Page 229 of Lethal King

“What are you going to do to me?” I rumble, involuntary tears welling back up in my eyes. “Spit it out already!”

Tucking his handkerchief away, Leander turns and walks towards the window. With a quick tug, he lifts the blinds, revealing the waking world outside.

The bottom half of the window is still black, but the first bits of dawn are starting to peek over a silhouetted treeline.

“Maybe I should tell you,” Leander thinks out loud. “Maybe that will make it even worse.”

“Either start explaining or shut the fuck up.”

I’m so sick of the fucker’s voice. I’m so tired of his tough guy act. I wish he’d remember whatever was scaring him early. I want to see him shaking in his boots again.

“Fine,” Leander shrugs. “Have it your way.” Staring out the window, he presses two fingers against his temple and starts. “My ancestors were criminals,” he explains. “All of them. Hundreds of years ago, they formed some of the first mafia families in Greece. The Onasis clan wasn’t exactly the biggest of them all, but we had our fun. For hundreds of years we had our fun… until my father decided that fun was too dangerous…”

The vitriol in Leander’s voice when he mention’s his father is nearly strong enough to crack the window.

“That doesn’t explain shit,” I sneer.

Turning from the view outside, Leander’s pale blue eyes fall back onto me. There’s a heaviness in his gaze that weighs down his eyelids.

“Each Greek mafia family had their own unique traditions,” he notes, ignoring me. “My favorite was how a certain clan would take care of their unwilling brides.”

“With sunshine and rainbows,” I snidely guess.

“With fire and a hacksaw,” Leander smirks.

He takes a step forward and I shake at my restraints.

“Back off,” I warn him.

Leander doesn’t seem to hear me. He’s lost in a past he never lived.

“It wasn’t uncommon for the leaders of Greek families to take unwilling wives. Often, they’d grab a woman from a rival family to claim. But Greeks breed fiery women, and keeping such a prize in good shape was risky. So, this is what they’d do: First, they’d tie their unwilling bride down onto a bed… or a chair. Then, they’d bring in a doctor. The doctor would provide the hacksaw and the fire, as well as a little morphine to keep the subject from dying of heart failure before the procedure was completed. In a perfect world, I’d do everything myself. But with something like this, there’s a fine line between success and failure. The subject needs just the right amount of morphine to be kept awake. More than that, and you might fall asleep. A little more, and that nap might last forever. The process requires an expert.”

“What the fuck are you on about?” I rasp, my throat getting dry. Dread has started to curl around my neck. I know where this is going.

“Sometimes, they’d put a gag in the lady’s mouth. But I won’t do that. I want to hear you scream as your limbs are chopped off.”

A deep primal shot of fear shivers through me.

“You fucking maniac… ” I croak, still desperately trying to get out of my restraints.

“My father squandered our underworld connections for the sake of going legitimate,” Leander says, hardly listening to me. “It made life boring. I don’t like boring. I want to go back to my roots. I want to be a villain. I want to be evil. I want to be irredeemable.”

“You don’t have the guts,” I bark.

He steps closer to me.

“You’re about to see how wrong you are,” he says. “You’re about to feel it. I’ll bathe in your screams. And when your stumps are cauterized and your tongue is cut out and your teeth are pulled, I won’t even have to tie you down. I’ll just take you whenever I want. I’ll fill you up with my cock until you’re bloody. I’ll drench you in my seed until you’re big and swollen. Then I’ll take the child and do it all over again, and again, and again…”

Fear grips me like a frigid hand. My limbs go limp. I stop trying to break from my restraints. Leander takes advantage of my lapse.

Lunging forward, he grabs me by the jaw.

“Fuck off,” I grumble, trying to pry myself out of his grip as he squeezes my lips closed.

“Do you know what my name means?” Leander whispers, shoving his face into mine.

“Coward,” I squeak out through my shut lips.