Antonio drops to the ground and I cringe, watching the way his blood spills out onto the floor. “Damn,” I mutter. “I told him not to spill any blood. Do you know what kind of scrubbing it’ll take to get that stain out of the grout?”
“You’re shitting me, babe. The blood splatter is the best part,” Marcus says. “Could you get a little closer? I need to see the life fading out of his eyes.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course,” I beam, more than happy to give a helping hand where needed.
I crawl across the floor and end up laid out on the tiles, my face only inches from Antonio’s as I hold up the camera for Marcus to see. “Hey dude,” I say, looking into Antonio’s dulling eyes. “Rough night, huh? Bet you wish you were anywhere but here.”
Antonio spits at me and I cringe, pulling back in disgust. “Don’t fucking spit at my girl, man,” Marcus roars through the phone. “Who knows what kind of germs a little bitch like you has been carrying around.”
Before he can respond, Levi grips Antonio’s arm and flips his body so he’s staring up at the high ceiling, pointedly not meeting either of the brothers’ sharp gazes. “I don’t need to remind you what happens to men who go talking shit,” Levi says, reminding me of the night we were in the industrial area with Draven Miller. He lost his tongue that night … and a few other things, and something tells me that Antonio is about to join that exclusive little club.
Levi crouches down and shoves his hand right into Antonio’s mouth, cringing as the fucker bites him so hard that he draws blood, but a little biting never stopped Levi. I should know, I’ve bitten him more times than I can count.
Roman leans down and grips Antonio’s lower jaw and tears it down, snapping the bones in one easy crack, leaving Levi free to pull out his tongue. Then without a second of warning, Levi pushes a short dagger right through the center of it like a piercing, anchoring it out of his mouth. “You watching, Marc?”
“Yeah, man,” Marcus says over the sound of Antonio’s grunts and muffled cries, the excitement in his tone flowing freely through the big living room. “Make it splatter. NO, WAIT. Do you think you could shoot it off?”
Roman scoffs, stepping back to check all the angles. “There’s no way in hell. He’ll get his big-ass nose first and if he goes from over here, he’ll end up going straight through his head, then it’s game over.”
I gape up at them. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Roman and Levi stop what they’re doing to look at me before I roll my eyes and scoot out of the way. “I know you guys were raised a little … differently, but surely you have a little common sense? If you can’t go from the top or the bottom, take it from the side. There ain’t no nose or brain in the way then.”
Both Roman and Levi turn their gazes down to Antonio before stepping to the side and studying this brand new angle. “Well, damn,” Roman says in appreciation before glancing back at Levi. “She’s got a good point. This might just work, even with a bad shot like yours.”
“Get fucked, man. My aim is fucking perfect.”
Marcus scoffs and turns his attention back to me. “What did I tell you? You’re gonna be a perfect mafia wife.”
“You gotta quit talking shit,” I tell him, glancing back up at Levi to find him standing over me with a gun pointed down at Antonio’s face. “Oh, fuck. WAIT! Let me move out of the way first. You guys have already scarred me enough as it is. I don’t need an accidental bullet wound to go with my collection of scars.”
Levi’s hand falters as I shuffle myself out of the way, and as his eyes skim toward mine, I see the darkness sweeping over him again. “Now why did you have to go and say something like that? Now my head is all messed up. I can’t concentrate.”
“Fuck that,” Roman says, shoving him out of the way while pulling his gun out quicker than Marcus could whip his dick out. “I’ll do it.”
“No fucking way,” Levi snaps back, taking his shot before Roman beats him to it and making me jump as the loud BANG echoes through the room.
“Holy fuck,” I gasp, blood splattering around the room like a fan, hitting everything and everyone in its path. Nausea swirls deep in my gut as my lips twist into a disgusted sneer. “That is so fucking gross.”
“HA!” Marcus laughs. “That was brilliant. Where’s the tongue? Did he get it?”
I glance back at Antonio whose face has turned a ghostly shade of white, and I quickly realize he only has a few precious moments of life left before the book closes on what I’m positive was a pathetic existence. But there are more important things to worry about because there ain’t no tongue in that bloodied mouth of his and it’s certainly not laying limp at my feet. “Ummmm … he got the tongue alright, but I couldn’t tell you where it went.”