Consumed by the Mafia (De Salvo Family #5)

16. Committed

sixteen

Committed

Watching a torture-based interrogation was intense. Abigail already knew that, just from what she’d witnessed with Peter in the safehouse basement. Taking part in one, though, even just a little, was so much more .

Rush hadn’t really wanted to talk. He ran his mouth a lot, but they’d had to wade through a lot of nothing to find words of substance.

Abigail had made several marks on her digital notepad while Ryōma worked. The one thing Rush did like to do when he was running his mouth was hurl insults and derogatory words—at them, at the De Salvos, even at the Irish. The latter of which she suspected Ryōma found more entertaining than anything else.

Ryōma’s preset alarm went off, startling their captive and sharpening Abigail’s focus. Ryōma himself immediately straightened, dropping the hold he had on Rush’s chain and letting Rush’s arms go slack. “Looks like our time here is done, Rush,” Ryōma said as he silenced the device. “Now you sit there, and you wait.”

Rush let out a groan. If he’d been aiming for aggravated, he’d fallen short. Probably because of the various careful cuts and handful of precisely broken bones surely still radiating pain throughout his body. “Wait … for what?”

The smirk that lifted Ryōma’s lips this time was far more dangerous than his usual expression. “My boss.”

Abigail was pretty sure she knew what he meant, and she still found herself suppressing a shiver at his answer.

So she understood when Rush’s eyes blew wide for the first time in hours. “Wha—Fuck, no! I’ll talk. I’ll—”

Ryōma moved back. “Too late for that.” He turned his head toward her. “Know where you put that gag?”

Abigail tucked her phone into her pocket and moved over to the shelf where she’d rested the impromptu gag from before. She was the one who’d volunteered to be the assistant in this. She was the one who’d landed them both in their current mess. So she had no right to feel any degree of apprehension. It didn’t matter that the whole scene went against everything she’d been taught.

“Wait,” Rush said, his voice filled with urgency, as Abigail approached with the gag. He eyed her only briefly before returning his focus to Ryōma. “Wait, wait. I—”

Ryōma folded his arms across his chest. “I already told you, it’s too late for—”

“I know where Cezar is!” He pushed his weight away from Abigail, staring at Ryōma almost imploringly.

Ryōma shot out a hand, latching onto Abigail’s shoulder to hold her in place. His voice was sharp when he spoke, his words directed at the man he’d been prying little answers from for hours. “That’s the kind of shit you should have been giving me to start, dumbfuck. Tell me what you know.”

Rush swallowed visibly, his gaze darting to the lone door before returning to Ryōma. “J-just please don’t … fuckin’ burn me.”

Abigail barely kept her mouth from gaping open. That was what broke him, after everything else? After all his bravado?

Her memory flashed back to the moment in time when she’d stood in front of an angry Dante De Salvo, his fury briefly aimed at her. Of course, there were people in the world who were simply afraid of fire. But anyone with a sliver of a survival instinct would fear that man, or at least the potential of him. She had to respect that.

“Talk. Now.” Ryōma’s words were in response to Rush’s plea. He gave no indication that he was willing to negotiate, let alone that the Dragon himself was not the De Salvo they were expecting .

Rush sagged on the floor, his head hanging. “Bloomfield,” he said, voice little more than a whisper. “He lives in Bloomfield.”

Ryōma released Abigail’s shoulder and stepped forward, grabbing Rush by the chin and jerking his head up at an awkward angle, forcing the chained and bleeding gangster to meet his glare. “Give me the address, or I will recommend you burn slow .”

Rush dragged in a loud, rasping breath. Something like a tremor rolled through him. He rattled off an address, barely loud enough for Abigail to hear.

She purposefully repeated it to herself, committing the information to memory, and the door to the room swung open. Abigail looked over, unsurprised but still not entirely comforted by the sight of Mikey De Salvo striding toward them.

Ryōma released Rush and again took a step back, pulling Abigail back with him.

“No, no—what the fuck is this?” Rush demanded, his eyes wild as he snapped his stare between them repeatedly.

Mikey tilted his head faintly to one side and glanced toward Ryōma. “You didn’t tell him I was coming?”

“I did.” Ryōma shrugged. “Seems he made the assumption I meant someone else.” A grin lifted his lips that probably ought to have frightened her, but Abigail found she had developed a very inappropriate reaction to that expression. “For most of the day this asshole’s just been spouting stupid insults and slipping in small things we may not even need. Like how he was lookin’ for me, specifically, because he thinks I’m the guy who iced his bestie. ”

Rush jolted forward. “You—”

“Gag him,” Mikey said, projecting his voice over the protesting Ink Blot.

