Hitman vs Hitman - L.A. Witt Page 0,72

who hadn’t actually killed him yet and might not even try, felt perfect. “So, tell me. Do you dominate all your partners in bed? Because if you don’t, that’s got to be some kind of crime against humanity.”

August glanced up and found Ricardo staring at him. Not a scary stare, exactly, not the kind of thing that he would use to awe and terrify. This was more intimate, soft but distant at the same time. “I’ll tell you if you tell me why you wear socks during sex.”

August felt a flash of cold go down his spine, like a tiny bucket of ice water had been dropped directly down his vertebrae. “That doesn’t seem like a fair trade,” he said at last. “Not at all quid pro quo.”

“Hey, for all I know you just hate feet,” Ricardo replied. “Or you love your feet so much that you don’t want other people to see them. I’m just curious.”

“It’s more than that.”

“Maybe a little bit,” he admitted. “I saw your orthotics when you kicked off your shoes. That still doesn’t mean you have to tell me anything.”

But you’ll have a great time guessing, August almost—almost—snapped, but he held his temper in check. He’d gone to a lot of time, effort, and expense to keep what had happened to his feet between himself, his family, and his highly-paid doctors. This wasn’t light and breezy information, especially not considering who was asking. Would Ricardo ever use it against him if he had to? August knew he would in a heartbeat, history or not.

On the other hand…he already knew something was up. He was so observant that August would be surprised if Ricardo hadn’t noticed him limping a little when they ran from his mansion the first time. If the knowledge was already there to be exploited, where was the harm in telling him?

Are you scared? A scared little rich boy?

“I’m missing three toes,” he said after another moment. “From the second incident.”

Ricardo seemed to do some quick calculations in his head. “You were…twelve.”

“Yep.” He could have stopped there—part of him wanted to stop there, but more of him wanted to talk about it. Thanks, years of therapy. “The first time I was kidnapped, it was really professional. They had me and my siblings for less than twenty-four hours before my parents paid the ransom and got us back. Not so bad. The next time, the guys who took my brother and me were just…opportunists. They were constantly worried about making a mistake and getting caught, so they decided to add to the threat by hurting us. Me, specifically." He flexed his feet, felt the familiar ache across every bone.

Ricardo squirmed beside him.

“They smashed half my toes up with a hammer on camera and sent that to my parents. The pain just…broke me. I wasn’t stoic or strong or anything like that, I was a scared little kid who wet himself while it was happening. When they decided to do the other toes the next day, I cried so hard that my brother tried to stop them.” The man with the hammer hadn’t even switched weapons, just beat on Laurence until he stopped moving. August could still hear the sound of the final crack to the back of his brother’s neck. “One of them got cold feet after that. He dumped me at an emergency room, then dropped off the map.”

“Holy shit.” Ricardo watched him. “Is that the anniversary you mentioned to your sister?”

August tensed. Damn. He was good. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s, um…” He swallowed. “Fifteen years next month. The whole family gets a little jumpy this time of year. Of the three times I was kidnapped, that one was the worst. Fucked us all up.”

Ricardo’s hand slid up and down August’s arm, and maybe it was August’s imagination, but he swore Ricardo was holding him just a little tighter. “So, three times? It happened after that?”

“Yeah. I was better prepared by the third time around. I took care of them myself, along with the teacher who sold me out.”

“Fuck,” Ricardo murmured, and it was simultaneously the gentlest and most furious August had ever heard him. “You killed those bastards, right?”

“All of them,” August confirmed. “From each separate event.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, it felt good.” Few things in life felt as satisfying as taking down a kidnapper, actually, and with those ones—from the second time in particular—each death had carried a note of grace with it, as though he were actually redeeming his own soul a little with