Page 176 of Trapped With You

Gavino panted with little whimpers when he realized he’d walked right into a trap. “Who are you people?” he asked again.

I crouched down and patted his cheek condescendingly the way he’d done to me all those months ago. “I bet you didn’t see us coming, huh, Ricci? We’re going to enjoy exacting revenge. Even your dead brother Kian won’t be able to recognize you in hell once we’re through with you.”

His blue eyes flared in recognition. “C-Cade? Ella?”

“Bingo!” My girl raised the baseball bat and thwacked him.

Gavino fell back, momentarily losing consciousness.

“Let’s get this show on the road, pretty girl?”

Her eyes gleamed with wickedness. “Yes.”

I tilted my head, signalling to my crew. They nodded and backed off, receding into the shadows until we were through with this traitor.

Grabbing Gavino by the scruff of his neck, I dragged him towards the carousel. Ella skipped beside me, humming a little tune under her breath.

I threw his limp body onto a paint-chipped mechanical horse and Ella dug through our supply bag, handing me ropes and my knife. I tied his ankles and his hands together around the pole.Now he resembled a pig getting roasted over a fire.

Stepping back to appraise my handiwork, I pulled off my ski mask.

“Ready?” Ella asked, doing the same. We both wanted to be the last faces he saw before it was game over for him.

“Ready.” I kissed the tip of her nose and went over to the control panel.

I came last night to test run and make sure it still worked. Turning on the switches, warped carnival music resonated from the carousel and a few flickering lights came on, giving the entire thing a creepy allure. The platform started spinning slowly with a creaking noise and the horses shunted up and down rhythmically.

Ella hopped on the platform first, baseball bat and red gasoline can in her hands. I smiled seeing the back of her leather jacket bedazzled withProperty of Killian.

Then I stepped onto the turning platform and poured an entire bottle of ice-cold water on Gavino’s head. He awoke with gasps and a coughing fit. Those quickly turned into wheezing when he noticed he was strapped against a mechanical horse with nowhere to run.

Ella and I stared at him with smirks.

“Good evening, sleeping beauty.” I leaned against an opposite horse with my arms crossed. “Did you have a good nap?”

Propped against the center pole, Ella snickered and popped a gum bubble.

“Why are you doing this?” he bemoaned. “Please let me go.”

“Don’t act stupid. You know this is payback for what you did to me. For what you did to Ella on Initiation Night.” When I remembered this asshole put hands on my girl and hurt her ankle, a new wave of anger washed over me. So I shot his ankle to even the score. Gavino howled in pain. “Now I’m going to askyou a few questions and if I’m satisfied, I’ll let you walk out of here as a free man.”

I was lying, of course.

He was never leaving this carousel. It would be his final resting place.

Before the hour was up, he’d know why they called me a fixer.

“F-Fine,” he whimpered. “I’ll do anything. Just please, let me go. It hurts.”

It’s going to hurt even worse, Gavino.

I loaded more bullets into my gun. “First question:why?”

I didn’t need to elaborate. He knew what I meant. And while I knew the answer, I wanted to hear him say it.

“You killed my brother,” he barely managed to growl, body straightening on the horse as much leeway as the ropes would allow. “Kian was the only family I had and you fuckers took him away from me.”

“Good answer. But you should know that Kian was a piece of shit.” I began listing the reasons on my fingers. “One, he stole money from us. Two, he was overly handsy with women who told him ‘no.’ And third, he tried to sexually assault my girl at Jared Roy’s party. So while he may have been a good brother to you, he was a fucking douchebag by every other standard.”