Page 28 of Thorns of Desire

I lunged forward to hold my knife against his throat. “If you have nothing to say, I can begin.”

“No, no, please.”

“I will peel the skin from your bones until you tell me what I wish to know. Then I’ll slice your belly open and pull out your intestines like a pig.”

The prisoner remained silent, terror shaking his body. At some point, he passed out, and Ghost brought over smelling salts, jolting him awake.

I sighed dramatically as I flicked a look at Giovanni and Ghost. “I really didn’t want to touch his balls, but it seems I’ll have to. Fetch the saw, will you, Giovanni? A dull one.”

The second he saw the metal blade, the man began speaking.

“Twenty-three years ago, Atticus screwed over the Triads,” he whimpered.

“Old news,” I deadpanned. “The entire underworld knows the story. He made a business arrangement with the Triads, Albanians, and the Tijuana cartel, smuggling flesh, then he turned around and fucked them over. He’s settled those debts since. Why the sudden interest again by the Triads?”

He let out a sardonic breath. “It wasn’t about the money for us. It was an eye for an eye.”

“Explain.”

“He took something priceless from the Triads. Eleven years ago, a score was settled. Or so we thought.” My brows furrowed. The Omertà had thought the same. “We were fooled. Now the woman will pay, and there’ll be no mistakes about it this time.”

“A woman?”

His lips thinned and I pressed the blade against his throat, cutting through the flesh.

He started crying. “An inside woman who helped him twenty-three years ago. Atticus’s mistress—a woman with connections to the Greek mafia.”

“Who?” It wouldn’t be Lykos’s wife. She was a devout Christian woman who insisted her husband’s organization ended all flesh trading. When he remained silent, I shoved the blade against his balls and repeated, “Who?”

The words were slow and barely audible when he answered, “His sister-in-law.”

I shared a glance with Giovanni and Ghost, whose expressions portrayed equal parts surprise and shock.

“I didn’t know Lykos had a sister-in-law,” Giovanni stated in Italian. “There was never any mention of her.”

I returned my attention to my prisoner. “Do you have a name?”

His teeth chattered, but he managed to spit out the words. “Alexandra Maria Bottelli.”

I… I knew that name. I knew that woman. Yes, it had been over a decade since I’d seen her, but she wasn’t someone you easily forgot. A highly sought-after opera singer.

“You lie,” I gritted.

There was no fucking way that the opera singer was Lykos’s sister-in-law. I could admit that she was skilled when it came to deceiving a paying audience… but involved with Atticus? The Triads? I couldn’t see it.

“She’s the sister of Lykos’s wife,” he insisted, his words choppy. “She was Atticus’s mistress, and after Lykos kicked her out, she went crazy after learning Atticus wouldn’t leave his wife. She went to his house and ended up stealing some cash before setting Atticus’s house in Greece on fire.”

“And then Popov paid you that back, ten times over,” I pointed out.

“He couldn’t repay this,” he hissed. “Eye for an eye.”

I was getting tired of these vague responses.

“Why does eye for an eye matter now, over twenty years later? What did this mistress do?” He remained silent and I shoved the blade against his balls again. “I’m tired of repeating myself. What did she do?”

A heartbeat passed.

“That I will never tell.” His eyes met mine and resolve shone in them. Giovanni and Ghost stopped playing their game and gave the whole scene a long look. “But no matter what you do to me, it will be an eye for an eye for Atticus Popov and Alexandra Maria Kosta, because we know.We. Know.”