Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
“To your wife, must be pretty bad. But I’m telling you, you’re barking up the wrong tree here.”
Achilles and I exchanged looks. I nodded once. Achilles pulled his gun out and shot Angelo’s splayed fingers on the table, blowing up his pinky.
“Fuck!” Angelo kicked back, squirming in the seat he had his legs tied to, howling in pain.
“Anyway.” Achilles said nonchalantly, holstering his gun. “You were saying, you were in a bedroom?”
Angelo panted hard, nodding violently. “Yes, yes.”
“What were you doing there?”
“I was there with…someone.”
“Lucky you.” Achilles’s mouth twisted with a smirk. “Care to tell us who it was? Just so we could give them a call and confirm your alibi.”
“I can’t tell you.” Angelo spat blood to the floor.
“Why not?”
“Because it’d ruin her life,” he groaned. “And it’d ruin mine, too.”
Enzo beamed, the picture of sunshine and teddy bears. “She married?”
“No.”
“Betrothed?”
Angelo stopped to think about it, then shook his head.
“Then it’s not that big of a deal if you tell us her name,” Achilles concluded. “I mean, there’s the humiliation of having to admit to fucking you, but we’ll keep her secret.”
“So.” I pressed my knuckles to the desk on the other side of Angelo, studying him from above. “Who’s the lucky lady?”
He closed his eyes. Looked away. Shook his head.
Achilles sighed, pulled out his gun again, and shot his ring finger.
Angelo kicked the desk and fell backward to the floor, screaming.
“Goddammit!”
“Stop protecting her.” I rolled my sleeves up my elbows, ready to get this shit over with. “Your only chance of coming out of this basement in less than sixty pieces and reunite with lover girl is if you cooperate. And since you’re the only viable name on our list of suspects, it’s on you to convince us you were accounted for within this timeframe.”
I rounded the desk, stopped in front of him, and pressed the sole of my army boot to his groin. “Now, before I destroy the crown jewels…”
“It’s your sister!” The confession ripped from his mouth.
Behind me, I heard Achilles’s gun drop to the floor. I glanced back. Asshole looked like a kid who just witnessed the Tooth Fairy being gang raped by Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. His expression was demonic.
“What?” I asked.
“You heard me,” Angelo groaned as I pulled him back into a sitting position. “I was with Tierney. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. Because you’re her brother. And because…” He trailed off, his gaze skating to Achilles.
I followed his line of vision, just in time to catch Achilles pouncing on Angelo, dropping him back on the floor with a roar. He straddled him, grabbing his head and bashing it against the cobbled ground. Enzo and I jumped on him, each of us seizing one of his arms and dragging him off Angelo before he killed Luca’s brother-in-law.
My sister was single, an adult, and could shag whoever she fancied.
“Move before I kill both your sorry asses as collateral damage,” Achilles growled.
He fought us, trying to break free. He almost managed to escape twice, before we heaved him up the stairs and hauled his ass outside. We locked the dungeon, then returned to Angelo and straightened him up.
Enzo lit a cigarette and massaged his temples. I poured myself a whiskey.
“You said you were with Tierney,” I drawled, my back to him.
“Yeah,” Angelo coughed, gurgling on his blood before spitting it.
I didn’t actually care who my sister was screwing. It was her prerogative to carry on an affair with Angelo Bandini. What did bother me was that if Angelo was telling the truth—and he had no reason to lie, seeing as I was going to ask her in exactly two minutes—that meant that the rapist’s identity was still a mystery.
“You were with her the whole time?”
“Yeah.” Angelo was now openly weeping. He was a pretty boy, but I couldn’t see what made him so fuckable. “The entire time. You can ask her.”
I remembered Tierney split from us sometime during the night. In fact, I had spent most of it in Vello’s cardroom, cleaning everyone’s wallets out in a game of craps.
I picked up my phone and called my sister. She answered on the first ring.
“Were you fucking Angelo the night of Luca’s wedding?”
“Good evening to you, too, brother,” she greeted sarcastically. “I’m doing well, and yourself?”
“Answer the fucking question, sis,” I warned.
A pulse of hesitation. She didn’t want to get him in trouble with Achilles. This was why she tried to stir us from the idea of him being the attacker whenever we discussed the list together.
“What is he saying?” she asked cautiously.
“He is claiming he was with you during the time Lila went missing.”
Another pause. “If I answer truthfully, you can’t let Achilles kill him.”
“I won’t.”
“Then, yes. I can confirm his alibi. He was with me the entire night.”
I killed the call. Set my phone down.