“Your husbandth.”
Joker slapped the back of his head. Nick winced, but he couldn’t rub because his fingers were broken.
“Your hands?” she asked.
“Huth,” was all he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
She sent me a look that would send the boys running. Then it changed, some dark thought running across her face, and she turned on him. “Serves you right!” She glared. “After what you did to Carmen!”
“I wouldn’t haveth done it to youth.”
She pointed at him, accusing. “Liar,” she seethed. “Just like you lied about me moaning when you stuck your nasty tongue in my ear!”
He shrugged. “Sewth me.”
Joker cleared his throat, ready to move forward.
I touched Scarlett on her hip. “Give us a minute, baby. Are your things ready?”
“Yes,” she said, “but I thought that we could spend the night in—”
“No,” I said. “We need to go.”
She caught the impatience in my tone and left, men trailing behind her like soldier ants behind a sugar cube.
“Tell me what you expect us to do with him.” Rocco looked between Nick Lomas and Dario. Dario’s lip raised in a sneer, itching to snap his neck.
“Keep him safe,” Joker said, like he had already asked. “He’ll keep coming back until he gets him. He left a note. He said it was a matter of Signora Fausti’s honor.”
A look passed between our men and me.
“We will take him,” Rocco said. “However, I will not give you my word that your nephew will be safe with us.”
“Safer with you.” Joker nodded, making the decision to send his nephew with us anyway.
Rocco and I exchanged a glance. It was clear to see that Joker felt his nephew was trouble and didn’t want to lose more men because of it, or his own life. “Safer with you” meant safer for Joker.
A throat cleared, interrupting the meeting. “Signor Fausti?” One of the guards stood in the doorway, holding out a box to me. “This was found outside of the front door a minute ago. It is addressed to Signora Fausti.”
My brothers crowded around, along with Tito and Donato.
“Would you like me to open it, nephew?” Tito said.
I shook my head. The package in my hands smelled of torture and death. Blood soaked and coagulated in the fibers of the brown box. Three bloodied hearts sat in the center of the package, cradled by clear plastic that had turned almost purple with blood.
“Tell me how many men he took the hearts from again,” I said.
“Two,” Joker said. He lifted from his seat, peered in the box, and then made a gagging noise from deep in his throat. He found the wastebasket under the sink, becoming sick.
Tito slapped on a pair of gloves from his bag, going for the smallest of the three. He turned it to and fro, examining it. “This one is not human,” he murmured. “Some type of animal. A young one.”
The doe I named for Scarlett gave birth to a fawn in spring. I had put out feed for them before I left. “A deer,” I said, an ice-cold wave washing over me.
“Sì. Or perhaps something close, nephew.”
“I want my wife out now,” I ordered, my voice clipped. I called for Eunice, and she came hurrying into the kitchen. “Call Mitch Lewis and tell him to get him and his family on the next plane out. Emory Snow and his family too.”
She nodded, running for the phone.
