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“I’m not telling you shit, you potato-eating Mick,” she sneers. I glance over my shoulder at Doyle, who is standing like a silent sentry, hands clasped in front of him.
“You might want to start speaking, sweetheart,” I tell her, “or I’ll let my friend over there show you what happens when people don’t give me the answers I want.”
Isabella rolls her eyes, unimpressed by the threat. “Please. That guy looks like he’s barely able to hold his own neck up, let alone hurt me.”
I smile. “Thought you might think that.” I pull on a coat and go and sit on a chair across the way, just far enough away that Isabella can’t reach out with her leg and kick me.
“What are you doing?” Isabella demands.
“The heat is off. Soon, it will be pretty damned cold down here. Maybe even freezing. And all you’re wearing is a thin pantsuit. Your arms will get tired from holding yourself up, and you can’t even wrap them around yourself to keep warm.”
“That’s your big trick? You’re going to make me cold so I’ll talk?”
“Nope,” I say, shaking my head. “Just letting you know what the weather is promising to be like the next few hours.”
Isabella eyes me, a wary expression on her face. “Is this a trick?”
I grin, then pull out my phone to catch up on some emails. Psychological torment is my favorite weapon. Why harm someone when they can make up their own scenarios about what you can do to them instead?
Doyle walks over to her and rips her jacket off her arms, leaving her in a silk blouse, linen pants, and heels. We’re not going to violate her. We just want to make sure she feels like we can.
She shivers a little but remains resolute, refusing to speak another word. But we have all evening. I made sure that no one could track her here. No one has any idea where she is.
Frankie won’t be able to find her. Neither will Giovanni or Sal. She’s entirely at my mercy until she gives up the information we want.
Doyle circles her, a predatory look in his eyes. He doesn’t have to touch her to make her shy away from him, leaning away as he gets close.
“You look like a tasty snack,” he says, a mocking lilt to his words. If he has no interest in the opposite sex, Isabella doesn’t need to know that.
I cross one leg over my lap, leaning back as I pull up a mobile game. The only noises in the basement are the jingling tones of the match-three game I’m playing as I wait for the cracks in her façade to begin forming.
If Isabella were completely innocent, I probably wouldn’t touch her, but she’s just as ruthless and cruel as I can be. The two of us are well-matched like that.
But the only woman I care about is Eva, and after what happened to her, I’m here to make sure that no one ever touches a hair on her head again. This is as much about sending a message as it is about getting intel from this woman.
“What do you even want to know?” Isabella ventures, leaning away when Doyle gets close again.
“Declan O’Malley,” I tell her, looking up from my game. “I know that he’s been working with you. I want to know why. I want to know how. I want everything you can tell me about your alliance with him.”
“You’re crazy,” Isabella says, tilting her head to stare at me. “Actually crazy, you know that? Accusing your Don is suicide. Why don’t you just go to him yourself if you think he’s up to something?”
“Because he’s smart,” I say, standing up. “He’s clever, always one step ahead of us. But if you give us the information we need, we can level the playing field.”
“You’re going to have to drag it out of me,” Isabella sneers. She shifts, wrists clearly starting to ache under the strain. Her feet must be killing her as well, standing on her pointy high heels like that.
“We’ll drag something out of you,” Doyle intones, leering at her and flicking his tongue out like a snake.
“Don’t touch me,” Isabella snaps at him.
“Then give us the info we want,” I order her. She glances at Doyle again, then back at me.
“Declan made a deal with my father,” she says through clenched teeth. “I don’t know the details. All I know is that he wanted us to go after your father.”
My fists clenched. “Why would he do that?”
“Said Marcus was getting a big head. He had ideas about how to run things. Thought if he worked with us, our Families could take control of everything together. But my dad wasn’t interested in combining forces, so Declan promised territory, gave us all the info we needed to take out your guards and get inside the estate.”
Vindication feels hollow. We knew Declan was making deals with the DeLuccis. We just didn’t know how or why. And now we know that we were right. He wanted our father out of the way so he could take over.
