As I was getting up, something heavy hit me on the back of the head hard enough to make me see stars, robbing me of the vision I’d only just managed to clear. In a daze, I bunched my fist and lashed out, hitting something. Maybe it was a skull, maybe it was one of the log-walls of the cabin.
Either way, it didn’t matter, because that heavy thing hit me on the head again and I went down like a sack of shit. Blackness and blurry shouting washed over me and a few stray boots found the time to kick me in the ribs, but I was drifting far enough away that I could barely feel them.
Rough hands picked me up and dragged me to the other side of the room before dumping me on to a small chair, where they held me still and others tied me down. The ropes dug in and burned my wrists, bringing voices back into focus.
“Al, Tony, search this joint. Kill anybody you find. The Kung Fu Fighter over here’s gonna learn a lesson when he wakes up. I’ve been waitin’ to talk to this motherfucker for a long time now.”
That could only be Santino Picolli, the Italian Ninja himself.
Chapter 30
Jace
The water felt freezing when it hit me, and I gasped for air, hallucinating for a moment that I’d fallen off a ship somewhere in the Arctic Circle. The reality was much worse.
I didn’t know how long I’d been drifting in and out of consciousness for, but it couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen minutes because the first thing I heard after “wakey, wakey, motherfucker” was Tony, or Al, telling Santino that there was nobody else in the cabin.
It took every ounce of willpower I had to not let my relief show. I should have been given an honorary entry into the Poker Hall of Fame.
I allowed myself to have one last memory of her, taking those barriers down and letting herself love me. I wore it like an impenetrable fortress around the very core of my being. They would take my life today, but they’d never break me. I’d be in there to the end. With Kendall.
“I said wake up, you little bitch.”
Santino gave me a slap across the face while I tried to muster up as much swagger as a soaking wet man tied to a chair could while regaining consciousness. I twisted my head to each side, making the vertebrae in my neck crack, and looked up at him.
“Santino. How’d you manage to find time around your busy cock-sucking schedule to come here?”
“Oh you always were a funny son of a bitch, Jace. Truth is, I’ve been dreaming of this ever since you bit the hand that fed you. You knew your days were numbered, right? You didn’t really think a piece of shit like you could bring us down forever, did you?”
“Sure did fuck up your day though, didn’t I?”
“A hundred and ten years we’ve owned that fuckin’ city, and we’ll own it for a hundred and ten more with you out of the way.”
“You know, I had a picture of your father painted in my toilet bowl so I can piss on him every morning?” I asked.
Santino’s brow furrowed and I saw his skin move a few shades closer to red. He cocked his fist back and punched me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me.
It took me a few seconds, but I laughed as soon as I could breathe. If I could get him blind-angry enough, he’d snap and kill me quick, rather than dragging it out over the course of hours or days. That was preferable.
“You punch like a Picolli. Where the fuck have you rats been hiding these last couple years?”
“You’ll be beggin’ soon enough, motherfucker. We had to call in some old favors, and promise some new ones, but we managed to regather in New Ashby.”
“New Ashby? Oh yeah, Gavino Bertolini always did like the special way you had of licking his gooch, Santino. I bet he’s letting you know all the time how much better the Bertolinis are than you, huh? Especially while he’s got your wife and daughter giving him a tag-team rim-”
Santino punched me in the face and I was reacquainted with visions of stars. The pistol-whipping under my eye he followed up with was going to swell it shut soon enough too.
I clenched my teeth, holding in the grunt of pain. On the inside I was climbing the winner’s podium. This final gloat of his wasn’t going anywhere near as well as he had no doubt imagined it. It was a shame my prize was only going to be a quicker death.
“Shut your worthless fuckin’ mouth. At least we’ve got some fucking allies. You’ve got nothin’, punk, you think any of the other families are gonna shed a tear when we go on tour with your rotting body?”
“Should I give a fuck?” I asked.
“Even your own people would rather see you dead. Lorenzo’s been feeding us information, bet you didn’t know that, huh? Must sting to know that even-”