Monster A Dark Arranged Marriage Romance - Vanessa Waltz Page 0,37
chain attached to a steel collar wrapped his throat. A thick beard covered his cheeks and jaw and his hollowed eyes were dead, but I recognized my husband. He didn’t have the powerful body he did now. They’d starved him. The sharp angles were softer, less defined.
Still, I found him beautiful.
My heart wrenched and tore in half.
What did they do to you?
I was about to find out.
A sick foreboding gripped my insides as three bikers surrounded Tony, one of them holding a leash. A Rottweiler lunged at Tony, who kept his cheek turned. Its jaws snapped, spraying the air with flecks of spit, but the blond biker pulled him back. The view panned, and the blond man who’d hurt Jennesy and so many other women winked at the camera.
Holy shit—Crash.
Tony’s lips moved.
“What’s that?” Crash mocked, his attention drawn toward Tony. “Are you praying?”
They burst with laughter, the sound gut-punching.
Crash’s lip curled into a sneer. “You are so pathetic.”
His leather boot slammed into Tony’s side.
The chains rattled as Tony let out a gasping groan. He coughed, rolling over.
“My old lady can take a beating better than you.”
“Tell me—tell me what you want,” Tony rasped. “My father will give you anything. Please.”
“I want you to die.”
That was enough to rouse Tony, who groped to a sitting position. “I have no idea who you are! My family—”
“Fuck them,” Crash roared, his shouts joining the dog’s relentless noise. “I offered you to them. Your cousins couldn’t care less. They’re refusing to pay the ransom.”
Devastation flickered across Tony’s wasted features before they hardened. “I don’t believe you.”
“You calling me a liar?”
“Yeah, among other things.” Tony’s desperate gaze scanned the room. “Anybody who calls themself Trash is a loser. It is Trash, right?”
“Crash.”
“That’s what I said. Trash.”
“No. It’s Crash.”
“Must be the ringing in my head from all the beatings,” he muttered, shrugging. “Consider changing it. Trash suits you.”
Oh my God, Tony.
I covered my face and peeked through my fingers.
Crash shouted at the dog. “Fassen.”
Its crazed barking bounced off the cement walls, loud, horrendous. He loosed the leash. The animal lunged. Frenzied growling mingled with the nauseating sound of tearing flesh.
Tony’s agonized screaming stabbed my stomach.
My thumb hit the pause button but the noises wouldn’t stop. I hurled it from me. The phone smashed, prompting a howl of outrage from Ghost.
“You stupid bitch!” Ghost picked it off the ground, furious. “You’re getting me a new one.”
Acid burned in my throat. Bitter and vile. I pictured that dog ripping into Tony’s arm and wanted to purge everything in my gut.
They’d tortured him.
No wonder he hated us.
I wrung my hands as though I could shake off Tony huddled in the dark. How long had he been there? Why? God knows what else they’d done to him. My teeth clenched. Horrific sounds played from his cell.
Ghost’s lip curled as images flickered through his cracked screen. “Haven’t watched this in a while. He’s such a pussy.”
The callousness swept through me like wildfire.
“How can you find that funny?”
His chuckling broke into full-hearted laughter as he continued to watch. “He is so pathetic. I’d make them kill me before they did that to me.”
My heart rate shot to the stratosphere.
I stalked toward him. “Talk about my old man like that again, you piece of shit!”
He sneered. “Costa is a limp-dicked crybaby.”
My fist slammed into his jaw.
Ghost staggered, hand on his chin. His features contorted, and then—
WHAM!
Pain shattered my eye socket. The impact knocked me into a dresser.
“Have you had enough, you dumb bitch?” he shouted, holding up his hand. “Or do you need another one?”
I clung to his furniture, dazed. Warmth trickled down my cheek. I wiped, and my fingers shined with red.
My head pounded, but I grimaced through the ache. I straightened as Ghost took a drag from his cigarette. I imagined putting it out in his forehead.
A pulse beat in my throat, threatening to burst. I wanted to fuck him up. I was soaked in kerosene. Primed to blow up. All I needed was the tiniest spark.
“I’ll kill you.”
He smiled and winked. “I look forward to the foreplay.”
That did it.
Thirteen
Tony
2 oz vodka
1 oz Kahlúa
splash of heavy cream
We finally made a move against Legion.
We’d acted on Knox’s intelligence and hired Rage Machine to break into a warehouse in Chelsea, which would supposedly cripple their drug supply network, but the small pyramid of cocaine taunted me. Street value was a measly twenty grand, at best.
I stood on a rooftop. Cainan had his back against the cityscape, arms crossed. He pushed a dark curl