Page 20 of The Arianna Arrangement

Sandro nodded. “Alright. We always start with fists. I’ll ask a question, he won’t answer, you hit the shit out of him. It’ll be at least five hits to the face and a few to the gut then we’ll move on to Marco. Marco will handle pulling nails and teeth. Then Elio will come in and put his knife skills to use.” I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know what those knife skills looked like. “I highly doubt we get much of anything before that, but at least this way we’ll have given it a good try, put on a good show for my father, and kept Tucker’s hands mostly clean.”

“Why spare me?” I mean, I wasn’t complaining, but since I still didn’t trust Sandro one-hundred percent, I was curious.

He scrubbed a hand down his face and leaned back in his seat. “I want my sister away from this life. Being with you allows her that escape. I want you to be dangerous enough to protect her, but not so dangerous that I have to worry about protecting her from you.”

The pointed look he gave me got under my skin and I scoffed. “Trust me, between me and your sister, I’m a hell of a lot less dangerous than she is.”

Elio smiled and ran his thumb across his bottom lip. “Oh, I know. I’ve had to override her order for hits way more times that I’d like to. Though, it’s always funny when she orders one. It’s a damn good thing that the family will never be in her control.”

Marco nodded. “She is fiercely loyal to your family, which tells us they treat her right. That’s all I needed to know to be on board with saving you as much as we could.”

Sandro sat up, putting his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward and took control of the conversation again. “Wear something you don’t mind burning. Take two changes of clothes in a bag. One is again something you can burn. You’ll wear it from the warehouse to dispose of the body. Then something else that you’ll wear after that.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to dispose of a body?” I didn’t mean to ask the question out loud, but I guess I did as Elio smirked at me.

“We have lots of creative ways. Tonight will be the pig farm, though. The boss usually uses the body disposal as a test and if you’re caught, you rot in prison for murder. I have no doubts he’ll want to make sure his future son-in-law isn’t sloppy enough to get caught.”

Sandro stood and the other two followed his lead. “We’ll meet you downstairs in twenty minutes. It’s a twenty minute drive to the warehouse and I want to make sure we’re not late.”

When the door shut behind them, I changed and gathered my things, knowing this was going to be the worst day of my life so far.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked into the warehouse, but when we walked into the “office” area where Leo was tied up, it looked like every movie torture scene I’d ever seen. He was tied to a chair, not wooden so he couldn’t break it and escape, but instead a metal one that was bolted to the floor. There was a drain under him to make cleaning up easier, and off to the side, there was a table of tools that I guessed the others would be using to get answers.

Sandro walked up to Leo and removed the gag before walking back towards the door and leaning against the wall. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I’ve been authorized to give you a quick, painless death if you answer the questions upfront. Otherwise, we’ll have to result to more… creative ways to find out what we want to know.”

Leo rolled his eyes. “Please. We both know he wants this to hurt.”

“He wants information. He doesn’t give a single shit how he gets it.”

Leo chuckled and nodded his head in my direction. “You and I both know he wants to test the bitch’s future husband.”

No one expected the right hook I threw, causing Leo’s head to snap to the right and blood to arch across the room, a little landing on Sandro. “You don’t get to talk about my fiancée that way.”

Marco doubled over laughing. “Fucking hell, Givenchy. That was great.” He turned his attention to his boss and started rubbing his hands together. “Can we get this party started now?”

Sandro looked from the blood on his shirt to me, then nodded. “How long have you been going behind Don Vitale’s back?”

Leo spit some blood on the floor before turning to Sandro with a sneer. “Fuck you and the dick you rode in on.”

This time, he knew he was getting hit, but he expected another right hook, and I decided to go with an uppercut making his teeth clack together as his head snapped back. I knew Apollo would be proud.

“You’re just making this harder on yourself, Leo.” Sandro crossed his arms over his chest and crossed his left leg in front of his right. “How long?” The man didn’t respond and Sandro’s attention turned to me. “Give him a couple, this time.”

Coming into this, Sandro had said five hits to the face and a couple to the gut. I’d already done two face shots, so I decided for two more and a torso, hoping my part would be finished quickly.

Sandro gave me a bored look. “I said a couple.”

I shrugged and wiped my fists on my shirt. “Sorry. Got a little overly excited.” Lucian was watching this, so I wanted to make sure it looked like I was into this. I couldn’t let him see that it bothered me because that was a weakness I couldn’t afford.

Sandro pushed off the wall and walked closer to us. “You hear that, Leo? He’s having fun. You know what happens when someone starts having fun in an interrogation and the subject won’t talk.” He circled around the chair, then stopped in front and leaned down to be face level with Leo. “How long?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like I marked it on the calendar and kept count like a bitch in a new relationship.”

Sandro nodded. “Just estimate for me.”

Leo’s head sagged. “Six to nine months.”

“Thank you for that information.” Marco brought Sandro a chair and he sat opposite the man that betrayed his family. “See how much easier it is if we can talk like men? Now, why did you betray the boss? What was so important that you thought this was the best decision for you?”