It wasn’t until Mikey’s stare locked onto her that Abigail realized the instruction was for her. She’d completely forgotten she was holding the makeshift item. She nodded and pushed herself forward, succeeding in strapping it around Rush’s head before getting the bulbous portion shoved effectively into his mouth. Of course, the pain in the ass managed to bite her hand in the process.

“Ow!” Abigail yanked her hand away and gave it a reflexive shake. “Asshole,” she muttered. Still, her job was done, so she stepped back. Only as she did so did she hear herself and process the scene in her mind. Yeah, Rush had bitten her—not even hard enough to draw blood—but he was inarguably the victim in this immediate situation. She was contributing to his suffering. And yet her reaction to his defensive tactic had been anger for herself.

She didn’t realize Ryōma and Mikey had continued talking until the sounds of their voices ceased and Ryōma’s presence settled at her shoulder, looming over and surrounding her. It was an oddly equal sense of ominous weight and the promise of protection. His voice was rough in a way that perfectly matched that feeling when he asked, “Something wrong, baby girl?”

Abigail felt her insides twist. She did her best to ignore it, and all the other concerning things she’d started to piece together, and tried to offer him a reassuring smile. “Why would there be? ”

He was already frowning. “What happened to your hand?” Even as he asked, he reached over and pulled her throbbing hand into his own. His thumb barely brushed along the still red and already swollen portion on the outer side, just beneath her knuckles, where Rush had managed to clamp his teeth together. The skin wasn’t broken, but only just .

She winced despite herself. “If there’s a technique for gagging people without letting them bite you, I haven’t learned it.” She nearly said ‘yet.’ What the hell? This was not something she planned on doing long-term. She didn’t even plan on being around long-term.

But even as she had the thought, another part of her leaned in to the warmth and strength of Ryōma at her back. A tingle danced through her, warm and electrifying, at every point of contact between them. The way his calloused fingers held her hand mostly at the wrist, curled around the base of her thumb and carefully avoiding the obviously sensitive area of skin was almost hypnotizing in its tenderness. Even the vibration of his growl—a clear, audible expression of his displeasure—sent a thrill through her.

Abigail hadn’t properly processed the actual meaning of Ryōma’s angry growl before a different sound, further behind her, drew her attention.

She wasn’t overly familiar with Mikey De Salvo, but the sigh was definitely his. “I suppose you did take a bullet for my wife recently.” He said the words as if it were a begrudging acknowledgment. “Fine. You can have the part that offended your lover, but leave him alive. ”

Abigail blinked, confusion flooding her. What? Had he said something about a bullet?

“Appreciated,” Ryōma said. He leaned closer, pressed his lips to her temple, then stepped fully away and up to Rush. In a swift movement he’d ripped the gag off and away from Rush’s face entirely.

Abigail had a split-second of irritation as she watched the gag fly to the side and crumble on the concrete floor. Then Ryōma reached out, took hold of Rush by the jaw, and hauled him up until the gangster’s feet were barely on the floor. Ryōma’s hand remained firmly on Rush’s jaw, squeezing so hard the whites of his knuckles became visible as Rush’s skin pillowed inward.

Rush whimpered, a nonsensical sound slipping from him as he attempted to squirm and wiggle away. But he had no leverage and little strength with which to fight back.

Mikey moved around them and stepped on the chain, restricting Rush’s already weakened arms.

Abigail stared, the ache in her hand fading under the hard beating in her chest, unable to find words.

Rush kept struggling, clear sounds of pain and distress mixing with the clacking of the chain. Tears leaked from his eyes. Then, finally, a terribly disquieting snapping, cracking sound filled the air, nearly overpowered by an almost immediate but garbled shriek of pain, and Ryōma’s fingers closed in. As if there was no more resistance beneath them. Blood trickled from Rush’s lips, then burst free when Rush coughed roughly, the liquid sluicing over Ryōma’s forearm.

Ryōma released Rush, letting the gangster fall back to the ground, and lowered his hand as if it weren’t dripping blood. “You really are a dumbfuck, John .”

Mikey stepped away from the defeated, sobbing Ink Blot. “Now you have to wash up before you leave.” He tipped his head toward the door. “Can’t grab food looking like that.”

Abigail still didn’t feel as though she’d caught her breath, and she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to follow or stay put. Her confused, unfocused gaze roved over the scene and she found herself staring at something that should have been nauseating. Repulsive, even. Instead, the sight of first one, then two more, teeth dotting the blood pool just in front of her made her chest ache. Mikey’s instruction to Ryōma whispered through her mind, when he’d granted Ryōma permission essentially to get revenge for the arguably insignificant wound done to her .

She swallowed hard, her head spinning with all the implications.

“I understand you have a list for me,” Mikey said. He was suddenly standing barely arm’s reach from her, hands tucked into his pockets.

