Brutal Prince Bonus Scene (Brutal Birthright, #1.5)(59)

I search him anyway, then lock him in the office after ripping the phone cord out of the wall.

Dante and Nero are already tuning up Rollie. It doesn’t take much to get him talking. He gives us the phone the Butcher uses to contact him, as well as several locations where Zajac “might” be.

“I don’t care where he might be,” Nero hisses. “Tell us where he is right now.”

“I don’t know!” Rollie shouts, swiping the back of his hand across the bloody nose Nero already gave him. “I’m not, like, one of his top guys.”

“He sent you to shoot up the construction site last night, though,” I say.

Rollie darts his eyes between Nero and me, licking his lips nervously.

“I didn’t know who was there,” he says. “I didn’t know I was shooting at you guys. He told us to spray the lot, to hit the cops and make a ruckus.”

“Horse shit,” Dante growls, his voice rough as gravel. “You knew that work site was ours.”

“You don’t know what he’s like,” Rollie babbles. “It’s not like with other bosses where you can take a job or not. He gives an order, and you have to do it. If you fuck up, you get one warning. Fuck up again, and that’s it.”

“What’s the warning?” Dante asks.

Rollie holds up his right hand. He’s missing the pinky finger, severed cleanly at the base. The stretched, pink skin shows that this is a relatively recent injury.

“I don’t care if he’s the fucking boogeyman,” Nero says, seizing the front of Rollie’s coveralls and jerking him close. “There’s only one name you should be afraid of in this city. Whatever Zajac does to you, I’ll do ten times worse. If he shoots you in the face, I’ll drag your screaming soul back from hell just to kill you again.”

Nero’s eyes look flat and dark in the shadows of the car bay. In some ways he’s the “prettiest” of Aida’s brothers—high cheekbones, full lips. It makes the viciousness of his expression all the more disturbing.

Nero pulls a knife from his pocket and flicks up the blade, so quickly it seems to appear out of nowhere. He presses the point against the jumping pulse in Rollie’s throat.

“Tell me where Zajac is, or I’ll nick this artery. Then you’ll have about twelve seconds to answer me, before you bleed out all over the floor.”

He’s not threatening Rollie. His expression is hopeful—hoping that Rollie won’t talk, so Nero can let his hand do what it’s obviously itching to do.

“I don’t know! I swear—”

With one swift slash, Nero cuts the length of Rollie’s forearm, from the rolled-up sleeve of his coverall, down to his wrist. The blade is wickedly sharp. Blood runs down in a sheet, pattering on the bare cement floor.

“Aghh fuck me! Knock it off!” Rollie howls, trying to cover the wound with his grease-stained hand.

“Last warning,” Nero says, readying his blade again.

“I don’t know! Wait, wait!” Rollie howls, as Nero’s knife comes at his neck. “I do know one thing . . . a girl he’s been seeing.”

“Go on,” I say.

“She works at the Pole. She’s got an apartment somewhere in Lawndale that he pays for. That’s all I know, I swear!”

“I believe you,” Nero says.

He sends the blade slashing toward Rollie’s throat anyway. He would have slit it wide open if not for Dante catching his wrist. The point of the knife trembles a millimeter from Rollie’s neck.

“That’s not necessary,” Dante says. “He told us what he knows.”

“He also tried to shoot us, in case you forgot,” Nero says, tossing back the hair falling over his eyes.

“I remember,” Dante says, letting go of his brother’s wrist.

As soon as Dante drops his hand, Nero strikes again, slashing Rollie’s cheek instead of his throat.

Rollie yelps, clapping his hand over the long cut from ear to jaw.

“That’s a reminder for you,” Nero says. “Next time you want to shoot at somebody, either improve your aim or stay home.”

Dante scowls, but lets this pass.

We’re about to leave when I hear a crashing sound. Shattering glass, and then a howl as somebody runs straight at me, swinging a baseball bat.

I duck, the bat whistling over my head. Instinctively, I punch the man right in the gut. When he doubles over, I wrench the bat out of his hand, then hit him again across the jaw.

It’s the mechanic. He’s got something wrapped around his knuckles, some sort of rag, which didn’t prevent him from getting a handful of glass when he punched through the office window. His whole arm is bleeding, and all the fight has gone out of him now that he doesn’t have his baseball bat. I’m guessing he was only propelled by desperation to begin with, since he had no chance of besting me, Dante, and Nero in a fight.

Now he’s panting and wheezing, trying to decide if he’s required to put up any further resistance.

“Stay the fuck down there,” Nero says, shoving him down on the ground next to Rollie. “In fact, lay down on your face and count to a hundred before you get up, or I’ll put a bullet in the back of your skull.”

I don’t know if Nero actually has a gun on him, but the two men lay obediently face down, and Rollie starts counting. We leave them there, jogging back toward our cars.