by Ruby Vincent
The basement was a concrete cave. Circular spotlight recess lighting cut odd, triangular beams of light on the walls, showing off the whips and clubs decorating wall number two.
My pounding resumed in earnest. I pummeled his back, shouting for him to let me go, and promising to rain hell on the Merchants until the jury voted guilty.
A soft clang and then I was tossed away, flying past metal, I landed on a surprisingly soft surface. He slammed the cage shut and the sound of the padlock snapping reverberated through my body.
“Brutal, no, don’t do this. Let me go.” I scrambled off the cushion and fisted his pant leg through the bars. “It doesn’t have to end the way it will if you don’t release me. Think about this! Let me go!”
Bending over, he untangled my death grip and left. The lights went out, plunging me in darkness.
It seemed telling me I was not getting out of here wasn’t something worth saying.
Chapter Four
Sinjin
“Now what, Sinjin? Are you still intrigued?”
I felt the muscle above my eyebrow twitching. Mercer and his contributions couldn’t be denied. All the same, I ached to punch in that self-satisfied smirk every time it came my way.
“I assumed she wouldn’t make it easy.”
“Right. So, we hold her in the basement for a few days, do what it is we do, and then we let her out and put her to cooking our food?” He scoffed. “We’ll die of poisoning within a week.”
“Men more ruthless than her have enjoyed our accommodations and came out licking our boots. You think I can’t handle one bunny?”
Mercer pushed away from the table, striding off toward his room. “I think you chose her precisely because you can’t.”
“Why do we keep that fucker around?” I snapped at Cash.
“For his people skills.” Cash grabbed a beer out of the fridge and was next to take off. “Do something about that email, Sinjin. Or I will.”
“Will everyone relax? Do I look worried?”
Brutal topped the stairs, holding out the item I was waiting for. I plopped on the couch while I poked around in her phone. Daddy came up as the second most called number. Right after Gianna and on top of Salvatore.
“Damn, this girl needs excitement in her life,” I said, dialing her father. “I’m doing her a favor.”
“Hello. Thank you for calling Waterford Retirement Home. How may I direct—?”
I hung up.
Unfortunate. The home’s business line wouldn’t be the second-dialed if Daddy had his own cellphone. I couldn’t send a text pretending to be her, and my gravelly voice wouldn’t fool the man. Adeline would have to get on the phone herself and tell him to delete that fucking email.
I flicked to the clock.
Our basement was impressive, but even the weakest weaselly bitch wouldn’t break after being down there for three minutes. Adeline doesn’t have to obey my request. She just has to wait one hundred and ten minutes.
Brutal watched me out of the corner of my eye. The man didn’t say a word, and still I heard loud and clear, “You look worried now.”
“Fuck you,” I said, “and let’s go. We have to speed up the timeline on this one.”
He peered over his shoulder.
“Midday traffic,” I replied. “No time to get across the city, bribe our way into the home, and grab the old man’s laptop before five. You coming or not?”
Brutal stared at me.
“Don’t give me that shit. I brought her here, so that we’re not three hours late to the next job because you’ve got to dig the dirt out of the tires with a toothpick. Don’t hurt yourself forcing the words ‘thank you’ out your mouth.”
He didn’t break eye contact.
“Alright, fine. That’s not the only reason.” A lopsided grin curled up to my cheekbone. “But you know what they say, a man can never go wrong if he follows his dick.”
Pushing off the chair, I headed down to the basement, Brutal on my heels. Adeline’s shouts burst out of the soundproof room. I flicked the light on.
“Hello? Brutal? Let me out of here, asshole!”
“Bunny, stop all that racket. It’s just us. No one else can hear you.”
She smacked the bars. “Now!”
The air around her charged with hatred, bending the atmosphere like heat on a sweltering day. She hadn’t worn a provocative outfit for her meeting with a couple of crime bosses. Just a simple pair of worn jeans, scuffed suede boots, and a t-shirt that read “Food Is My Life.”
It was quite possibly the sexiest thing I’d ever seen a woman wear.
