Bones (Bonetti Brothers #1)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

BONES

Stepping off the plane in Las Vegas, the sun is bright and nearly blinds me. I slide my aviators on and climb into the back of my car. I don’t need to tell my driver where he’s going because he knows, unless I say otherwise, it’s straight to the casino with the current issue. Sitting back in my seat, I open up my app on my phone to check in on Athena. She sits with her back against the wall, a tray of food sits untouched, and one of my guys walks down to the basement with a dinner tray. He sets it on the floor in front of her, and she shakes her head as he walks away, and I watch as my wife kicks it across the room. She tilts her head back and looks directly at me, like she knows where the camera is, which cannot be the case, and while I can’t hear her, I see her mouth my name. “Luca,” she says, with desperation in her eyes as the tears fall again.

A text comes through from my head of security, interrupting my viewing.

Eduardo: Boss, you said to let you know if there were any problems.

Me: What is it?

Eduardo: Your wife won’t eat.

Me: I know. I saw the footage.

Eduardo: Do you want us to force her?

I growl from the backseat, as my driver pulls into the casino entrance.

Me: No. Do. Not. Fucking. Touch. My. Wife.

Eduardo: Of course not. I’ll keep you updated.

If anybody touches her, they are dead. I don’t care who they are, or how valuable they are to me. There’s nobody worth more than her. She’s priceless .

Getting out of the car, I walk into the casino and go talk to my business partner, Sin. I’ll view the footage before I decide how to handle the situation with one of our employees. I’m fair. My goal isn’t to hurt people that don’t deserve it. If I see proof for myself, then he’s going to regret the day he was born.

I take a seat at Sin’s desk, across from him, and he nods at me. “Bones. Good to see you.”

“How’s married life?”

He grins. “It’s good. How are things?”

I shrug, and he spots my ring. “What the hell is that?”

With a chuckle, I say, “I got married.”

Sin flashes me a confused look, and I’m not surprised. Anybody who knows me would have bet money that I’d never settle down.

“Long story, but my father is sick. This was his requirement in order for me to take over the family business.”

He frowns slightly. “I’m sorry about your dad.”

We have known each other since we were kids and he knows me well. It’s good to be in business with someone that picks up on your cues. Picking up the remote for his security camera, he presses play, and I watch the footage on the tv mounted on the wall. I’ve already been informed by our experts that this person was card counting. However, if he’s an employee, it escalates things. On top of that, I’m told that he’s fucking one of our cashiers, and she randomly slips him cash, as well as chips. There is no getting away with that. Of course, there are cameras everywhere. On top of that, when you win money, a video is watched to be sure you actually won. And if money goes missing, there is always evidence.

He didn’t attempt to conceal his identity well, so it’s easy to know it was him.

“I assume he’s at the warehouse?”

Sin nods. “Yes, he’s ready for you.”

We never physically deal with problems in the casino, because it puts Sin at risk. If the feds ever came in and searched, it would most certainly raise questions we don’t want to answer. I rise from my seat and he asks, “Did she marry you willingly?”

I turn to him and tell him honestly, “Don’t ask questions if you aren’t prepared to hear the answer.”

Holding his hands up, he says, “Fair enough.”

He lives in a consensual world. Everything is safe words and bullshit. We are not the same and he knows I won’t lie about it. I don’t lie about anything. I live my life unapologetically. I always have and I always will.

I stand in front of my thief, and smile at the thought of how I dealt with my last thief. My pretty Butterfly. He won’t be as lucky as her.

“Michael Watson, we have a bit of a problem. By we, I mean you have a fucking problem.”

This room, which my employees call The Bone Room, is set up with everything I need. We have knives and other weapons here, but my favorite is a simple vise. There’s a metal table off to the side, a rather uncomfortable gray metal folding chair in the middle of the room, with another metal table beside it with a blue vise sitting on top of it. Currently, Michael sits on the chair with an arm in each vise, ready for me, but they’re open. Nobody does this other than me. I’ve been told that it’s sick. I guess it’s a family trait. Myself and my brothers all have special interests. I don’t break bones for the hell of it. There’s always a reason, but I can’t say I hate it.

The satisfying crunch of bones. The spine chilling screams. The bone piercing through the skin. It’s all fucking mesmerizing.

