Page 62 of Vicious King

“Take all the skin off his back.”

The other man’s eyes flare, his jaw tenses, but he still doesn’t talk. When Mateo hits him with the fire, he screams, making me smile.

“Now then,” I continue when Mateo pulls away. “How fucking long did you know where Rina was and that she’s alive?”

He’s panting, struggling to breathe through the pain. He clears his throat and then spits on my shoe.

“Someone else take a turn because I’m about to disembowel this son of a bitch.”

Julian steps forward, his knife in his hand, the blade flicking in and out.

“I didn’t kill you with my father because I fucking respected you.”

“That was your mistake,” Leonidas rasps.

“Oh, I’ll be rectifying it, trust me. Now, your suffering is in your control. Isn’t it nice to be in control? I know that’s something you never experienced in your pathetic life. Always just a soldier.”

Leonidas’s lip curls in anger.

“But this?” Julian continues. “You have a say in. We know you’ve been watching Rina for a long while. We know that you had a plan for her and the boy.”

His eyes brighten at that, and it takes everything in me not to slit his throat.

“Were you working with Damien?”

“Fuck no. I don’t give two shits about Damien.”

“Then how the fuck,” Mateo interrupts, “did you know where she was?”

The old man doesn’t have to say a word. I see it in his eyes.

Mother. Fucker.

“Get Asgood on the phone,” I say to Spider. “Right fucking now. Tell her to get her ass to my house.”

Dr. Asgood is our private doctor. We’ve had her on staff for years because she’s damn good and she’s damn discreet.

“What were you going to do with them?” I demand, every fiber of my being telling me to kill him on the spot.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We have five more of your men on their way here. Someone is going to talk,” Julian says.

“Talk about what?” Leonidas asks, but his eyes are shifty now, the pain finally getting to him.

“Were you going to sell them?” Rome asks, and the question alone makes my stomach turn.

“She gave you an heir,” Mateo says thoughtfully, crossing his arms over his chest. “You were going to let her raise him, then take him and groom him into . . . what exactly? You’re not the motherfucking boss.”

I eye the man, and when he doesn’t say anything, I grip him by the hair and pull him out of the chair, hanging by his scalp.

“I’m going to reach down your throat to your stomach and pull it out of your face,” I tell him calmly.

“I was going to take over Vegas,” he finally says. “With the boy at my side, we would have ruled this city.”

“So, he’s delusional,” Rome says, shaking his head.

“I was going to take him on his tenth birthday. In the meantime, my men have been watching him.”