Page 25 of Sin City Obsession (De Salvo Empire #1)

She just wanted to get it done. There was no point whatsoever in drawing out these men’s suffering and she could feel Rocco’s eyes on her, staring holes into her back, like a lead chain had been wound around her lungs.

It cinched ever tighter with every passing second.

But she couldn’t leave this place until she’d finished off her captives.

And to do that, she had to comply with one final order.

Alessa stepped up to Gwathney’s side one final time, angling in front of him and not bothering with her fake smile. “I would tell you the pain will be over soon,” she said. She raised the torch. “But it’s going to get a lot worse before that happens.”

His half-lidded eyes managed to fly open wide and he sucked in a wet gasp for air. Having his thumb twisted and ripped off with a single pair of wire strippers had really taken it out of him. “I-is that a…?”

Alessa triggered the ignition, watching him watch the flame catch.

Gwathney whimpered.

“See,” she said, speaking quietly, “this is what you did wrong, Erik.” She paused and hardened her tone.

“You sent that shitbag into our territory, and specifically instructed him to do harm to the next Mrs. De Salvo. And that’s where I come in.

” She lowered the torch with measured, slow movements.

Before it could kiss the skin over his heart, she delivered the message.

“You do not fuck with the De Salvo family. Period.”

Gwathney’s lips trembled and tears leaked from his eyes.

Alessa tipped the torch the rest of the way forward, the way she’d seen the Dragon do several times. She’d never imagined she would be performing the act herself. She’d never set someone aflame before. But in this case, it was her job to be his voice. And he had been specific.

So she tuned out Gwathney’s immediate, if not weakened, shrieking.

She ignored the squirming and the natural attempts at retreat.

There was nowhere for Gwathney to retreat to and no way for him to fight back.

She’d eliminated all of those things. All that was left was this.

All that was left was enduring the horrendous, acrid stench of melting flesh as she swept the torch the way she wanted across the bared region of his torso.

If she’d had the tools she had originally requested, she would have been much more artsy with this part. At least, that had been her plan. But it hadn’t turned out that way.

So, as a backup idea, she burned a swirly letter D into his chest. Large, centered, and nasty looking.

It’d blend in with what she planned for their corpses, but if those were found, and someone was thorough, this portion of his burn would be identifiable as having been delivered perimortem. That was enough.

Once Gwathney was sufficiently marked, and finally unconscious, Alessa stepped up to beaten, bloody, and barely conscious Lou. Lou had done his best to shimmy to what amounted to the other side of the pole, managing to look as terrified as any man in his state could look. It was mildly satisfying.

Alessa raised the torch as she knelt near him. “You’re the one who would have been sent next, right? The guy that creep would’ve tossed our way if George just failed to deliver, maybe never came home?” She raked her eyes over him, noting a few developing bruises below his collarbone, too.

Rocco had really gone to town.

I wonder if he regrets it now.

Alessa reignited the torch, but this time, she aimed for his massacred face. This one had no need for a message. This one just needed to be destroyed. “Yeah,” she said, barely remembering her own punchline, “Mikey wouldn’t have liked that.”

She held her breath the best she could as she seared all the already wounded, exposed areas and all the sensitized flesh around them.

She watched skin bubble and blister while her stomach mimicked the sensation she was seeing.

There was a good reason even the Dragon wore nose plugs, and she wished like hell she had some on her.

Finally, she felt satisfied—and satisfied that her boss would accept the work—and pushed to her feet. “Sorry boys. I won’t be hand-delivering you to the Devil today.” She set the torch between their limp bodies and turned back toward her supplies.

She was a bit surprised to see both Rocco and Emanuele had remained. Even if Emanuele looked like he wanted to be sick.

Alessa pretended not to notice and began gathering up the garbage pile they’d deliberately kept—the boxes, the packaging, the paper goods.

She carried all of it back to the bodies, spread it between them, then carefully took apart the torch she had been using.

She drizzled what was left of the fuel on the edges of the piles over each body, dotted some on their clothes, and set the canister down.

This time, when she walked back to the others, she said, “We’re going to send them off like a bonfire.

It’ll be messy.” She indicated her used equipment.

“I’ll put those with the dead guys, they should be unsalvageable.

But we want to be elsewhere quickly. Let’s wipe down any other space our prints might be and grab that thumb. ”

Emanuele nodded sharply, dropped to a knee, and began closing up the tool kit. She hadn’t used most of it in the end, so it was worth saving. As was the knife block.

Alessa pulled in a shaky breath. Just pull up your big-girl panties and say what needs saying.

She didn’t have to sob all over him about anything else.

She knew that, but when she finally let her eyes lift to Rocco’s, the hardness she saw looking back at her hurt like one of the wounds she’d just inflicted.

Say. The. Words. She swallowed and tried not to breathe too hard, only in part because the entire room smelled putrid.

“Mr. De Salvo … will pay for the property loss. I’m sorry. ”

She clamped her lips shut before that apology could lose the meaning it needed and dropped to scoop up her bloodied tools.

It only took a few seconds to deposit them near where the heart of the blaze would be, and instead of going back in Rocco’s direction, she continued past the half-dead men toward the other room.

Rocco had acquired paper towels from there earlier, so she assumed it was a bathroom .

She wasn’t prepared for the hand that closed around her forearm, or being spun against the wall before she could reach the bathroom altogether.

Rocco pinned her bodily to the wall, his entire body tight.

With anger? With tension? She couldn’t tell.

