“Saxon fucking Forbes!” he roars. “Now!”
Tears start to flow from Viola’s eyes as she watches Beni. I can’t tell if it’s because she’s in fear for herself or because she’s worried about him. Beni looks up at her and nods, silently assuring her he’ll be okay, but I don’t have the time to unpack what that’s about before Dmitri’s temper goes up another notch.
“I’m going to count down from ten, and if you don’t give me Saxon by the time I hit zero, I’m going to empty this clip into all four of you.”
His threat is a serious one, and as he starts to count, all I can do is hope that Saxon gets out of here safely. But as he reaches five, the voice of the one person I don’t want to hear right now meets my ears.
“Don’t hurt her,” Saxon begs.
I whip my head around to see her coming into the room, putting herself directly in harm’s way. Fear and horror take up my every emotion as I watch her get closer to him.
“You can have me,” she tells him. “Just don’t hurt her.”
When Saxon is close enough, he throws Viola to the ground and grabs Saxon’s wrist, pulling her against him. “Good girl.”
He starts to pull her from the room, keeping his gun pointed at her head. But before he can make it out the door, Saxon closes her eyes. She pushes a pressure point on his arm that keeps him from pulling the trigger, while her foot rears back. The heel she so proudly carved into a weapon stabs him in the knee. While he’s rendered temporarily defenseless, she spins around and grabs the gun, jamming the butt of it into his head.
Dmitri falls to the ground, out cold, as Saxon shakes off the feeling of his touch. The moment he’s not a threat anymore, Viola rushes to Beni as Nico uses the zip ties in his pocket to tie up his arms and legs. I, however, walk directly into Saxon and wrap my arms around her.
“Go get Roman and tell him to bring Dmitri to the warehouse,” I order Nico. “I need to get Beni to Antonio.”
GUNSHOT WOUNDS, NO MATTER where they are, are never fun to deal with. They’re painful, and messy, and the bullets can wreak havoc on your muscles. I watch in discomfort as Antonio works to take the metal out of Beni’s arms. Viola stays faithfully by his side while Saxon comes over to me.
“What’s going on there?” she murmurs.
I chuckle. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Beni glances over at me and rolls his eyes as he groans in pain. “What are you doing? Don’t you have a scumbag to torture? Get out of here!”
Antonio pulls the forceps out, bringing a small distorted bullet along with it. Beni sighs in relief as he sees the worst of the pain is over now, but he still needs to be stitched up.
“He going to be okay, Doc?” I question.
He looks at Beni and nods. “It didn’t hit any major arteries. He’ll have some tenderness for a while and his arm might be weak until he rebuilds the muscle, but he’ll be just fine.”
“Ooh. I’ll be a better shot than you,” Saxon teases.
Beni scoffs playfully. “In your dreams, Kamikaze. Now, seriously, get out of here.”
I nod. Now that I know he’s going to be all right, I can focus on making Dmitri pay for what he’s done. Draping my arm around Saxon and heading for the door, I realize we’re missing someone.
“Vi?” I say, getting her attention. “You coming?”
She looks down at Beni who nods. “Go. I’ll see you after.”
I glance at Saxon, seeing her just as confused as I am as Viola squeezes Beni’s hand and then lets go. She walks toward us and when she notices the look Saxon is giving her, she smiles guiltily.
“What?”
Saxon snickers. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
THE FOUR OF US stand in front of the door, hearing Dmitri yelling from inside. Saxon and Viola look like they’ve waited their whole lives for this, ready to torture and brutalize until there’s no part of him left the way God intended. I turn to face Nico and put out my fist.
“For Raff,” I tell him.
He smirks and fist-bumps me. “For Armani.”
Pushing the door open, we walk in, and Dmitri’s eyes lock with mine. Seeing him chained to a chair and defenseless does unspeakable things to me. He glares at me with such disdain, but when I step to the side and he sees Saxon, it turns to straight disgust.
“Your father was right to want you dead,” he sneers. “Such a waste of a pussy.”
She giggles like the little psychopath she is. “Says the guy who wanted my pussy so bad that when he didn’t get it, he threw a temper tantrum.”
I slip the EpiPen from my pocket and walk over to Dmitri, jabbing it into his leg and dosing him with epinephrine. “I wouldn’t want you to pass out during all the fun.”
It’s a trick I learned from Saxon, who really has been putting her pre-med major to good use. A dose of epinephrine will keep someone from passing out when the pain becomes too much, which is perfect, because I want him to feel every last second of what we do to him.
Nico holds the two large branding irons I had made for this very occasion, while Viola lights them with a blow torch. Once they’re both a glowing red, he brings them over to me.
“Usually I’d save this for the end,” I tell him. “At least that’s what I did with Evgeny and Vlad, but I want you to feel it. The burn of their initials will linger in the background while everything else we do to you makes you pray for death.”
At the same time, Nico and I push them against his chest, burning the initials A.M. and R.M. into his flesh. He grits his teeth to not give us the benefit of hearing him scream. Little does he know, that’s the least painful of the things we have planned for him.
“Fuck you, you fucking guinea,” he screams at me.
I chuckle as I toss the branding iron onto the ground. After today, I won’t have a use for it.
My need for revenge against those who stole from me dies with him.
Grabbing a tube that is big enough to fit a baseball through it, with a funnel at one end, and a bucket, Nico makes his way toward Dmitri. The smell that comes from it has me turning and burying my nose in Saxon’s hair. She giggles softly at me.
“Such a pussy,” she whispers.
“Open your mouth,” Nico orders.
Dmitri spits at him, droplets of saliva landing on his shoe. “You’re just as weak as your father was.”
I watch as Nico nods slowly and then puts his hand out. Viola hands him a metal contraption, and Nico puts it over his head. The metal slices his lip as it forces its way into his mouth and pries it open. Once he has access, Nico shoves the tube into his mouth and halfway down his throat. He takes an actual ladle from the bucket and starts to pour the liquid into the funnel.
“What the fuck is that?” I ask, cringing from the smell.
He shrugs. “Piss, shit, cigarette butts? I had Roman get it from a construction site port-a-potty.”
The urge to gag is intense as I watch the mess go down the tube and into Dmitri’s throat, despite his thrashing around. “Ro needs a promotion.”
When he thinks he’s had enough, Nico rips the tube from his mouth and pulls the device off his head. Dmitri immediately starts to heave, vomiting up some of the contents Nico just forced into his stomach. A mix of shit and stomach bile spews from his mouth.