Page 44 of Runaway in the Mafia (The shadows of Cosa Nostra Chronicles #3)

I turned to catch her fully. Ran my gaze down to the nip of her cleavage. Too pale for my taste, but yeah, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.

“Whiskey. Neat.”

She smiled, seduction in every move, and rocked up behind the bar.

She whispered something to the bartender, who nodded and disappeared behind the counter.

I watched her pour, ignoring the glare on my side.

Irritation itched my skin at the amateur way she poured the amber liquid.

She added ice. Clearly, her talents must lie in another area.

When she set it in front of me she dipped unnecessarily low, shoving her tits in my face. “Anything else for you, sir?”

“Nah,” I turned partly to the side and took a sip.

“You sure? You look sad. Maybe…” She made a show of reaching up and tightening her ponytail, making her tight blouse stretch on her full breasts. Another ponytail came to my mind, and my groin thickened like an instant touch.

A beat of silence and I realised I’d missed her words. “I missed that.” Fuck’s sake. Keep to the script, Vitale.

She gave me a look. Annoyed that I’d missed the show. “I said maybe I could help you out.”

“You think?” My stomach twisted with disgust as I gave her an appreciative glance over the rim of my glass.

She nodded eagerly.

“I guess I am sad.” I forced a laugh. “My wife left me.”

“Oh no.” She perked up. “I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.”

“Right?” I dropped the glass on the table. “So what? She had it coming.”

She frowned.

I elaborated. “I only smacked her once.”

The girl backtracked so fast she stumbled into the cupboards behind her.

Her gaze skittered all over the place, catching on my audience, behind my shoulder, to the left and to the right.

Everywhere except on me. Was it the smacking part that did it?

At least she had some standards. Knew what was right.

I frowned at her. “You seem distracted.”

“Me? No,” she croaked.

“Another customer?”

“Yes.” She grabbed tightly onto the escape route I gave her. “Excuse me.” And she was off like she’d had roller blades instead of feet.

I circled the glass in my hand. A smile on my lips. Thinking about how I would angle the saw for maximum gain. As in pain.

“Women.”

I shifted my gaze and locked on my target. “Sorry?”

He moved. Five stools down and scooted closer. One wife beater to another. “I said, women.”

I took another sip to bite down the rage rolling inside me. The bitterness of the whiskey didn’t do shit to soothe it. “Wouldn’t you know it,” I said bitterly.

“Sorry about your wife.”

“Ah,” I turned to him and rested my forearm on the counter, “The bitch had it coming.”

My stomach twisted. No. She didn’t.

He nodded eagerly. Looked to the left and to the right. “My wife left me, too,” he said quietly.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He put his pussy drink down. Something red with a fucking umbrella. The colour he’d turn when I was done with him. “You’d think it’d make them stronger.”

“What would?”

“Kicking them around, of course.” He said it like we were part of a secret membership club.

“Of course,” I muttered.

“But she asked for it.” My knuckles itched with the need to crack his jaw open.

“They always do.” I needed to put a gun through my mouth and burn a hole through my head for the crap that was coming out.

“Exactly.” His voice picked up in confidence.

His hand landed on my shoulder, and I couldn’t stop the thunderous glare that shot his way.

I might just about blow his head off here.

Forget the fucking chainsaw. Uncertainty clouded his vision, as if he’d heard my thoughts. His hand slipped swiftly away.

“I don’t like to be touched,” I muttered. The amount of lies I had to squeeze out for this jackass. I’d need to cut him into some extra pieces for the inconvenience of it.

“That’s okay, man. Everyone has their kinks.”

“That’s what makes a man.”

“See, you get it,” he exclaimed. “Just because you can’t get it up, doesn’t mean you are not man enough.”

Say what?

He didn’t notice my shock. He was also a few drinks past his limit. “A real man can handle the sound of cracking bone.”

Fuck no. My hand clenched around the glass.

“Sure she deserved what she had coming.” The words almost strangled me on the way out.

“Of course she did.” The umbrella and red landed on the counter. “Just because I can’t get it up doesn’t mean the fucking neighbour gets to glue his eyes on her. I gave it to her once, you know. Showed her what it’s like to have some steel inside her.”

Did he fucking rape her? My blood boiled. Vision turned crimson. The colour of his pussy drink. Rage dripped into my veins.

“It’s all her fault. She just flaunts her body in front of men. She wanted me to feel weak.”

The whiskey trembled in my glass. My hand shook from the effort it took not to smash it on his face.

“I showed her, didn’t I. Weak is what she was. On the floor.” He laughed, and it jackknifed to the part of my brain that stood on red alert. “Trying to crawl away from me. I wasn’t the weak one then.”

The glass shattered, and the acid of whiskey mixed with blood burned through me.

“What the hell, man?” He was up and standing away from me. Suspicion in his gaze.

“Memories,” I muttered. “You have a place you can help me out with this wound?”

“I’m sure Sandy will know something.”

Sandy wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pool. Sergio and Battista approached him, and I wrapped my arm around him. “Nah. I prefer you help me out with it. You know, one wife beater to another.”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He pushed away from me to smash into the wall of my two cousins behind me.

“The real question is what I’m going to do to you. Honestly, they make it so difficult these days. I mean, what’s a man got to do these days to butcher a wife beater?”