Page 105 of Take Her

“I know,” he howled. “I know! Please don’t hurt me.”

“And you came up with this idea alone, just the two of you?” If there was anyone else involved, I wanted to know.

Bobby nodded frantically, in the way that men do when you’re holding a hammer and you’re not afraid to use it.

“That was all! Just a joke to scare her a bit! I swear!”

I paced in thought. Was that what had happened to Lia? Some mugging or thwarted robbery attempt, years ago?

Was the fire that burned down Nero’s house someone trying to cover something up?

It was all too easy to imagine Lia as a child, being scared in her own home, trying to protect herself with a book—and at the thought of anything hurting her—I stalked forward and undid Bobby’s belt.

“What the fuck man?” he said with fresh horror in his voice, trying ineffectually to hop his chair away from me.

I unlaced it from his belt loops and folded it over itself repeatedly, then offered it to him like a bit. “Bite down on this.”

“Why?” he blubbered, tears and snot becoming one across his lower face.

I groaned in disappointment. “Bobby, didn’t Junior ever tell you what Nero’s nickname for me is?” He shook his head as I went on. “Bestiola—it means little beast. I won’t tell you how I got that name—but I’ll tell you what it means now. I’m the person he sends when he wants to get his point across. Which is why I’m going to break a bone on every limb on your body.”

“It was just a game!” he sobbed. “I’m gonna tell!”

“Will you?” I asked him. “I reported that car stolen—and I left your mask and gun inside—made sure it was covered in your fingerprints. You think Junior wants to attract that kind of heat?” I reached up and cocked the nail-pulling end of the hammer beneath his chin to make him shake his head. “You think anyone’s going to believe you that Corvo’s CFO took you to a storage unit to rough you up a little?” Another shake. “No? So shut the fuck up,” I told him, and pointed west with my hammer. “There’s a meatpacking plant next door, and you’re about thirty seconds away from waking up without an arm and holding a lapful of human sausage.”

He processed that, and then let out a particularly pathetic wail.

I didn’t have any more time for him—and I had better things to do with the rest of my evening.

“People don’t play games with Nero Ferreo’s little girl and expect to live, Bobby, so count yourself lucky. Now bite—or you’ll regret it,” I said, offering him the belt again.

He finally took it, and I stood back up to swing.

If you hit a bone hard enough, it will sound like kindling breaking, even through flesh.

I was precisely as violent as the occasion called for—and it didn’t take long. Bobby bellowed after each time I did it, and sounded like he might throw up.

I waited until I was done—after he’d need a cast on every extremity—and tugged his belt out of his mouth. He’d nearly bitten through the top layer of thin leather.

“You still with me?” I asked him. He looked up and groaned. “Fuckin’ words, Bobby,” I threatened.

“Yes,” he hissed, his head swaying, likely dizzy with pain.

“Good. Because the only reason why I’m not breaking your jaw right now is so that you can tell Junior that if anyone comes near Lia again, this is what will happen to them. Nero’s orders. Got that?” I asked, tugging his sinking chin up again with the back of the hammerhead. He nodded weakly. “And—you don’t tell him it was me. Because if you do, I’ll go out and do this to every girl you’ve ever fucked, plus your mother, your sister, and your brother. I will annihilate everyone you’ve ever cared about—and then I’ll come back around for you, because I’m the beast, Bobby.”

He was pathetic.

That didn’t stop me from wanting to hurt him.

If he and Junior hadn’t come up with this stupid plan, I could’ve been fucking Lia right now, and admiring the way she looked wearing my collar and chained to the end of my bed.

I swooped a hand forward and picked him up, chair and all, and he wailed in surprise and horror as I shook him.

“So if you so much as think about breathing my name, when I find you, after everyone else you’ve ever loved is dead, I’ll rip off your balls with this end of the hammer here and feed them to you. Am I clear?”

“Crystal,” he moaned as a stream of drool poured out of his mouth, and he started crying for himself.

I punched him once because I could, felt the rake of his teeth across my knuckles, and a spatter of his warm blood, before I pulled his phone out of my pocket and tossed it onto his lap. “Good luck dialing nine-one-one with your tongue.”