Breaking his nose or sweeping his legs is out of the question, which leaves wit as my only weapon. Let’s hope my brain won’t fail me now.
He taps my chest with the pipe. “You are a special one. Clever. Educated. Maybe not with books or at a university…but from life.”
Belinski slowly peruses my body.
Gross. “If you’re going to treat me like eye candy, at least buy me dinner first.”
He meets my eyes again, unamused. “I’m tempted to make you an offer.”
I snort. “Oleg, are you asking me to go steady? Can I think about it? I barely know you.”
Belinski laughs outright. “Sadly, funny man, no. I cannot take you home to the family. Though the Bratva could use someone like you. You are not like the others.” He whacks the metal on the table near my head, the ring echoing painfully through my skull. “Unfortunately, I need your corpse to ensure there are no do-overs with this Ricci-Gallagher agreement. Twice now, you have convinced the Ricci organization to join forces with the Irish Kings, a branch that is not even your own.”
He continues studying me curiously, as if probing the inner workings of my brain with X-ray vision.
I manage to shrug. “I’m a magnanimous guy, Oleg. A builder of bridges…a maker of love not war.” I attempt to dazzle him with the million-dollar smile I reserve for special occasions. “The Bratva should reconsider.”
Belinski arches a brow, then rests the end of the pipe on my chest and drags it down my body, over my abs, past my dick, and down my quads to my knee, where he taps it rhythmically.
I’ve been tied up and tortured before. I don’t know a mob guy who hasn’t by their thirties. If you’re born into the organization, it’s practically a rite of passage.
What Belinski’s doing right now, though, is fifty shades of vomit.
What kind of depraved bullshit is this son of a bitch into? When I get out of here, I’m going to shove that pipe up his ass until it reaches his tonsils.
Since it hurts to hold and clearly isn’t working, I lose the smile. “Listen, Oleg. Can you stop ogling me? No hard feelings, but you’re not my type.”
He crashes the pipe down viciously on my shin.
Pain explodes in my leg, and I fight to swallow my scream. At least we’re back to old-fashioned, by-the-book torture.
“Yes, when I am done making you dead and serving you up to Finn Gallagher, there will not be an Italian family in this city or all of America that will touch your clan.” He slams the pipe down again in the same spot.
With sweat breaking out all over my body and roofie-induced nausea swimming through my head, I struggle to hold myself together.
If I want to help Cat, I need to keep my cool and strategize.
So I ignore the bile burning my throat. “Frankly, I’m surprised the Bratva would willingly work with that lunatic.”
“You mean Little Nino, with his polished boots and tight pants? We are more open-minded than you think, and the young Ricci has proven to be quite effective.”
Interesting. Belinski all but admitted he doesn’t respect Nino.
“Still, trust is everything. How can you trust someone who kills his own father while the man’s on his deathbed?” I arch a brow, the only body part that doesn’t hurt. “That’s some dark shit, even for guys like you and me.”
“He is a man who will go to extreme lengths to maintain his promise to me.” Belinski’s eyes bug out as his pink face hovers over mine again. “We had an agreement first!”
“An agreement that won’t mean shit once the rest of the Riccis find out he killed Daddy. And when they learn ofEduardo’s amended will naming Caterina Ricci as top dog…” I shake my head. “Sorry to break it to you, but you’ve joined forces with the wrong Ricci, Oleg.”
“I am happy to report that I have Eduardo Ricci’s final will right over there on my desk.” Belinski uses the pipe as a pointer before pounding the metal against his own chest. “Nino gave it to me to dispose of.”
He laughs at some inside joke, which I swiftly catch onto. “Except, if you were going to destroy it?—”
“It would be in a pile of tiny ashes that I blow all over this filthy American junkyard.”
This prick is doing exactly what Cat and I predicted. He’s about to swallow their organization like a boa might a feral cat.
Nino the Psychopath can’t even spell the word foresight. He possesses zero leaderships skills and never saw this obvious play coming. He handed the man his key to the Ricci kingdom for safekeeping, for fuck’s sake.