“Your job’s done now,” he said, his tone a low growl.

“Any one of us can strike a fucking match. I know how to handle a messy scene. And I don’t need De Salvo money buying off an old property.

Tell them I’ll ask for something else instead if it makes him feel better about the loss. ”

Alessa felt her jaw quiver, just for an instant.

Was he really … that angry, over a job he had to know she did?

Even if he’d struggled to believe it… It made no sense.

Almost any other day, she’d have lit into him for the judgment.

From any other man, under any other circumstance, perhaps she still could have.

But in her current state, from him, after the moments they’d shared, she couldn’t. She couldn’t even work up a glare.

So she dipped her chin. “I’ll tell him.” Was she supposed to apologize? Had he felt like she was grandstanding? It was her scene, her mission, of course she’d been leading it.

Rocco let out a hard breath. “ Fuck .” He slumped against her, one arm coming up to rest on the wall above her shoulder, and he pressed his forehead against hers firmly enough to force her to straighten again.

“I know you’re mad at me,” he said, the anger gone from his voice like it had never been.

“I know I fucked up. I’m sorry, beautiful.

I am. I fucking swear. I— You know what happened, and it’s not really an excuse.

But I can’t promise I’ll ever just passively stand still and let some dickhead talk to you that way.

Which is a shit apology, I realize.” He curled his other hand around hers and squeezed. “Please, talk to me. Look at me.”

Tears rushed her eyes and Alessa gasped in a breath. That was not at all she’d expected he might say. That was the polar opposite of what she’d thought he was thinking.

She wiggled her fingers to thread them with his. “You’re not … mad at me?”

He blinked. “Mad?”

She swallowed hard against the lump already forming in her throat as she forced out the word she’d most feared, the word that had felt like devastation. “Repulsed…?”

Rocco’s eyes widened for a beat, he grunted, and then he was kissing her.

The kiss was hard and frantic, but searing with need all the same.

He flattened her entirely against the wall and rolled his pelvis into hers, assuring her that his interest was alive and well.

Perhaps lacking all sanity, but definitely alive.

Then he retreated, just enough to justify easing the tight hold he’d taken of her hair and let them both breathe.

“Watching you work is living fucking art. The room smells like shit, but I’d still fuck you on this wall just to prove it if we didn’t have a time limit on a thumb to worry about.

” He pressed a chaste kiss to her nose and ran the knuckles of his hand down her cheek.

“If anyone says one bad word about you, I’ll rip the skin off his goddamn bones. Never doubt that.”

She had half a mind to tell Emanuele to go deal with rounding up and destroying the paperwork. He had all the information, anyway. But that would have been unprofessional, and Rocco wasn’t wrong.

The room was only smelling worse by the minute .

But her smile was easier. “I’d like to continue this conversation, once everything else is done and we’ve washed up.”

His lips twitched. “Or while we’re washing up?”

She rolled her eyes and pushed at his chest. “Work now, other things later, you addict.”

“I think you pissed the cleaners off,” Em said with a near-silent chuckle after Rocco and Alessa were back in the SUV. The SUV which would, also, need a deep clean, thanks to the blood transference from Deadmen One and Two.

Rocco grunted at the statement. He’d caught the too-slowly averted glare and heard the grumblings. “Too damn bad. They get paid a little more today.” And all because they’d had to go back and destroy a handful of documents that might, potentially, tie a dead man to a De Salvo.

Alessa made a sound of discontent. “I am sorry about your car, though.”

“No worries,” Em replied as he swung them into motion. “I like to mix things up, anyway.”

Rocco tipped his head to the side and grinned at Alessa. “He just has vehicular ADD. Can’t ever be satisfied with sitting behind one specific wheel for too long.”

Her face lightened with a soft laugh and she sank into the seat. “We need to ditch these bloody clothes before we go anywhere else, though. Walking through the hotel’s gonna be risky.” She raised a brow at him. “I don’t suppose you have a sneaky private entrance?”

He shrugged. “Only to my private residence.” He projected his voice to be sure Em knew to listen. “You get that job done?”

“As per your specifications. We’ll still get there first, though.”

Rocco nodded. “Just get us inside.”

Alessa poked his arm. “What am I missing?”

“Just making sure we don’t get caught covered in someone else’s blood, beautiful.” He caught her hand and folded it in his. “We’ll go hide up in my place, no one will see, and emerge all sparkly clean. People will make other assumptions.” He wiggled his brows suggestively.

Alessa rolled her eyes but didn’t retract her hand. “Please never do that again.” She paused. “What about Carla?”

Rocco hummed and stroked his thumb over her skin. “I promised you Carla.”

“You did, and I still want to kill her,” Alessa said, “but I’m not really in the mood for it right now.”

He held her hand tighter. “Then Carla can wait. They’re secured.”

Alessa was silent for several seconds.

Rocco watched out the side window as Em pointed them toward home.

“I have to call in,” Alessa said suddenly, her words quiet, almost hesitant. “Report the job complete.” She gripped his fingers as if holding onto him for support. “But I … want to te ll the boss that I have some unfinished business that came up. Something I can’t leave undone.”

Rocco turned his attention back to her.

She met his stare, her eyes searching and alarmingly uncertain. “That might buy me another day, two at the most.”

Rocco bit back a curse. She still thought she was leaving. “Then tell him what you need to tell him.” And he would take full advantage of the extra time to convince her that the only reason she ever went back to Newark would be for a family visit.