The jeans molded to her hips like she was dipped into them, reminiscent of the chocolate cookies we ate the first night we met. The outline of her black lace bra peeked through the shirt’s thin fabric, and the bars uniformly breaking up the sight made my pants tent.
“Adeline, sweetie, I’m gonna need you to call Pops off.”
I knelt before her. The cage was big enough for her to stand but if she held out her arms, they’d reach through the bars. Barely any room to move. No chance of sleeping comfortably. Though this cage only had one tenant before her, and they begged for the privilege.
Adeline took a swipe at me. “Let me out of here, you over-primped psychopath. I’m gonna take the plunger you tried to put in my hands and shove it down your throat! Then I’ll use my Sinjin pinata stick and beat your friends into a coma!”
The question could be asked if one was truly brave in the face of someone they didn’t know to fear. Adeline may have seen what I do to my enemies. She had no idea what I did to pretty little enigmas who plagued my dreams.
On the next swipe, I caught her hand and kissed it. “You can’t believe empty threats will get you out of here.”
Adeline snapped back and slapped me across the face. “A real one will,” she hissed. “How long until five o’clock?”
I took the hit in stride. I did have the woman in a cage after all. Tensions were bound to get heated. “Touché. There are a pair of handcuffs under the cushion. Put them on.”
“Like hell.”
Reaching behind, Brutal smacked the hilt onto my palm. I leveled the gun on her. “Let’s try this again. Put on the handcuffs. Please.”
The artery pulsed in her neck, jumping for what I suspected were different reasons than mine. Slowly, attention on the gun, she reached beneath the cushions and got the cuffs. “At least you said please.”
I laughed. “Defiant to the last.” Getting up, I gestured to Brutal. “Get her out. I’ll do the hook.”
Like I said, our basement was a masterpiece. After death ended our reign of Cinco, they’d bring gawkers through our house like Yeoman Warders led tourists through the Tower of London.
“Right down here, folks, is the Merchants’ torture chamber. Did you know Sinjin bought that handcrafted medieval rack at a yard sale? The execution chair he traded a guy who needed a job done.”
I bypassed the chair and rack. They were just for show anyway. I mean, come on, what did we look like?
Monsters?
I grasped the pulley at the back of the room, lowering the hook until it was just about Bunny’s height.
She gave Brutal plenty of trouble as he hefted her out. She kicked at his ankles, landing solid blows that winced his impassive mask to shreds. He made to hang her and Adeline moved fast, looping her cuffed hands around his neck and clamping down.
“Argh!” Struggling with her, another kick knocked him off-balance and they both went down.
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve watched men twice her size come after you and they couldn’t put you on your ass. This is real embarrassing for you, B.”
His middle finger shot above their flailing bodies.
Laughing, I hauled Adeline off and helped him suspend her on the hook. Brutal slammed out the door with his hair a mess and a rip in his collar.
“He’ll make you pay for that,” I mused. “But that comes later.”
I circled her, drawing clos
e to scent that sweet smell of sweat, perfume, and fear.
“You and I are going to chat first.”
ADELINE
“I won’t do it. I’m not calling off that email.”
My toes skimmed the concrete floor. I was hung like a stuck pig, revolving gently to the full view of the knives, whips, chains, guns, cage, and other instruments of torture that decorated this room.
Sinjin moved to the chair. He set his gun on the seat and then placed his jacket on top of it. I stiffened as the tie came off too.
“Why are you taking off your clothes?”
“Not for the reason you think,” he said mildly. “What Mercer said applies to my entire crew. Rape isn’t on our rap sheet.”
“Is that supposed to reassure me?”
“Doesn’t it?”
I pressed my lips together. I wouldn’t say that it did, but my relief was felt despite not being voiced. No one would ever touch me like that.
Not again.
“I didn’t think murder was on your rap sheet either,” I said. “All the banks, stores, and stalls that I heard the Merchants knocked over, you didn’t kill or hurt a single person. Forgive me if all I accept about you now is you’re unpredictable.”
