15
Hatred filled every cell in Coop’s bruised and bloodied body as he stared up at the man who’d orchestrated this entire thing. His heart ached for Mac, the damn thing breaking all over again because he knew this was going todestroyher.
“Why are you doing this?”
Anthony Moretti smiled down at him. “Why does anyone do anything? Money.”
Mac’s uncle was much older than Coop, but the body hidden beneath a plain t-shirt and jeans was still strong and fit. He was also very much alive.
“Nah.” Coop started to shake his head but stopped when a wave of dizziness hit. At least his voice was getting a little stronger. “There’s more to it than that, Tony. You had plenty of money. A shit ton of it, from what I read.”
“You’re right, Mr. Cooper.” The man’s heavy Jersey accent made Coop’s last name sound more like ‘Coopa’. “I did. Until the Federal government froze all my fucking accounts.”
“Come on. You know people.” Coop’s tongue ran across a split in his bottom lip. “Surely you could’ve gotten money from someone else.”
“You think I should’ve borrowed money? Be like all those idiots I helped out over the years?”
Moretti laughed. Actually turned his nose up to the idea, despite the fact he’d made a killing—literally—on loaning money to who knows how many poor, desperate bastards.
“Why not?”
“Why should I have to borrow money when I can get my hands on two million that already belongs to me?”
Coop shrugged, or at least he tried to. Kind of hard with his hands cuffed behind his fucking back.
“Better than going through all this. Letting your pride get the best of you to the point you had to fake your own death.”
“I didn’t have a choice!” The man got angry. “The feds were closing in. I was going to go to prison. You know what happens to guys like me in prison?”
“You’d become someone’s bitch?”
The bastard slammed his fist into Coop’s gut. Thankfully, he saw the blow coming and was able to flex his abs to help protect his internal organs. That shit still hurt like a bitch, though.
Coughing through the pain, he looked up at Moretti. “I take it that wasn’t the answer you were looking for?”
The man sneered. “I’d be dead in less than a week if I went upstate. Too many enemies still upright and breathing. Too many family members of enemies waiting for their chance to get even.”
“Not to mention orange really isn’t your color.” Coop smirked. “Black and white stripes might work, as long as they’re vertical. Horizontal stripes do nothing to flatter the waistline.”
His flippant comments earned him another punch to the jaw.Damn.For a man of his age, Moretti had one hell of a right hook.
“Keep running your mouth, tough guy.” The asshole stared him down. “We’ll see how hard you laugh when my niece gets here.”
Coop’s spine stiffened, all traces of humor vanishing. With a level of fury he’d never experienced before, he clenched his jaw and locked his cold eyes on Moretti’s.
“You lay a fucking finger on her, and I swear toGodI will kill you.”
“Tough words from a man bound to a chair.” Mac’s uncle leaned closer. “I’ve tortured people, Mr. Cooper. Broken bones, severed fingers. Given so many bruises you couldn’t tell where one ended and another began.”
“Do you have a point, or are you simply reciting your resume for the fun of it?”
“My point, asshole, is that I’ve done all those things and more to people who owed me less than ten grand. So what do you think I’ll do to someone who betrayed the family name? My flesh and blood niece, who I took in after my brother and his wife passed, had the nerve to not only steal from me, she then ran away like a fucking coward.”
“She ran away because she couldn’t stand to be around a murdering douchebag like you.”
Moretti backhanded him, the move more surprising than painful.
“Her reasons don’t matter, Mr. Cooper. All that matters is that she brings me my money. Which she will, because my Abigail isn’t only a thief. She’s a fucking fool.”
