seconds.
Numb, I reach for the knife, curling my fingers around the dull blade. Lucifer watches as I carefully shove it into the pocket of my borrowed shorts. “You’ll need guns,” I say. “Not that it will matter.”
“Arno,” Lucifer snaps, but the red-haired man already seems to be thinking along the same lines.
He reaches into his waistband and withdraws a pistol, which he slams onto Lucifer’s outstretched palm. “I have more upstairs.”
“Good. Get everyone out. Then pick your best men and find positions on the outside.” The smile the devil’s lips form is as beautiful as it is chilling. He looks at me, his gaze full of an expectation that makes me shudder in anticipation. “It’s time to play a little game. Pick one.”