Sinjin unbuttoned a few off the top and rolled up his sleeves, revealing veiny, muscled arms covered in a spiderweb of tattoos. The word “powerful” was sometimes ascribed to men’s bodies. I didn’t understand why.
What made a man powerful instead of strong, tough, or rugged? Was it just people getting free with their adjectives? Or was there something about that guy in particular that made you believe he had total mastery of himself and those around him?
Looking at Sinjin Bellisario, my question was answered.
“Bunny,” he began. “Do you know why I’m the leader of the Merchants?”
“I’m sure a few wine bottles have something to do with it.”
He chuckled. “Fair guess, but no. I sleep like the rest of the mortals. Cash, Brutal, and Mercer have had endless opportunities to snuff my lights out and take over. I’m sure they’ve thought about it too.”
Sinjin put his arm around my waist, pulling me close. His arms were like two tree trunks. Thick, hard, and impenetrable. I was handcuffed and hanging off the ceiling, but it was around me, warmth pressing in on all sides, that I felt I would never get free.
“Mercer is the kind of fellow that can start out with a paperclip and trade his way to a million dollars. Cash is cold, quick, and ruthless.” Sinjin swayed side to side, moving in a circle. “He plans our jobs down to the millisecond. In and out. We’ve never run into a problem he didn’t account for. Brutal can— Well, you’ve already witnessed his talents.”
Is he... dancing with me?
Sinjin rocked me to a tune only he could hear. As tall as I was, I reached as far as his shoulder—nose buried in his open collar and tickled by chest hair. Cinnamon, bergamot, and sweet notes of vanilla fogged my mind with each inhale.
“They all have the ability, and the lust, to run the Merchants, but they take my lead for one simple reason.
“I’m unpredictable.”
Sinjin whipped me around like he was spinning me out, and then snapped me to his chest. “I think linearly. Horizontally. Diagonally. Even in zigzags. I turn a problem into a solution. A threat into an asset. And a witness into a pet,” he said. “I do what needs to be done, Adeline. No hesitation. No second-guessing.
“We’ve never killed anyone on a job because we take them for people who need the product, but not the heat. We’re traders. Middlemen. Merchants. The products themselves have no value to us, so why have the major crimes cops hunting us down as murderers, when the property crimes unit is doing a bang-up job chasing their own tails?”
“Raiden Spencer answered that question,” I said.
I felt his nod against my cheek. “He did. We planned our strike against the Kings to happen in at least eleven months. We needed the time to build the capital, turn enough men, and fortify our defenses. They’re the first piece that has to be taken off the chessboard if we’re to reach the endgame, and they weren’t supposed to see us coming. Spencer blew that to shit, and I made the decision to kill him for it over a bowl of cereal while doing a crossword.
“That’s why I’m the boss, Bunny. My crown isn’t heavy. I fucking love the way it fits.”
I swallowed hard. The gentle embrace. Heady cologne. Soft cheek on mine. It was at odds with the horrid speech dripping from his lips.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“So you understand that as quickly as I decided to spare your life, that’s how fast I’ll change my mind.” Stepping back, Sinjin took my phone out of his pocket. “Tell your father to delete that email.”
“No.”
Sinjin heaved a sigh. “My mistake. I’m not communicating the gravity of the situation. Let me make this clear, if that email goes through at five o’clock, you die at five oh one.” He shrugged. “Sure you can go to your death knowing you got your revenge on us, but it will take a while before the police get here, and we’ll be long gone by then.
“How long can we stay ahead of the police? As long as it takes to buy off the investigating detectives. Three— Maybe four weeks.”
“You can’t—”
“Can’t I? You’ll die, Adeline. Right here, in this dark, concrete room, and it’ll all be for nothing.”
“Not nothing,” I rasped. “Living under someone else’s terms, I might as well be a walking corpse that hasn’t found my grave. Does your live-in maid get time off? Will I see my friends and Dad whenever I want? Can I nip out into that yuppie paradise outside and grab a beer on a whim? Or will that door always be locked, Sinjin?”
