“You having fun there, are ya?” I asked when the guy beating me smiled.
What an ass.
I knew it was idiotic to jeer at the moron beating me up when I was dangling from the ceiling by my bound hands, my toes just barely scraping the hard cement floor, but it went against my nature to just hang there.
I grunted when the guy got in a good hit to my ribcage. I could feel a deep, burning pain radiating out and over my chest. That hit was going to leave a very large mark.
Lany was going to be pissed.
“Hey!” I snapped out when the guy pulled back his fist to hit me again. “You really don’t want to do that.”
The idiot cocked his head as if confused.
“My husband is going to be pissed if you keep hitting me like this. He really prefers me without bruises.”
The man’s lip curled back in an obvious show of disgust.
Oh, he was one of those, was he?
Vinnie was right. Being gay in the mob was kind of a no-no. Guess it was a good thing I wasn’t in the mob. It made me feel bad for Vinnie, though. He couldn’t truly be himself as long as he was involved with the mob. It also made a lot of sense why he was trying to get out of the life.
It hurt.
Like, a lot.
I wasn’t exactly okay with being beat up, but I might have been a little more understanding if I knew why it was happening. Just getting knocked around for the hell of it wasn’t something I was a huge fan of.
The next time bonehead came at me, I grabbed the hook I was hanging from and kicked out with my feet. I knew I was probably going to pay for that later, but the resounding crack my boot made as it caught the guy in the chin was well worth it.
I glanced over when I heard a bark of laughter from Vinnie. The guy was getting worked over by two big men, and yet he was still laughing.
I liked this guy.
“Kick him in the nuts, Vinnie!”
Damn.
I watched Vinnie do exactly what I told him to do. One of the guys went crashing to the floor, his hands holding his nuts as he screamed. It was a pretty high-pitched sound. Even the other wannabe thug stopped to stare at the man.
I winced when I grinned and the gesture pulled at the cut on the corner of my mouth. Still, I had to give it to Vinnie. “Nice one, Vinnie.”
“Yes, that was a nice one, Vinnie. But it’s so hard to get good muscle these days. Most of them don’t have two brains cells to rub together.”
I snapped around as much as the hook I was hanging from would allow when I heard the voice behind me. The man standing there with the limousine driver could only be described as freakishly flamboyant. He was a blond, but I didn’t think that was his real hair color. It was almost too perfectly spiked, the tips looking as if they had been dipped in gold.
If his pants were any tighter, they’d cut off the circulation to his brain. The term “painted on” came easily to mind. The black mesh shirt he wore left little doubt that his nipples had perked up in the cold damp air.
Was that a nipple ring?
It was the hand on his hip and the way he pursed his lips that made me really wonder about him. I’m pretty sure he was wearing lip gloss. He looked so fake. It was almost as if he was trying too hard to be cute and perky.
I was quite familiar with cute and perky. I was married to the dictionary definition of both words. Lany was a whole lot better at it than this guy, and Lany didn’t look plastic.
“Jeremy?” Vinnie asked.
I panned to the mobster. “You know this guy?”
Vinnie winced. “Remember that relationship I told you ended badly?”
