Page 43 of My Solemn Vow (The Mafia Arrangement #1)

“Staying. I don’t want to make a second trip if you’re not playing with your victim.” Gavin nods toward the poor man.

“How fast this goes depends on our friend here.” Valor steps toward the man and pulls the bag off his head. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t my good friend, Marc.”

When I see the man’s face, recognition has me drawing a sharp inhale before rational thought leaves me entirely.

“Are you fucking shitting me? Marcell Lawrence Trakas!” I snap at him and lunge forward, rage brewing inside me .

Valor wraps his arms around my waist, holding me back.

“Oh, shit.” Marc’s eyes go wide. “Toni, I didn’t know you’d be here. I’m so sorry. I didn’t — It’s a misunderstanding. These guys. I’ll go. It’s not like I came here on purpose. It’s, I’m —”

Gavin rips off a piece of duct tape from a roll conveniently hanging on his belt and slaps it over Marc’s mouth before muttering, “Jesus Christ, Valor’s woman is as scary as he is.”

Valor pulls me tightly against his chest. “Whoa, easy, princess. How do you know my friend, Marc?”

“This motherfuckin’ asshole is the sleaziest son of a bitch I ever fucking met, and I promised the next time I saw him that I would gouge his eyes out of his head.”

My blood boils with renewed malice at seeing him again, and I fight against Valor’s hold around my waist.

“Patience,” Valor says softly. His words are laced with a deep tone that settles in my bones and calms me down. “Steady, Antonella, Marc isn’t leaving here alive. I have no problem sharing my toys. But I need a little information before he departs Earth.”

Marc’s eyes bulge, and he shakes his head, trying to talk around the tape.

He gets to suffer.

“Antonella, I’m letting you go, princess. I need you to not kill Marc right away, okay?” Valor isn’t really asking. But his words pitch like a question.

Rather than answer, I stop fighting against Valor’s arms. I try to draw slow breaths, and my fingers clench into fists. The crescents of my nails digging into the skin grounds me just a little bit. After a few more breaths, Valor must believe I won’t charge Marc because he lets me go.

“That was fuckin’ hot.” Gavin looks me over, and I glare at him.

He raises his hands in surrender. “In a completely platonic, ‘you’re my cousin’s wife’ type of way.

” Gavin — smartly — changes the subject.

“Oh, and really, you can’t trust a dude who spells Marc with a C instead of a K . It’s like they’re trying too hard.”

“It was fuckin’ hot in a ‘she’s my wife’ type of way,” Valor huffs.

He steps toward Marc and the chair he’s been strapped to, wrists bound to the armrests.

It looks painful. I move my hands, thinking what it’d be like to be bent at that angle. Ooft. No, thank you.

Valor stoops to get eye level with Marc, and the patronizing droll of his voice cuts through the chilly basement air. “Marc, I’ll untape your mouth. It seems like it’s in your best interest to not aggravate my wife, and I know that’ll be hard for you.”

Marc whimpers like the sniveling sack of shit he is, but he nods, and Valor removes the tape.

“Now, Antonella, why don’t you tell me how Marc ended up on your shit list?” Valor doesn’t look back at me.

“Well, this disgusting pig used to take videos of girls in the locker room at Our Lady of Good Council Preparatory. Then he’d sell that footage to the boys of neighboring high schools.

To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw some of it.

” I clench my fist tighter, fighting the urge to slam it into his face.

“Oh, Marc.” Gavin tsks. “You’re a special snowflake of a slimeball. See, what did I tell ya, Marc with a C ? What a cunt.”

Valor is calm, and I dislike it. He has a fucking daughter, yet he had no reaction. He doesn’t even move.

Slowly, though, there’s a shift in the air. It creeps in like frost inching over my body.

A noise comes from Valor. It’s a growl, practically inhuman. His voice is much deeper than it was before. “And what happened to Marc after he was caught?”

“Well, when I caught him, I beat the shit out of him.” It was the first time I ever hit someone.

Slamming my knuckles into him hurt. I learned to do it better, but the pain was what stopped me from killing him.

“And then Berto found out he was the one filming. Last I talked to Marc, he was in a hospital bed with two broken legs, all his ribs broken, and he was gasping for air when he promised me that he’d move states and wouldn’t be seen again.

Apparently... he’s not a man of his word. ”

“Toni,” Marc starts. My name comes out like a gasp and raspy, like when he said my name in the hospital bed.

Gavin puts the tape back over his mouth. “You never learn, do you?”

Valor stalks across the room to his cabinets. After pulling out some equipment, he brings the tools to the stainless-steel table, which he pulls toward Marc.