He said nothing.
“That’s what I thought. You’ll let me out of this dark, concrete room, but the handcuffs won’t come off. I might as well die here, knowing I gave you four weeks of hell as the price.”
Sinjin stared at me for so long, the chill in his empty gaze crept into my bones. I trembled and each shake filled me with anger. Sinjin was shifting before my eyes, and in that glance, I understood the true reason Brutal, Cash, and Mercer didn’t take their chance on a sleeping Sinjin. Under the wild hair, recklessness, and can’t-give-a-shit jokes, there hid a swirling, boiling pot of pure madness.
Staring directly at this had consequences akin to staring at the sun. My response couldn’t be controlled, and still it killed me that he should think I was afraid.
“Is that so?” Sinjin brushed my cheek like he did that night with blood-stained fingers. “I admit, I’ll feel something close to remorse after you’re gone. You’re the first woman I’ve met who is... like me.”
Holding my chin between two fingers, Sinjin leaned in. He didn’t move fast or hold me tight. The gulf between his approach and my chance to turn away stretched eons. But it was a chance I never could have taken. I had seen something no one was ever meant to see, and it stripped me of all my defenses.
The heart of Sinjin Bellisario.
Soft lips touched mine in an impossibly tender kiss. Sinjin didn’t force or press. He didn’t take more than I could give. The barest meeting of our mouths, and then he was gone.
I blinked up at him. “What’s your name?”
Why that was my first question, I couldn’t say. I just had to know. Needed it at that moment ever more than my release.
“Tell me.”
“I will.” His smile returned. “Tomorrow. Of course, you’d have to make a call for that to happen.”
The spell shattered. “Fuck you.” With dawning reality came the rest he said. “I’m nothing like you!”
“You are,” he replied, moving away. Sinjin went to the wall of knives and ran his hand over the hilts. “Everyone around us has been drawn, coded, and programed like non-player characters. They behave the way they’re expected to no matter what is thrown at them. Not you and me.”
“I’m not a killer.”
He flapped a hand over his
shoulder. “This has nothing to do with social constructs of morality, Bunny. It’s all about unpredictability.” Sinjin’s hand came to rest. “See, when I bring guests down here, I can count down to the second when they’ll crack, but you...”
A long, thin blade similar to a boning knife was taken from its place.
“I honestly don’t know how long the three of us will play down here before you break. Or if you will at all.” He faced me, and that heart-stopping grin made me yank at my binds. That, and the bulge in his pants. “And damn if that doesn’t get me excited.”
“Sinjin? Sinjin, don’t! What are you doing with that?!”
“I’d let you in on a secret, but it’s already been given away.” He gestured at his erection. “There is something about you. It’s not only that I want to fuck you,” he said, blunt as a rolling pin. “It’s everything.
“It’s that look in your eye that the man who could tame you, hasn’t been born yet. It’s that sense that you know you’re the most beautiful woman to walk into a room, but you don’t flaunt it because why put effort in for those beneath you.
“Even the way you smell.” He bobbed his head all over the place, inhaling me like a line of coke. “Coffee, jasmine, and lemons. Overpowering scents that fill the room and let everyone know you’re there. You’re a queen, Adeline Redgrave, and you’ve finally met your king.”
I followed the knife through his speech. “That was a hot load of projected bullshit,” I said, tensing as he moved closer still.
Sinjin laughed. “Don’t ruin the moment, Bunny. I’m here baring my soul to you.”
Dropping to his knees, Sinjin grabbed the cuff of my jeans and slashed. My scream covered the sound of ripping fabric.
“Sinjin, no!” Panic crept into my voice. “Stop!”
“Don’t squirm. That’s how accidents happen.”
I bit my lip, containing my cry as he sheared the second pant leg to my knee. “Such clean, smooth cuts,” he mused. “There’s something to be said for the katana, but call me old-fashioned, I prefer a short, handy blade that gets me up close and personal.”