I wouldn’t say it gets me off necessarily, but it does bring me pleasure. Every bone I have ever broken has belonged to someone that has wronged me in some way. If you hurt someone I care about, I consider it as a personal attack .

Glancing down at a trembling Michael, I smile at him. “Stealing from me sounded like a good idea?”

He sits in his dark blue work polo and khaki pants, and of course I don’t miss the fact that he soils himself, as he trembles in the chair.

I shake my head at him. “This all could’ve been avoided, Michael. Had you not broken the rules and stolen from me, you would not be here.”

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers pathetically, causing me to chuckle. Of course, he’s sorry, because they always are when they end up in his position.

“Let’s get started then. I’ll warn you, this might sting a bit.”

I walk over to the table holding his right arm, and turn the handle slowly for the added suspense. He watches as the screw pushes the jaw plates closer. There’s a plate on either side of his arms that will eventually crush them. This is a slow and painful way to go. Sometimes, I get bored and have to end their lives in other ways. However, I’m currently kind of pissed. He took me away from my beautiful wife and now she hates me, all because I had to come deal with his shit. There is no doubt, when I get home, I’ll have to deal with her angry behavior. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I’d much prefer to be at home and inside her, than to be dealing with this prick. The plates move closer and his breathing becomes erratic, so I stop for a moment. “Relax, Michael. It’s not even doing anything yet.”

The goal is most definitely not for this fucker to pass out, and not feel pain. His eyes widen when I turn the handle again, the plates less than a inch from his arm, and he cries, “I’ll give you my house. Anything.”

Chuckling, I tell him the truth, “If you saw my house, you’d realize how little I’m interested in your two-bedroom bungalow.”

Slowly the plates begin to squeeze his forearm and he screams. I roll my eyes, because I know damn well it’s not painful yet. Uncomfortable maybe, but not painful, and he is already screaming like he’s in absolute agony. Punk ass bitches annoy me, so I speed things up and smile at the sound of crunching bone.

Now he really screams as he nearly convulses in the chair, and this time I don’t judge him because it hurts. The chair buckles beneath him, and my guys rush over and set him right. This will happen repeatedly as he attempts to get away from the pain. It’s a normal response. If you touch a hot burner on a stove, your normal response is to retract your hand without thinking about it. This is no different. Realistically, he knows there’s no way to avoid this. Yet the brain will still make him try to run from it.

I move to the other arm and repeat the process, while whistling. That’s a family trait. We all do it and yes, I’m aware it’s probably a sign we’re not okay mentally. As I feared, once the plates begin to crush his left arm, he passes out from the pain. The body is amazing in the way it attempts to protect us from more than we can handle. The brain specifically. My men are well trained, and Miguel brings over a hose and sprays him in the face with cold water. They are taught to know how to respond without me having to give orders.

He coughs as he wakes to water in his nose and mouth. I glance down at his red, sweaty face. “Good morning, sunshine. Shall we continue?”

I turn the handle as he moans curse words, and my phone rings.

Holding up my finger, I say, “One moment, please.”

“What?” I answer as I walk away from sobbing Michael, so I can hear.

“Boss, we have a problem.”

“What is it?”

“Your wife, sir. She got a hold of Eduardo’s weapon and she’s holding him at gunpoint.”

I shake my head with irritation. “How did that happen?”

Glancing at Miguel, I order him, “Finish this. I need to cut my trip short. ”

Walking out of the building, I go straight to the car and inform my driver we’re going back to the airport.

I climb into the backseat as Jimmy explains, and I pull up the video so I can see my wife for myself. “She played dead. Eduardo got closer to make sure she was okay, and she took his gun. Mrs. Bonetti says if we don’t shoot her, she’s going to kill him.”

I sigh as we reach the tarmac. “Listen closely, Jimmy. Nobody touches my fucking wife, even if she shoots you, which she’s rather unlikely to do. Touch her, and you’ve signed your own death warrant.”

“Yes, Boss,” he says and I hang up the phone. There’s nothing I can do about it from here, so I need to hurry home. I don’t believe she’ll shoot them. Bite them, maybe, but she won’t actually kill anyone. When I get home, my beautiful Butterfly is in so much trouble. This is why she was restrained, because I can’t fucking trust her to behave.