“A clo...wn. And, the prints aren’t yours.”
This time he didn’t squirm, he answered me with a kick to my stomach that would have made me double over if I wasn’t cuffed to the fucking pillars.
The pain from the kick and the electrical shocks were just too much. Once again I saw stars and felt my consciousness slipping.
Slipping away.
“You’re a fool, you know that. I keep telling you you’re the fool. Being used. Being fucking used. I told you The Ra wouldn’t have gotten involved if somebody hadn’t alerted them. Those prints are mine while they are in my care. The whole thing was covert. Oh so covert. Shhhh.” He pressed his fingers to his lips. “Covert and silent. I shouldn’t have people like the Ra on my ass. No, and the Spades? Fucking hell Xander Cage. You know as much as me that mobsters keep their noses out of anything they don’t belong in. No, no, no. We have enough wealth, but we still want more. Too dangerous, and we say no. We actually say no to things that are beyond us. This thing wasn’t beyond me when I first agreed to it, then it became so. Like fuck.”
He was talking out of his fucking ass. I wasn’t sure if he expected me to feel sorry for him or, what his point was.
If I were even ten percent myself I would have told him to go fuck himself.
He leaned forward again and dropped a playing card.
The queen of hearts.
Jia. That was her.
She was the queen of my heart. The asshole knew what he was doing to me.
“It’s fine. Play the game of silence, you fucktard. We’ll resume this but rest assured, I haven’t even begun yet to show you the extent of how truly evil I can be. Those shocks were nothing. That was just to try and crack the surface, but you refuse to cooperate. It’s all good. Ace.” He slapped my cheek and backed away.
He’d taken to calling me Ace earlier; assuming this was the same day.
“When you see me again, it’ll be death and I’ll take pleasure in killing your ass, but I’ll make you suffer first. Maybe I’ll cut your dick off for screwing around with my little girl, and I’ll make you watch me kick it around in the dirt.” He laughed then backed right out of my view.
Footsteps sounded then faded into nothingness. I couldn’t hear anymore. I hung my head down and stared at the queen of hearts.
The image blurred into the ground and my mind drifted again. I drifted into the nothingness for what was likely hours. I didn’t know.
It was more footsteps that woke me up. I blinked and geared myself up to see Giovanni again. He said he’d kill me. I didn’t need any more pain. Maybe I would will myself to die somehow. Maybe I could just try to force my body to give up so it wouldn’t have to go through any more.
The face that stood before me was not, however, Giovanni’s.
It was Frankie.
Frankie, one of the knights. The only guy I could really say I got on with here. What would he do?
Had Giovanni sent him to kill me, knowing we’d been close to being called friends?
Was that what this was?
“Kid, boy I wished you’d listened to me. They messed you up bad,” he remarked. Despair clouded his russet eyes as his gaze assessed me.
My lips parted but I couldn’t talk. My throat was so dry and my body weak.
But… not too weak to take note of what he did next. He pulled out a key and moved to undo the cuff on my right hand.
“Get this side Vin,” he instructed, glancing over his shoulder.
Surprise took me when Vinny stepped forward and took hold of my right side, holding me up so I wouldn’t drop to the ground.
In the meantime Frankie unlocked the cuff on my left hand and took hold of my left side. Both of them supported me. I looked from one to the other, not quite sure what they were doing yet. These two guys after all, were Giovanni’s most trusted people. His capos.
“What … what are you doing?” I asked weakly.
“What the fuck does it look like we’re doing, prick?” Vinny threw back.
“Just don’t talk.” Frankie told me. “Here to rescue you from shit. Capisce?”
I couldn’t believe it. Jesus.
“Capisce,” I answered.
Chapter Forty-Five
Xander
The two carried me out back. When the night air hit me, it hurt all over.
It was night again so a whole day had gone by. I forgot to look at the clock.
Was it the same day?
They put me in the back of Frankie’s truck but Vinny didn’t get in.
Frankie got into the driver’s seat and Vinny came up to the window.
“You asshole,” he said to Frankie. “You better know what you’re doing. He’ll kill you when he finds out.”
“I’d like to see him try,” Frankie answered with a daring smirk, cocking his head to the side so the light from the lamp post beamed down on his black spiky hair.
Vinny sighed with an uneasy expression, tensing his square jaw. His hawk-like eyes switched from Frankie to me, then back to Frankie. “I’ll hold the fort here.”
“Hey,” Frankie shook his head and held up his finger. “You know nothing, and you never helped me. I’m serious. This is on me. My sister won’t be without a husband.”
Vinny dipped his head understanding and backed away into the shadows of the night.
I barely managed to keep my eyes opened as I looked at him. Frankie drove off, leaving him standing there.
I bid him a silent thanks.
I struggled to keep myself up. It was so hard. All I could manage to do was slump against the seat.
“There’s a sweatshirt in the back next to you. Put it on,” Frankie instructed. “There’s also a bottle of water. Drink some.”
I swallowed hard against my dry throat. The lump there was so big it actually felt like I’d shoved a ball inside and was trying to move past it. Very similar to having a sore throat, or when I’d had tonsillitis. It was so bad, I’d needed my tonsils removed. Thank God I’d had Jack in my life then, because it crippled me for weeks.
I was thanking God and his heavenly host now that I had Frankie. And Vinny? Fuck…
What the hell?
Frankie had watched my back over the last few weeks, giving me a pass to see Jia. If not for him I would never have had the chance. I never expected this though. Not from him and definitely not from Vinny.
Pulling in a deep breath I gathered strength to straighten up. The hooded sweatshirt was folded next to me, the bottle of water under it.
My arms were like lead pillars as I lifted them up to shrug into the shirt. Then I downed the water, my throat thanking me in abundance.
Jesus, it actually made me feel a little better. I must have been severely dehydrated.
Frankie’s eyes alternated between watching me and the road ahead.
I stared at the back of his head and he glanced around at me.
He was definitely help that had come in the most unexpected form.
“Thank you,” I told him. “Thank you and Vinny. But Jesus, why? Why did you do it? Giovanni will know someone had to have helped me.”
Giovanni would have known that straight off the bat when he discovered I was missing. He knew I had skill but there was no way I was that good.
Frankie was silent for a few seconds.