Abigail blinked, refocusing, and realized Ryōma had disappeared. That answered that, then. She nodded slowly and extracted her phone. It was easy enough to open the note app and hand the device over. “Did he explain—”

“He did.” Mikey scowled at the screen but didn’t take the phone. After a moment, he nodded and lifted his gaze. “Delete that before you reconnect to the network. ”

“Sure,” she said. The instruction was a little dissatisfying, but ultimately, it was just a list of initialed tally marks, anyway. She tapped the prompts to delete it so she didn’t forget.

“You understand now what you’re dealing with. What you’ve gotten yourself into.” He didn’t phrase either statement like a question, so Abigail waited for him to continue. “My family is fond of Ryōma,” Mikey said, speaking in a low, firm voice. “Ryōma, apparently, is fond of you. That’s the real reason you’re still breathing, Abigail Fitzgerald. So while I appreciate what you can bring to the table here, what you need to be doing is determining where you stand.” He jabbed a thumb in Rush’s direction without turning his head. “Ryōma didn’t do that for the family, and certainly not for himself.”

Her stare shifted back toward the prone, bleeding figure of the man they knew only as Rush. Rush had tilted partly onto his side and spit up more blood, and teeth. His body seemed to be shaking. He was emitting a strange kind of moaning sound that should have haunted her, but she could barely hear it over the reverberating power of Mikey’s words.

Ryōma had shattered that man’s jaw with a single hand. For her.

Ryōma had stained his skin with blood. For her.

Abigail latched onto her bitten hand, grabbing tight until the pain returned, spiking through her. It was a dismal echo of the original sting. At worst, she’d have a bruise come morning. Ryōma’s reaction had been overkill, but … she didn’t feel like she was mad about it.

That, more than anything, told her she needed to take Mikey’s words seriously .

“You ready to go, baby girl?” Ryōma asked as he rejoined them, the door left open behind him.

Abigail swung her focus to him, realizing only then that Mikey had shifted away from her as well. She dropped her gaze down his form, noting that his shirt was still stained but all signs of blood had been washed from his skin. Except, of course, for the permanently red peonies painted onto his arms. She felt her lips lift into a faint smile without direction. “Yeah. But you need a new shirt.”

“That won’t be an issue,” Mikey said, turning fully away from them. “Miguel will drive you back to the office, you’ll get what supplies you need and regroup from there.”

Abigail blinked.

Ryōma snorted. “You brought Miguel? He must be thrilled .”

Mikey shrugged and started toward the tall shelving unit against the far wall. “He was promised he wouldn’t have to do field work as long as he kept up with what I throw at him. No one ever said he’d never have to drive.” He selected a wicked-looking curved knife with a blade about the length of his hand and faced the room again. “Now, I need to be finished before the cleaners get here, so you should get going. It’s my turn.”

Abigail felt her stomach twist, her gaze trailing from the knife to the figure who’d long since stopped following their dialogue. She didn’t really want to imagine what Mikey intended to do with that thing.

Ryōma curled his fingers around her arm and let his touch slide down until their hands were joined. “C’mon, Abby, let’s go. Once we ditch the bloody clothes, we can get some food and get back to work.” He led her from the torture room with one final nod in Mikey’s direction, and at the end of the hall they found two more men.

Both of those men settled narrow-eyed glares on her.

Abigail laced her fingers with Ryōma’s.

“Shit,” the younger male said. He scrubbed a hand through dark hair. “I was really hopin’ M was pulling my chain about playing chaperone.”

Ryōma let out a low chuckle. “You know him better than that. We need to get back to the office.”

The older male’s scowl deepened. “Not her.”

Abigail bit her cheek to contain her irritated sigh.

Ryōma had no such compunction. “Sorry, I missed the ‘De Salvo’ on the end of your name. Where are you in the birth order?” He jerked his free thumb over his shoulder, in the direction they’d come from. “’Cause that De Salvo told us to go back to the office and regroup. So if you’re overriding him, you must outrank him, right?”

The older male curled his lips, obviously angered.

The younger one snickered and shoved him in the arm with an elbow. “You’re an ass.” He stepped forward, angling himself around his companion, and said, “Let’s get the hell outta here, then.”

Ryōma guided them in the other man’s wake without saying a word to their grumpier associate.

Abigail couldn’t help but flash the jerk a sarcastic smile as they passed him. She might have understood why the De Salvo family men were uncomfortable with her around, but she was absolutely done with other people’s bullshit.

“I’ll drive you as far as the office,” the man she presumed to be Miguel said after they climbed into his SUV. “You can eat there or pick somethin’ up on the way, I don’t care. Obviously, you know we’ve got a stash of clothes you can change into. But I am not drivin’ you all over fucking everywhere. I’m already into overtime and I want to go home.”

