Defiant Vows

Chapter Thirty-Two

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

VIVIANA

Sucking in a deep breath, I brace for the first zap of electricity, but it never comes.

“Mr. Fiorentino!” An unknown male voice shouts from the doorway of my cell, and the cattle prod falls away from my abdomen. My eyes flare open, palpable relief spreading over my body like a balm.

“What is it?” Nathaniel barks through clamped teeth. He spins away from me, and the extended cattle prod narrowly misses colliding with my cheek.

“Our security cameras have gone out. We don’t have eyes on the property anymore.”

My captor growls. “Have you checked the connection to the breaker box?”

“It’s not the connection. There’s something else going on.”

Nathaniel releases a string of curses, slinging the cattle prod to the floor with an earsplitting clang. He braces his hands on the back of my chair, caging me in between his arms and pressing his ugly face in on me. “Don’t go anywhere, Mrs. Venturi,” he purrs, his breath hot and damp on my cheek. “We’re just getting started. Elenora, watch her.”

Despite his threat, a spark of hope warms me from the inside out. He storms out of the cell. This reprieve might be my only chance to escape. I’ve already freed one hand, though I’m certain I dislocated my wrist in the process, so I know it’s possible.

Only Elenora stands in my way.

She waits solemnly by my chair, arms crossed over her chest as the door to my cement cell slams shut. The vibration ripples through the chair into my bones, and I start to scramble. My injured wrist, already stiff with swelling and heat, aches as my fingers grapple with the rope still binding my right hand.

“Viviana, stop,” Elenora warns, but I scarcely hear her over the blood roaring between my ears. I keep fighting against the restraints, loosening the rope around my right hand just enough to allow small, twisting movements.

“ Viviana!”

My name is a shrill, desperate plea on her lips, and it makes me pause long enough to realize she now holds a pocket knife in one hand. The switchblade flips from its sheath, an ominous glint in the darkness.

“Elenora…” My voice thickens with anguish. She’ll use it. I know she’ll cut me with it. “Elenora, please. ”

“ Hush!” Her eyes flash to the camera that records our every movement. “We don’t have much time.”

She rushes toward the camera and uses her knife to slice through the wires connecting it to the wall. The blinking red light goes dim, and she pushes the tripod over. The camera clatters to the ground, splitting into multiple fragments, but Elenora is already by my side once more.

She drops to her knees, extends the knife, and cuts the rope around my ankles. Blood begins rushing to my feet once more, while Elenora moves to my back and saws through the thick bindings on my right hand. My hands fall free, and I cradle them to my chest. Angry red welts plague both wrists, and my left appears to have doubled in size in the last five minutes. Otherwise, I’m unharmed. The realization nearly makes me crumble to the floor.

“ Can you stand?” Elenora demands, climbing to her feet and stashing the switchblade back into her pocket.

“Y-Yes.” Although my feet still ache and tingle as circulation returns, they can carry my weight. Clutching my injured wrist to my chest, I slowly rise from wooden chair.

Elenora wraps her thin, muscled arm around my waist to keep me steady. “The baby… Is it okay?”

My steps falter, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s asking about my baby. My lie. I offer her a small, hesitant smile. “Yeah. I mean, I think so. It- It’s still early.”

She nods, and something like solace soothes her green-depths. “Good. Let’s go.”

When we make it to the door, Elenora cracks it open and pokes her head out, checking for Nathaniel or his cronies. She pulls her head back in and wraps her arm around my waist.“We’re in the basement of his dead mother’s house. There’s only one exit, but it’ll be loaded by guards.”

“Where are we going then?” I whisper as we take our first steps into the dim, dark hallway. A single rectangular window at the very top of the wall casts moonlight onto the floor. It’s too small and too high to crawl out of. She leads us away from the staircase at the end of the hall, deeper into the basement prison.

Elenora chuckles, a brittle, sardonic sound. “We’ll have to hide and hope that whoever fucked with the security cameras finds us before Nathaniel.”

Hope, so poignant that it almost aches, jumps in my chest. “You think someone is here?”

She dips her chin. “The security system has multiple back-up wires and generators. If they’ve all gone out at once, someone with a lot more technical prowess than Nathaniel is jamming the system.”

We pass several doors, and I have no choice but to place my trust in Elenora to lead me to the perfect hiding spot. Eventually, we arrive at the end of the hallway, cloaked in absolute darkness, but Elenora manages to find a doorknob. The door opens with a long, low creak that could’ve been plucked straight from a horror movie.

“Storage closet,” Elenora whispers. “This’ll have to do.”

