Zhu smiled at him. “You didn’t like me sending a few stupid mercenaries after Zara and you came all this way just to tell me. They weren’t nearly as good as I was led to believe.”
“I was always going to come for you,” Gino said. “Did you think I’d let you do that to her and get away with it?” He glided closer, watching Zhu, getting a feel for his energy, how he moved, the slightest hint that the man would attack.
“Ah yes, little Zara and the whip. It was beautiful to see those stripes across her breasts. It was all I could do not to take her right then, with her blood dripping everywhere and her little body shuddering in pain. Her tears were beautiful. You have to admit, you get off just looking at those tears. Didn’t you fall just a little bit for her, looking at her bruised face and those gorgeous stripes? A woman is so beautiful with her face contorted in pain.”
For one moment, another woman’s face rose up, his mother, lying in her own blood, pain making her almost unrecognizable. Gino slammed the door hard on the memory. He couldn’t allow Zhu to shake him in any way.
“It’s delicious to have a woman at your mercy. Don’t tell me, with all your strengths, you never even tried it? Not once? I am not certain I believe you.”
Gino remained silent, watching him. Zhu kept his expressions blank, but he couldn’t stop the movements of his body. Tiny. Subtle. His fingers twitched.
“Society tells you not to give in to your nature, but you’re like me. A woman belongs to you and she should follow your every command. Your every desire. That’s your right as a man.”
Gino smiled at him. “Everything about Zara is beautiful. She does belong to me, and yes, I want her to follow my every command, my every desire. I don’t think it’s my right as a man, but it is my right to protect her, to see to her care, her pleasure and happiness. That’s what I’ll be doing while you’re long dead.”
He knew Zhu thought of himself as a fighter, but he didn’t have a prayer. Gino was in that distant, cold place. It didn’t matter what Zhu said. He couldn’t make him lose his temper or make a mistake. He could taunt him all he wanted, but Gino wouldn’t break. He’d learned in a hard school.
He remembered that moment when Joe pulled him out from under his dead grandparents and his father. His dead mother stared at him, her face contorted with pain, the flames of the fire the murderers had started to cover up their crime drawing closer.
Gino had tried, over the years, to forget how much he loved her, the way she’d looked him, that soft glow on her face whenever he came into a room. Whenever his father had. She’d loved them both, and in spite of how he tried to stomp it out of himself, the moment he’d laid eyes on Zara, he knew he was capable of that deep, abiding love.
Ciro had known what Gino was trying to do and had taught him how to compartmentalize. There was no room for rage, he’d always said. There was no room for personal emotions. You did a job and you did it thoroughly so no one ever fucked with you or your family. Not. Ever. Family was sacred and any threat to them had to be eliminated.
Bolan Zhu was a threat to Zara and he always would be. More, he was a threat to every decent man, woman and child he came across.
“Every one of my men experienced what it was like to have a woman or a man at their mercy. What it was like to have sex any way they demanded. To be treated like a king. You have so much and yet you refuse to give in to your true nature. I see it in you. I see what you would like to be.”
Gino knew better now. He had thought himself like this monster, because he could take apart a human being. But he wasn’t like this man. Not even halfway. He could never do the sadistic things Zhu enjoyed. He had never looked at the marks on Zara and thought her pain was sexually stimulating. He wanted to take care of her. He wanted to provide for her and see to her every need. He wanted to give her the things in life that would make her happy, and if that meant her freedom to work outside their home, although it would be difficult, he would do it for her. He was many ugly things, but he was not a Bolan Zhu.
“You think you have what it takes to best me?” Zhu asked softly. “I cut my own father to pieces. Cheng was the golden boy, his favorite, the one he was so proud of. He wouldn’t even claim me. My mother allowed him to treat me that way. She didn’t deserve to live either. I whispered that to her all the time. That someday, I would end her life.” He laughed. “Do you have those kinds of balls? Maybe I’ll find out. I like to fuck with men who think they’re macho. It’s all the sweeter when I cut off their cock and balls. You were in there today. You didn’t get to see the grand finale because Dai insisted I leave before I was finished.”
As he talked, he edged closer, within striking distance. There was no way for Zhu to know how fast a GhostWalker could be. He exploded into action, flying at Gino with his front foot. Gino knocked it sideways and slammed his fist into Zhu’s throat. Hard. He had always been strong and the enhancements added even more strength. Zhu fell to the floor choking.
Gino methodically beat him. He used the hardened edge of his hand, his fists, he stomped him, kicked him, making certain there wasn’t a place on his body that hadn’t been touched, that wasn’t hurt and painful. Zhu tried to roll over, and Gino knelt down and stripped him, cutting off his clothes to leave his body naked and vulnerable like so many of his victims’.
Zhu began to laugh insanely, spitting blood, trying to look defiant, but there was no way to hide terror. There was a smell to it. There was a look in the eyes. Zhu did his best to act unafraid, but he winced when Gino came at him again. Gino walked away and Zhu tried to stand, crawling to the car and trying to pull himself up by the door handle.
Gino returned with several of the tools that had been laid out on the table, tools Zhu hadn’t put there but recognized as his own. Last chance, Draden. Get out of here.
Get on with it. That fucker deserves whatever you’re going to give him. I saw what he did to those women and that man. I saw what he did to Zara. Just do it and let’s get the hell out of this place.
An hour later, the screams died down, the babbling started and there was nothing left of arrogant Bolan Zhu. There was only a shell of a man. Gino was tempted to let him live, to have to be cared for by nurses, but he didn’t want to take the chance that a man that evil might have even a small part of his brain left to harm anyone. He cut his throat and left him on the floor.
Let’s get the hell out of here, Gino, and go home,Draden said.
They left the warehouse, locked it and moved into the shadows where their team waited. There were police and ambulances as well as the fire department the street over, so they went up to the rooftops, making good time out of the area.
“Cheng’s men never came,” Gino said, as he pulled open the door to their vehicle.
“I noticed that,” Draden answered.
“We watched for them,” Ezekiel said. “We were prepared for a shoot-out, but he never so much as sent a man to see what was going on.”
“I guess there wasn’t much love lost between them,” Gino said. He closed his eyes. All he wanted was a thousand hot showers to wash the stink of Zhu’s blood off of him and remove the images from the Razor’s Edge from his mind for the rest of his life. And then he’d go home to his woman.
21
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