I try blinking to erase them and wind up seeing red. “Take it off. Now!”
The woman flinches at the harshness of my tone, but she obeys without question, stripping the shirt over her head and leaving her breasts bare. Vincent Stacatto’s name shields her just as well as any shirt though. The indigo letters form a crystal-fucking-clear reminder: She’s untouchable. His.
A part of me wonders if I should just leave her like this. Arno or Mack wouldn’t dare fucking challenge her motives then. Loyalty isn’t something that can be driven into flesh. To prove it, she holds her head high while I eye the edges of her mark and doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t try to hide the damage done to her. Her armor may be different from mine, but she wears it all the same.
Without a word, I pull the black shirt off and toss it in her direction. She tries to catch it, but it lands at her feet, and she has to stoop for it.
“Put it on.”
She does and watches while I shove my feet into my boots and jerk my chin toward the blue tennis shoes Darcy gave her. She’ssilent as she follows me out of the apartment and down to the lower level of the garage.
Speak of the devil, Mack’s already waiting down below. He’s standing with his hand resting on the handles of a parked motorcycle. Darcy’s leaning against the wall, coincidentally a few feet between us. She eyes me carefully, scanning my bare chest and the scars that cross it. Then she spots the woman behind Mack and he speaks up before I can analyze her expression.
“I’ve thought it over, Kitty,” he says. He hasn’t changed—blood still covers his gray shirt—but he’s schooled his face into an expression I recognize from the old days. It’s the same one he wore in the cage: a warrior ready for battle, ignoring everything else for the sake of the fight. For now. “We’ll do things your way...but withmyexpertise.”
I glance at the woman. She’s standing near the stairs, her hair hanging limp and wild down to her waist. Her eyes are downcast, but I’m not fooled by the demure act. She’s listening to every word Mack’s saying. In her pocket, I make out the shape of that knife—she must have grabbed it on her way out. Not only that, but she keeps her hands at her sides, and she’s positioned herself closest to the nearest exit, just in case Mack comes for her again. The little lamb’s learning fast.
“How?” I demand, turning to Mack.
He watches me carefully. There’s that foxy gleam in his eye that I hate. He’s scheming. He’s plotting. “Your plan is fine in theory, Kitty,” he explains. “But there’s one small problem. Vinny keeps his girls in at least ten enclaves all over the city. To really hit him where it hurts...you’d have to find a way to target every single enclave at once. Or at least make a threat large enough that he’s forced to move as many of the women as he can. Then we make our mark and pick them up, hand-delivered.” He smiles coldly. “The only problem is that no one knows the specific locations ofsaidenclaves...”
“But I’m guessing that you have an idea,” I say, taking a shot in the fucking dark.
Mack smiles wider. “I know a guy. He’ll tell us the locations. For a price.”
“And what is that?” Somehow, I know the answer even before he jerks his chin toward Stacatto’s woman.
“Her.” He beckons her forward with a crook of his finger and a malicious expression.
She’s cautious, but she steps closer, wincing. My mind immediately goes beneath her jeans to the raw skin of her cunt underneath. She feels me with every move she makes. I’ve left my mark in bruised, sore flesh, far away from that fucking tattoo.
“This...associate wants to make another video staring Stacatto’s little bitch. He’ll need insurance, you see, for when Vinny’s kingdom crumbles right out from underneath the bastard. If you agree, we can do it tonight.”
“No.” The word tears from my throat at the same moment Stacatto’s whore steps forward even more, her chin pointed to the ceiling.
“I’ll do it.”
Black.It’s a more jarring change to my vision than the red. I can’t see anything. I can only hear: my heartbeat, the blood rushing through my veins, and the distant hum of Mack’s satisfied chuckle. I can even hear her standing there, her movements stiff due to her sore, abused pussy. For five seconds, my sense of hearing is the only thing that tethers me to the present before my vision returns in bits and pieces. I see Mack first, his eyes gleaming. Then I see Darcy, her gray eyes narrowed as they flit from me to Mack and back again. Andher, Vinny Stacatto’s pretty little whore. She’s watching me, her expression unreadable.
“No.” I turn to Mack, who’s still sporting that cocky-ass grin. It widens, and suddenly, the smile is more of a wolf’s snarl than anything remotely human. “You whore her out on the off chanceof what? That your ‘associate’ might gather enough balls to take on Vincent Stacatto?”
“I’ll do it.” She makes her voice loud enough to counter mine.
The black returns, creeping along the edges of the room, covering Darcy in shadow and swallowing Mack. All I can fucking see is her, those hazel eyes gleaming as she pictures yet another way to screw over her beloved “Vinny.”
“I’ll get the information.”
“You’ll spread your legs,” Mack clarifies, just to hammer the point home, but he isn’t satisfied by her blank expression. He’d prefer that she squirm, but she merely stands there, a pitiful excuse for a sacrifice.
“I saidno.” For the first time, the protest actually seems to fucking resonate.
The girl stiffens, and Mack... The bastard practically chuckles with glee.
“Not your call, Dante,” he says. “You’re outnumbered.”
Outnumbered.Vinny’s whore is the deciding vote in her own goddamn fate, and I shouldn’t care. I don’t...
“No,” I spit through clenched teeth. “We find a different way. How the fuck do I know that you won’t have your ‘client’ disappear with her afterward?”
