“Alexand—” my father begins to say, but he never gets a chance to finish.
Because with a feral scream, I slice off his dick and cram it into his mouth. He gags as he convulses, blood gushing everywhere. I take Jax’s knife and slam it down his throat until the blade hits the back of his skull.
“You’re not my father,” I coldly, emotionlessly tell him, as the light flickers out from his one open eye.
Then I turn around and walk back up the stairs, back into the house, back into the bedroom, and shut the door.
Chapter 5
One hour earlier
A man’s demons never truly leave him. He may hide them from the world, but they still exist, festering like a cancer that slowly infects each cell until there’s nothing left. I’m not proud of the man I’ve become. I’m not proud of the choices I’ve made. The one thing I ever did right in this life was lovingher. Yet, I screwed that up too. I’ll never earn absolution for the things I’ve done or the things I’m about to do. But my destiny in this life was chiseled in stone a long time ago. Men like my father and Rossi, the master craftsmen holding the tool that slowly chipped away at me, sculpting me into the person I am now. Who is that man? My blue eyes meet brown ones from across the darkened space between us.
I guess we’re about to find out.
Standing up from where I’m sitting on the bottom step of the cellar, I approach the naked man tied to a chair, a gag shoved deep in his mouth.
“I wouldn’t get too close if I were you.”
Stopping a few feet from Maximillian Rossi, I turn my head to look over at Liam, who’s leaning casually against the wall. I’d never met him until a few days ago. His reputation precedes him. Jax may be our murderous nutcase, but Liam is Declan Levine’s. Thinking about Jax gives me pause. Declan swore that he and Keane wouldn’t be hurt, but I’d be an idiot to believe that. The scene at the house had been chaotic, bullets flying everywhere. But I had a choice to make, and I chose Andie. I will always choose Andie.
Tearing my gaze from Liam, I look down at Max. He’s sweating profusely. Nothing like the commanding and domineering boss I’ve worked for since I was a teenager. When Liam first brought him down here and Max saw me, there was a plea in his eyes, a relief. At first, he thought I was here to save him.
“Will she be able to hear anything from down here?” I ask Liam.
“No.”
Good. I punch Max in the face. He grunts loudly, but the gag muffles most of the sound. Max glares defiantly at me, his eyes narrowing with menace. He didn’t become the don of the Rossi syndicate because he was weak. He won’t cower at the feet of the enemy. It won’t matter.
“I know what you did,” I tell him, punching him again. “I know about the baby. Andie told us everything.” Another punch.
His eye starts to swell; the white around the iris fills with blood from the broken capillaries. Max grins around the gag in his mouth, drool pooling past its edges and dribbling down his chin. Then he starts to laugh. A light rumble that grows until it fills the emptiness of the dark cellar.
My fingers touch the cold steel of Jax’s knife in my pocket. The one he gave to Andie this morning in the kitchen. I never wanted to become this man. A man like Max and my father. I tried so fucking hard to lock that part of me out, so it never saw the light of day. I was helpless as I watched as my father destroyed my mother, piece by piece, and molded my brother into a sadistic psychopath. Needing Max’s protection from my father, I let him take Andie from me and endured his punishment for falling in love with his daughter. I agreed to marry Rita to help seal a deal between my father and the Rossis. I let two men manipulate my life as if I was their puppet dangling from marionette strings. I was stupid to think I could escape my fate by allowing others to control my destiny.
Not caring that Max is naked, I straddle his lap and tilt his chin up with the blade of the knife. “You deserve so much worse,” I tell him and begin carving into his chest.
His one good eye widens with shock, and he growls in pain, trying his best to buck me off, but his efforts are futile. With each drag of the blade’s sharpened tip, I cut his skin open, branding him with her name. I murmur to him in Spanish as I work, taking my time so that he feels every single letter being etched deep into his epidermis and through the dense tissue of muscle across his ribcage. Blood coats my hands, chest, and thighs by the time I’m done.
Declan wants me and Tessa to return to the city and has a car waiting for us outside. I’m reluctant to leave Andie, but I made a deal with the devil, and my time to play has quickly come to an end. Jesus, I sound like Jax.
Getting to my feet, I wipe the stained blade on my jeans and hand the knife to Liam. “Make sure she gets that,” I tell him.
Max is breathing heavily, his short pants giving away the pain he’s in. I wait until he raises his eyes to meet mine one last time.
“You’ll never touch her again.” I bend down close to his ear so there is no doubt he hears every word I tell him next. “She knows, you piece of shit. And she’s coming for you,” I whisper before straightening to my full height and delivering a throat punch that momentarily cuts off his air. He’ll live. But not for much longer if my girl has anything to say about it.
Chapter 6
“Anything?” I ask Jax, coming into the room.
Jax grips the man’s blood-soaked hair and yanks his head back, smacking him a few times on the face. No response. He’s barely breathing now. Out of everyone Jax has interrogated in the past twenty-four hours, this guy held on the longest. He’s one of our men. Another traitor.
“Nothing. Not a damn thing,” Jax bites out.
I hope he decides to end this guy’s suffering. Not because I’m merciful, but because we have other people to track down and question, and we can’t waste more time on someone who isn’t going to provide us with answers.
Jax grabs both sides of the man’s head, giving it a sharp twist, severing his spinal cord. His already limp body dangles lifelessly from the chains shackled around his wrists.
