Page 72 of Blood in the Water

“He wasnevermy father.” His voice went cold and hard. “Myfather was murdered.Myfather deserves revenge.”

His father was killed while on a mission, and I thought the Don had responded accordingly to those responsible. What was he even talking about? “Then tell me what was so bad that you had to blow up everything. What did the Don do that made you betray him?”

He blinked, staring at me—almost past me—with that empty look in his eye. Then he stood and pulled the chair away. “Elio.”

Elio pulled a hammer off the table of torture accouterments against the wall.

“Tellme, Max!”

He watched as Elio took the hammer to my knee, and I screamed in pain.Leona’s face. Her lips on mine. My fingers in her hair.

“She can’t be hiding on her own. I’ll find that man, whoever had her on the back of his motorcycle, and I’ll make him pay. Fallon will be next, along with the whole Mob.”

I blinked, trying to clear the tears of anguish from my eyes as Elio’s hammer came crashing down on my knee once again.

“Last chance. Where do you think she would have gone?”

“I don’t know.” I swallowed, trying to get rid of the cotton mouth. My head swam while my stomach rolled. Blackness encroached on my vision. “I honestly don’t know.”

I had no idea where Wynn would take her, and that was my only saving grace. But he would keep her safe. I could rely on that. I believed that. Even if I did, Wynn wouldn’t let her get hurt.

“I believe that you believe that, Cas.” He nodded to Elio, and the man went back to peruse his table full of torture devices. “But you’re still hiding something. We’ll get it out of you.”

I spit more blood onto the ground at his feet. “Fuck. You.”

This time, it was Max’s fist that flew at my face.

Lights out.

27

LEONA

“Again,” Wynn said as he corrected my posture.

It had already been an hour of this torture. Training, my ass. Wynn had insisted we start our workout with warm-up exercises that he promised would be “easy” and “brief.” Just enough to “get the blood flowing.” Liar. They were neither easy nor brief, and I shuddered to think what a hard workout would be for him. It would literally kill me.

I hadthought“teaching me weapons” was going to be simple, like training at a gun range, until my aim improved. I thought he’d give me pointers on how to hold a gun steady or where to stab a guy. I had been sorely mistaken.

After wrecking me on simple warm-ups, Wynn commanded me to take up a defensive hand-to-hand combat stance. Apparently, totrulyimprove my skills, I needed to get stronger. And togetstronger, he wanted me to learn how to fight in close-range combat. Against him. One of the greatest assassins in the world.

Wynn came around behind me and lifted my arms while lowering my shoulders. With his foot, he tapped my heel and widened my stance. “You’re small. Your greatest strength will be your agility and low center of gravity.” He came to stand in frontof me again. “Now, try to punch me again. This time, use the strength in your core and legs to give your arm power.”

I inhaled and shot forward, jabbing my arm at his cheek. He easily dodged it, then used his foot to trip me. I went sprawling onto the mat.

“Fuck, Wynn,” I groaned as I rolled over and stared at the ceiling. This was at least my thirtieth time being knocked on my ass. The shame of being schooled had already passed, but the frustration grew with each second. “I’mtryingto do what you said, but you’re just playing with me.”

He reached out his hand and pulled me back to my feet. “When I first started training, my teacher in the Irish did this same thing to me. And then Obi put me through the same exercises as he assessed my strength.”

I raised an eyebrow. “He did? I bet you didn’t suck as much as me.”

He laughed as we retook positions. I raised my hands in front of my face, and he adjusted them to their proper place. “I got so angry I stormed out. I didn’t even last thirty minutes.” He glanced at the clock on the wall to the right of us. “You’re already doing better than I did.”

“Yeah, at least you knew when to throw in the towel.” I shifted between both feet. “You know the definition of insanity, right? Seems like I should start expecting a different result.”

“No, Leona. Your tenacity is one of your strengths. Don’t confuse your unwillingness to give up as stupidity.”

I watched the way his arms came up to protect his face and how he moved his torso to keep his balance no matter how I attacked him. He moved around the mat, forcing us to circle one another like some twisted version of a dance. But his eyes glinted with attack-readiness. He would strike when he had an opening.