Page 27 of Thorns of Desire

“Took you long enough,” Giovanni muttered. “I thought you took a trip around the world.”

I fought an eye roll—it had taken me two hours door to door, but I wasn’t about to argue with him. “What are you doing?”

“Playing cornhole,” Ghost deadpanned. “We were bored.”

“I know what it is, but couldn’t you have found an Italian game to play?”

They both snorted.

“We were born in the States,” Giovanni muttered. “Just because we’re on Italian soil doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy football, baseball,andcornhole. Fucking sue us.”

“I wouldn’t be too proud of that shit,” I retorted dryly.

“Don’t start shit,” Ghost muttered. “We know you’re offended because soccer is a girl’s sport and football a man’s.”

I scoffed.

“We Italians believe in the one true fútbol. You know, the thing you guys butcher and call soccer. It’s not soccer.”

Ghost snorted. “Sounds like soccer to me.”

The three men who were still alive followed our exchange with wide eyes.

“Now, gentlemen, what do you think?” I asked, focusing on them as I tucked my hand into the pocket of my Brioni suit. “Soccer or fútbol?” Their eyes bulged, their mouths opening and closing like gaping fish. I flicked a look over my shoulder. “They speak English, no?”

Ghost shrugged. “They scream, I can tell you that much.”

I shook my head, returning my attention to our prisoners. The tattoo—a symbol in the mouth of a skull—was etched on their skin, depicting the old alliance made by the Tijuana cartel, Albanians, and the Triads that still stood today.

Giovanni had one too, as well as the Omertà tattoo.

“They’re all insane,” one of the Triads’ men mumbled in Chinese. My language skills were definitely paying off today.

“You have no idea,” I answered in Chinese, smiling like the devil himself.

My heart pounded, my body alive after weeks of exhaustion. I let the darkness take over, welcoming the sensation. I needed to kill, to feel life draining out from under my blade, hear their cries as they begged for me to stop.

And so the torture started. As did their screams.

After an hour, two men lay crumpled on the stone floor at my feet, pools of red beneath them. They hadn’t talked—but the third one would. I wanted to know why they were on my territory, what Atticus Popov was up to. Everything.

I smiled as I sat down in front of the last Triad soldier. Though he couldn’t move, he jerked against his bindings, trying to get away from me while Giovanni and Ghost continued to play their ridiculous game.

I set my knife on my ruined suit pants, the silver blade now crimson, and the man followed the movement with terror in his eyes.

“Now, are you going to make this difficult like your colleagues”—I gestured to the lumps on the floor—“or will you answer my questions in exchange for a quick death?”

He swallowed hard and a bead of sweat rolled down his temple.

The Triads believed in honorable, quick deaths, even though their own methods of torture were quite brutal. It was the reason nobody ever wanted to work with them, at least nobody sane. Clearly, Atticus Popov wasn’t sane or smart if he’d managed to get on the Triads’ bad side.

“So,” I continued when he didn’t speak, “you’ll give me some answers,sì?”

“I swore an oath.”

“I don’t want your organization’s secrets,” I drawled, hiding my fury. “I want them out of Omertà territory. Now, what I want to know is why you are here and what your business is with Atticus Popov.”

He opened his mouth but no words came out. It would seem he needed an extra incentive.