from the small hole and sprayed him in the face.
“Stop,” I begged. “Please…stop.”
He stuck his tongue out and caught the drops as they fell from his lip. “I’m just getting started.” His eyes were demonic as he dragged the blade across my skin. Sick and beyond demented.
“I can’t…” It hurt so badly. My tongue didn’t want to work. My voice was gone. My courage and my hope were slipping with each drop of blood that poured out.
When he reached the bottom of my breast, half of it now cut, he smiled from his handiwork. “I’m headed for your pussy next. Do you want to know what I’m going to do to it?” He moved to the side, so I could finally see what was across from my chair. “I’m going to make your pussy look like this,” he said.
When I realized what I was looking at—who I was looking at—I screamed with every bit of strength that was left in my body.
Twenty-Three
Garin
Fifteen Days Ago
I was stepping into my private elevator when my cell phone rang. I knew it was Billy. He usually called around this time, right before I was about to get my dick wet. Tonight was no different. The slut on my arm was some chick who worked at the club downstairs. I wasn’t sure if I’d fucked her before, but she met all the requirements—thick ass, decent rack, eyes that told me she’d take whatever I gave her.
What I was about to give would tear her the hell apart. I wanted her screaming as loud as she was moaning. And when she walked out of my condo, I wanted it to hurt.
I reached into my pocket and put the phone up to my ear. “Billy, I’m going to have to—”
“It’s Mario. Not Billy.”
I looked at the slut next to me. “Hold on a second,” I said into the phone.
I hit Mute on the screen and held the phone against my chest while the elevator climbed to the penthouse. When the door slid open to the entryway of my condo, I walked her inside and pointed at the living room. “Sit there. Don’t move. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
I headed toward my office without waiting for her to respond. I knew she’d sit there and wait for me. She’d wait until morning if that was how long it took me to get back. The girls I brought up here obeyed all of my commands. When they were anywhere inside this building, even on the top floor where I lived, I was their boss. And, if they didn’t comply, they knew there were consequences.
When the door to my office was shut, I brought the phone up to my ear. “Sorry. I wasn’t alone.”
“Pour yourself something stiff to drink, and sit down.”
I pushed my back against the door and looked around the room. There was plenty of booze in here. None of it appealed to me. Whatever Mario had to tell me, I needed to hear it sober. Because the sound of his voice and the sharpness of his demand told me his news was personal.
“Spit it out, Mario.”
He sighed into the phone.
A sound I fucking hated.
“Billy was found about an hour ago in an alley not far from the boardwalk.”
I gritted my teeth together and slammed my fist against the back of the door. “Say it.”
“He’s dead, Garin.”
My heart was beating so goddamn hard that I felt it in my stomach. I reached my fist forward and slammed it back into the door. The wood splintered under my knuckles; pieces of it stuck into my flesh. I didn’t care. I didn’t give a fuck about anything besides Mario’s words that repeated in my head.
“He’s dead, Garin.”
“He’s dead, Garin.”
“He’s dead, Garin.”
Billy Ashe. My best friend.
Dead.
I pulled my hand out of the door and walked to the other side of the room. “How?”
“The needle was still in him.”
“HOW?” I yelled.
“My boys are looking into it right now. I got the call and wanted to tell you before you heard it from anyone else.”
I knew the procedure. When one of us died, Mario’s boys got to the scene first. They’d take what they needed and leave what evidence they wanted the police to find. Billy wasn’t one of us, but Paulie was. Because no one had been blamed for Paulie’s murder, I was sure Mario wanted to see if the deaths were somehow related.
“Send me the pictures,” I said.
I knew he had them. Snapshots of the body, the weapon,