Page 21 of The Arianna Arrangement

Leo sighed. “He cut our portion of the profits on things right around the time my daughter was diagnosed with diabetes. That shit’s expensive and now I was making less money. I couldn’t afford the bills. When I went to Don Vitale, he told me it wasn’t his problem and to figure it out.”

He couldn’t afford his daughter’s life saving medicine, and now, we were going to kill him. What would happen to the girl then? Did she have a mom that would look after her? Could the mom afford the medicine? Probably not or he wouldn’t have risked his life betraying his boss.

I needed to talk to Apollo and make sure that girl was looked after.

Sandro leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. His mask was firmly in place, but I was pretty sure he was hating this even more now, knowing Leo had only been looking out for his daughter. “How much money have you stolen during this time?”

“Only enough to pay her medical expenses. I didn’t want to do this. I just didn’t have a choice.”

Sandro’s jaw ticked. “There’s always a choice. Like you just made the choice to lie to me. It wasn’t just enough for her medical.” He scooted his chair back a little and nodded for me to give him another punch. One more to the face, another to the abdominal area, and now my job should be finished. “How much?”

“I swear it was just enough for her medical. We don’t have insurance. Between the doctor's visits, the testing, and getting a pump and medicine, I was out about ten grand. Because she’s fourteen, they wanted her to see a dietitian to make sure she understood the importance of eating right. We knew that her pumps would need replacing and shit, so I took some more to put away for when that happened. I didn’t want to do this long term and hoped if I saved enough, I could stop in the next couple of months.”

Sandro ran his tongue over his top teeth. “You’ve cheated the family out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our accountants have been running the numbers since we got proof of your betrayal a few days ago. Do you seriously think we’d believe that was just for her medical expenses?”

Leo’s eyes widened. “I didn’t steal hundreds of thousands. It was twenty-five thousand max. I swear, Alessandro.”

I believed him, and from the way that Sandro stared at him, he did too. “Then where is the rest of it? Who else were you working with?”

Leo’s jaw clamped shut. Even if he didn’t say another word, he’d just confirmed that he wasn’t working alone. And if he wasn’t willing to talk, that must mean that the person or people he was working with were scarier than the man watching through the cameras.

“Come on, Leo. You know this doesn’t get easier from here. You caved with a few punches from a man you thought was weak when we walked in the room. It’s Marco’s turn now if you don’t talk.” Leo sat there without saying a word, staring at the door. “Why bother telling me this much if you weren’t going to say the rest?”

After a few more moments of silence, Sandro got up and moved the chair across the room and resumed leaning against the wall, giving Marco the nod to get started.

Marco grabbed a pair of pliers and what looked like a scalpel. “There are a lot of ways to remove someone’s fingernails, Givenchy,” his attention turned towards me before going back to Leo, “but I prefer this method. First, you put the scalpel under the nail, prying it away from the skin slowly.” Leo clenched his jaw tight as he screamed through the pain. “Then,” he sat down the scalpel and picked up the pliers, “it’s easier to grab ahold of the nail when you want to remove it. Again, I prefer slowly because it causes the most pain.”

Sweat was starting to roll down Leo’s face. Watching the scene in front of me made me want to puke. I hated that I was having to be part of this, but if I thought about Leo being my dad, Atlas, Apollo, Percy, Potter, Brennan, Brayden, Damon, Davis, Brown, or Vander, knowing they would suffer this fate or worse if I didn’t do what Lucian wanted, I felt less guilty about it.

How shitty was that?

Marco removed two nails before Sandro made him pause to try to get more info from Leo. Not that it helped. All ten fingernails were removed before long and Leo still hadn’t said a word.

He had passed out a few times, but they woke him back up and went back to work.

“Still nothing to say, Farina?” Leo was now drenched in sweat and I swear I saw tears leaking from his eyes. But he didn’t talk. “Elio’s next. You know he’s good with a knife.”

When the man still said nothing, Elio moved from his spot across the room and grabbed a fillet knife. Lucian was watching, so I knew I couldn’t puke, but fuck if I didn’t want to just with the thought of what he was going to do to this man with that knife.

I mean, there was only one thing you did with a fillet knife.

As he approached the man in the chair, it seemed Leo was done being silent. “Please, don’t. I have a wife and kids. They need me.”

“Then you shouldn’t have stolen from the family. You’re dying today, one way or another. I gave you the option to do this painlessly, but you made the choice to not give me the information I wanted.” Sandro shrugged. “Does this mean you’re willing to talk now? Who are you working with?”

Leo’s lips slammed shut again and Sandro gave Elio the go ahead nod.

While he may have tried to contain his screams when Marco was pulling out his nails, he didn’t even try when Elio started peeling off his skin with the knife. The stench of piss filled the room as a wet spot bloomed on his crotch.

Elio laughed, as did Sandro and Marco, but I was doing everything I could not to puke. If all this man did was piss himself, I’d be impressed. Not sure many people would be able to manage that when being filleted like a fish.

Leo passed out a few times but these guys didn’t let that stand. They immediately got out some smelling salts to bring him back around.

The torture lasted for what seemed like forever before Sandro finally got a text telling him to end it.

Elio sliced the knife through Leo’s throat and the life drained from his eyes quickly.

Sandro reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box, then pushed a button and put it back in his pocket. “I’ve flipped off the feeds so that we can’t be watched while cleaning up this mess.” It definitely was a mess. “We didn’t have Marco take out his teeth, so those need to be removed and then you’ll dismember him. We want six sections.”