Ryōma huffed out something that might have been a more genuine, if not short-lived, laugh. “I can’t even fathom the luxuries of living this life from behind a desk.” He recaptured Abigail’s hand. “Just make sure there’s a car I can use and we’re good.”

“Of course there’ll be a car,” Miguel said. He swung the SUV into motion.

Abigail caught herself staring at the large, calloused hand holding onto hers and the sleeve of colored ink that extended up his arm. Ryōma’s words echoed in her mind, taunting her with their meaning. He couldn’t imagine deskwork because he lived his life in the field. Stalking, chasing, extracting information, and ultimately ending the threats to his found family. She didn’t need to know details to know that much.

She also understood that life was a dangerous one. Rife with violence and the dangling threat of a true, more upright law than she herself was capable of representing. The life he lived could be ripped away and ended at any given moment, and yet from what he said, she gathered it was all he really knew.

Ryōma gave her hand a squeeze, drawing her attention moments before he whispered to her in lower, huskier voice than he had any right to be using. “You really impressed me in there, baby girl.”

Abigail felt a shiver dance down her spine and swallowed hard. She leaned closer and turned her gaze to him, searching for something. Something she wasn’t likely to find, since she had no name for it. “What was that about you taking a bullet earlier?”

Ryōma blinked for a second before his lips lifted in a teasing grin. “Did that bother you?”

She frowned. “Yes.”

He brought the back of her hand to his lips without breaking eye-contact, kissing her knuckles slowly. “The guy Rush accused me of killing,” he finally said as he lowered her hand once more. “He took a desperate shot at Brandi about a month ago, but I was standing in the way.”

Abigail’s mouth fell open. That explained Mikey’s comment, but it didn’t do a lot for giving her peace of mind.

“Hit me square in the chest,” Ryōma continued. He indicated with his free hand.

She was shaking her head before she knew it. “There’s no way—”

“He was wearing Kevlar,” Miguel cut in, talking over her, “all he got was a bruise.”

Abigail clamped her mouth shut. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

Ryōma scoffed. “ Oi . Why did you go and butt in? You’re supposed to be driving.”

“Why do you have to be so dramatic with your storytelling?” Miguel countered.

“That is the most hypocritical thing you’ve ever said to me,” Ryōma said .

“I’m a kid who got intimidated into joining a gang, then immediately got caught by enemies I didn’t know I’d just made and turned into a double-fucking-agent for the fucking Italian mafia,” Miguel said. “Everything I do is dramatic.”

Abigail felt her lips twitch.

“Kinda like that answer,” Ryōma teased.

“Well what’s your excuse?” Miguel pushed.

Abigail looked between them, noticing as she glanced through the windshield that they were nearing DS Security Solutions—Mikey’s seemingly legitimate security services business.

Ryōma chuckled. “ Ore wa nihonjin da .”

Abigail choked on a laugh. She had no idea what he’d just said, but given the context of the conversation, that itself felt appropriate.

Miguel groaned loudly. “You’re such an asshole.”

Ryōma only laughed more.

Abigail pulled Ryōma’s hand back to her lap and laid her other overtop of it. Their casual banter had lightened the mood a bit, which she appreciated, but in the silence that followed her head started to spin once more. She was definitely out of her element. In a way, she’d known that from the start. When she had accepted the assignment to look into and unveil rumored organized crime operating in Newark, she had been under the—clearly false—impression she would be part of a team. A team that was more than just her reporting to a veritable handler.

Ryōma gave her fingers a squeeze. “You good?”

Abigail looked up at him, staring stupidly as they passed an outside lamp that briefly lit up his face. “What?”

His expression warmed. “You seem like you might be spiraling.”

She wanted to deny it, but she also recognized that denial would only work against her. Honesty, right? Abigail swallowed a flare of nerves. “I have the impression you spend a fair amount of time in situations like those,” she said, quieter than she’d meant to.

Ryōma didn’t look away. “That’s not an inaccurate assessment.” His lips twitched, although she almost missed it in the darkened cabin of the SUV. “It does usually go a little easier, though. Dumbfuck held out pretty well for a while.”

Abigail rolled his words over in her mind. What she’d witnessed had been brutal. Completely illegal. Absolutely the kind of thing she could have, and should have, used against the man currently beside her and the people he represented. Yet she felt an unsettling lack of true guilt. She felt … calm.

Ryōma pulled open the door at her side, jarring her from her thoughts and making her realize they’d parked already. He grinned in silent laughter and held out a hand. “Can’t eat if we don’t get inside, baby girl. C’mon.”

She didn’t merely feel calm, she realized as she let him help her from the SUV. She felt committed.