“Marc, I wasn’t mad when we found out you were the one responsible for selling the fight locations to the D’Medicis. I was disappointed. Were the D’Medicis paying you? According to Neil here... They weren’t. You were volunteering information.”

Marc fervently shakes his head.

So much for Berto being on the same team. So much for Berto wanting the same things. I can’t believe he’d even talk to Marc again.

Valor pulls the tape off Marc’s mouth and puts it on his arm. He squats down and snaps his ankles into harsh buckles at the bottom of the chair. It must hurt because Marc winces.

“No, I never took their money. I thought they were coming to place bets. You know I want to make a buck on the easy marks. It’s not like they’d know the fighters. Money is money. It all spends.” Marc’s nose is running, and it’s disgusting.

“That’s good. Noble of you trying to bring in business.” Valor is calmer as he bends, so he’s eye to eye with Marc. “Who else were you talking to?”

“Nobody!” Marc objects, but it’s too loud, too quick, and obviously a lie.

Valor shakes his head and turns back to the table. He grabs some sort of long blade. It’s mounted between two handles on either side. “Do you know what this is? ”

Marc swallows and slowly shakes his head. “I swear. I didn’t tell nobody nothin’. I didn’t sell the footage. I stopped. I never did anything else again. Valor. I swear. Nobody else knew about the fights.”

“See, Marc. I’ve got a special power. I can tell when people are lying, and you keep lying to me. This is a curved draw shave knife.” Valor holds it up for him to see.

He shows Marc how sharp it is by pulling his thumb across the blade. The snick of metal is loud enough to be heard over Marc’s harsh breathing.

My heart is beating heavily in my chest as I imagine how Valor plans to use the knife. It looks sharp enough for a decapitation, but Valor doesn’t seem done with Marc. Seconds later, my guess is proven right.

Valor lowers the blade to Marc’s lap and situates it on top of his thigh.

“Valor. I swear. I told the D’Medicis and no one else. I don’t come to the cities except for your fights. Make some bets, get some money, then I leave again. I don’t talk to no one else,” Marc whines, his whole body shaking.

Valor’s blade cuts through the fabric of Marc’s pants. Marc screams out like he’s in pain, but there isn’t any blood. All Valor did was strip the fabric off his leg.

But a smell penetrates the air. It’s an acrid pee smell I’m attuned to from teaching.

“I hate when they fuckin’ piss themselves,” Neil groans.

I pull my eyes away from Valor as he slices off Marc’s pant leg to see Neil pat a very pale-looking Gavin on the arm.

“I’m going out to the van. You comin’, Gavin?”

Gavin looks like he’ll be sick, and there isn’t even any blood. Apparently, he’s squeamish at even the prospect of it.

He looks to me. “You wanna come too, A?”

I shake my head. “I’m good here. I want to see this fucker suffer. ”

Gavin and Neil leave as Valor cuts down the other side of Marc’s pants. He throws the fabric aside and looks back to me.

Valor’s eyes are dark, his face all stern lines and rage. “Did he sell videos of you?”

That question hits me like a punch in the gut.

It makes me close my eyes, but that’s not enough.

I turn my head away from him, and it’s still not enough.

Rotating 180 degrees around is the only way I don’t feel the full force of the shame.

But for the first time I’ve thought about it in over a year, a new thought screams louder than the rest. What if Valor doesn’t want me because of this?

There’s a loud smack. The sound of skin on skin. It comes twice, thrice, and on the fourth, it finally stops.

Valor shouts, “You’re a dead man!”

The words echo around the room. It eases but doesn’t resolve the thought in my head about Valor wanting me.

Marc sobs, “I didn’t know. I was a kid. I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know filming teenage girls changing was wrong?” Valor must hit him again.

“I didn’t know she was yours,” Marc wails.

“Who are you giving our fight information to? Who the fuck knows about the fights?” Valor presses.

I hear a snick of maybe shears of some sort as they open.

Marc’s scream covers the sound of whatever Valor does.

“You’ve got nine more fingers. I’ll let her kill you quickly if you fuckin’ tell me all our secrets you’ve been sharing.” Valor threatens him.

Or is it offering reprieve? I can’t decide.

“D’Medicis.” Marc whines through my old last name.

“And some guys at the bar. I think they’re Chinese?

They’re nobodies. But they asked where they could get brutal action, and I told them.

Really, though, they only had one gun between them.

Who could be dangerous if they have only one gun? That’s it. They’re nobodies. ”

Valor seethes, making a deep hissing noise like air between teeth in a clenched jaw. “Describe them.”

“I don’t know, man. Asian?” Marc whimpers. “One had a scar on his jaw.”