He’d been torturing me for information on Leona’s whereabouts since he tracked me down. Was it last night? I think it was last night. At least Colin had gotten away. My money, however, had not. Max was now in possession of my entire life savings.
Max stared down at the spit but made no move to brush it off. I choked back a bitter laugh, closing my eyes and trying to imagine Leona’s face to keep my mind off the pain. My fingers running through the incredible softness of hair while she pressed her lips against mine. That tiny gasp she made when my tongue brushed her lips, probing for entry. The shape of her breasts beneath my palms, those pink nipples pert with arousal.Fuck. I sunk into the memory of her body pressed against me, her eyes bright and cheeks flushed with desire.
Max and I had undergone torture exposure training together. We had been put throughhoursof this.Days. The first time we were tortured, it was by the Don himself—while Max’s father watched. We were thirteen years old. He had strapped us both to chairs, facing one another, and beat the shit out of both of us. Whenever we begged for it to stop, he’d go to the other and pull out a fingernail. Then he’d switch targets and do it again.
I was nowhere near breaking. I’d been through far worse than this. Max knew that.
Keeping Leona safe was my number one priority. I’d die before I’d give her up.
“It didn’t have to be this way, Cas. I know the Irish have her somewhere.” He crossed his arms. “I’m getting tired of watching Elio beat the shit out of you.”
“You have the fucking nerve to sound so disappointed.”
“I am disappointed.” He pulled up another chair, faced it backward, and plopped down on it. “I have always known you were stubborn, but I didn’t realize you werethisstubborn.”
“One of my many good traits,” I chuckled, running my tongue over my split lip. Shit, that hurt.
Elio’s fist landed in my gut, knocking the wind out of me. I coughed and sputtered, trying to heave in a deep breath. Max watched me with a detached curiosity. I used to think that look was a look of ultimate control—a look that spokevolumesabout how powerful he was.
But now I realized it was just because he was dead inside.
“Tell me where she is, and this can stop. She wasn’t at the safe house, though I burned it to the ground to make sure. I know she was on a motorcycle with an Irish soldier. Where have they taken her? Fallon Byrne can’t hide her forever.”
“How dare you?” I barked out. “I don’t know whatever went on between you and the Don, and frankly, I don’t give a fuck. But howdareyou try to kill her too.”
My wrists twisted against the ropes, trying to loosen them enough that I could get at least one hand free. But so far, they hadn’t budged. As soon as I got out of these restraints, I would kill him. With my bare hands around his neck.
Max looked to his side while his thumb brushed his jawline. A muscle worked in his jaw. “That was never the plan.”
“Oh? Then what was the plan? Kill her father, then whisk her away and marry her? After you told me to my face that you didn’t want anything to do with her?”
“I told you that night, I never planned to marry her,” he snapped. “And if you would havedone your joband paid attention to her like Itoldyou to, neither of you would have had to be involved in any of this.”
I snorted in disbelief, but with my broken nose, it sounded like a mangled wheeze. “So what didyouthink then? Youthought you’d just kill him, and you could hide it from me? From her?”
He was quiet for a moment, watching me with those dead eyes. “I have planned to shoot Luciano in the head since we were fifteen years old. Everything has gone according to the plan, except for you and her. I intend to fix that as soon as possible.”
Ten years. Did I hear he’d been planning a coup forten years?“Oh yeah? How so?”
“Tell me her location. I’ll collect the both of you. Then you both live out your days peacefully, under my protection, and firmlyoutsidemy business.”
When we were growing up, Max wore one face for others and one in private. He was a two-faced coin: one side friendly and calm, the other deadly control.
One day, when we were probably sixteen or seventeen, we’d been roped into a poker game between some of the high-levelcapos. Immediately, those men wiped the floor with him, and he laughed the entire time. They took all his chips while they gave him shit for being easy to read. When he only had enough money to play one more hand, he’d drawn the shittiest cards. A 2 and a 7. But those men had learned to underestimate him, and Max bluffed the shit out of all of them. He lied to their faces, talked up his cards, and eventually, they all folded.
But I knew his tell—the left side corner of his mouth would turn down. No one around that table recognized he was lying, and he took all his money back—and then some. After he won it all back, he pulled a gun and shot each one in the arm for disrespecting him. After that, he commanded the respect of the entire Family, including the verycaposhe shot.
Right here, right now, nothing about his face changed. I watched, looking for that little movement at the corner of his lip, and I saw nothing.
“I don’t believe you,” I eventually replied.
Max was never going to let her go. He’d never let her live. Somehow, he was bullshitting me. Hiding the tell. Leona’s life challenged his rule over the Family. If she ever married, her husband would have a claim to her father’s throne. Leaving Leona alive was a liability. Max didn’t have liabilities.
Behind my back, my wrists worked at the restraints, but they were still just as tight as they were when Elio first yanked them on.
“Have I ever given you a reason to doubt my word?” Max replied.
“You’re kidding, right? You’ve completely forgotten how you betrayed the man who was like a father to us and then turned around and tried to kill the woman who has loved you since we were children?”