She lets me creep into the tiny room first. It stinks of mildew and rotting wood, and the floor sinks beneath my weight, but it’s a welcome refuge from the torture-room I woke up in.

“Did you already send the video to the Cosa Nostra?” I ask when the door shuts behind Elenora.

“No.” We both sink to the floor, our backs against opposite walls and our bent legs touching. “Even if Luciano knows that Nathaniel took you, only Aldo and Massimo know the location of Nathaniel’s mother’s house. It has to be the Outfit.”

Then, I hear it.

The first CRACK of gunfire above.

It’s a distant echo, muted by the walls and dirt insulating us below ground, but there’s no mistaking the cacophony above. It sounds like Armageddon. Like we’ve been dropped in a bomb shelter beneath a war zone. At one point, the entire foundation of the house shudders, and dust sprays from the closet ceiling.

“ Shit! ” I yelp, ducking my head between my chest and knees.

A hand lands on my knee, and I’m faintly aware of Elenora rubbing soothing circles over my jeans. It’s the most protective, sisterly thing she’s ever done. “You’ll be okay. You both will.”

Again, a pang of guilt tugs on my gut, but I won’t give up the ruse. What Elenora doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

Her fingers pause, and, in the next second, she’s scooting across the floor to sit beside me. “Viviana?”

The gunfire is louder now, like it’s infiltrated the house, and I can’t decide whether to feel terrified or relieved.

“Yes?” I squeak, tensing at her new proximity. Elenora might’ve helped me escape, but I also wouldn’t be here without her. She betrayed me. She chose her love for the weasel Nathaniel over her blood, and I’ll never trust her again. Not fully.

“I’m sorry.”

I’ve never heard her sound so broken. So remorseful. When I look up, tears glint on her cheeks, reflecting the thin sliver of light beneath our doorway. I’ve never seen her cry, either.

“I am so sorry.” Elenora shakes her head, at a loss for words. “I- I thought he loved me. Y’know… He was the first man who didn’t care about my bloodline. He didn’t care how many languages I spoke or my degrees. He made me feel enough just as myself…”

Gone is the confident, unapologetic Elenora I knew throughout my youth. In her place, an exhausted, heartbroken woman trembles beside me. The woman who spent her entire life molding herself into the perfect mafia princess, until no one wanted simple Elenora anymore.

I lean into her and dare to rest my head on her shoulder. The shouting and gunfire creeps closer. They’ve undoubtedly reached the basement by now. A storm of bullets hits the walls and floors outside our closet, their impact a sickening mimicry of raindrops. Footsteps pound closer, and I pray they belong to Massimo and his men. Anyone who can deliver me back to Luciano.

Elenora wraps her arm around my shoulders, and we embrace for the first time in at least a decade. Doors slam open a short distance away.

“She was here!” A vaguely familiar voice calls in the hallway. Massimo?

Another door opens, followed by a barrage of gunshots. Bodies hit the floor not too far away from our little closet. Elenora stiffens, and I’m a trembling mess by her side.

“ Find her!”

My heart thunders to a halt. I recognize Luc’s voice. It’s filled with lethal doses of pain and fury, but I’ve never heard anything so beautiful in my life.

“Luc!” His name rips from my throat, and I clamor toward the closet’s door. My cheeks are wet and sticky, my warped wrist a constant ache radiating up my arm as I struggle to stand. I’m sobbing. “Luc! I’m here!”

“Vivi!” Elenora calls at my back, but I’m already on my feet, wrenching the door open. Strobing flashlights stream into the hall, illuminating my path out.

I take a step, but Elenora yanks me back, just as one final round of bullets sprays through the hallway, right where I’d been seconds away from running into the open. We fall into a heap on the damp floor.

“Viviana!” Luc’s voice booms, tantalizingly close.

Massimo reaches us first. His towering form fills the entire doorframe. He wears a bulletproof vest, and blood spatter paints his face red. It’s obviously not his own. His chest heaves with labored breaths, and he stares down at me and Elenora for a beat before calling out in a hoarse voice.

“She’s here. They both are.”

Luc arrives a moment later, and suddenly I’m in his arms, crushed to the bulletproof plate over his chest. Pain splinters from my wrist, but I don’t pull back. My arms and legs loop around his neck and torso, holding onto his strong body for dear life.

“ Viviana.” He chants my name, over and over again, like a prayer in my ear. His face nuzzles deep in my neck. “I’m here. You’re safe, baby. You’re safe.”

We’re on the ground. A warm, sticky liquid seeps through my clothing, and I know it’s blood. He’s drenched in it. Like he tore Nathaniel’s guards apart limb by limb and bathed in their remains. I don’t care. I cling to him tighter because of it.

Far away, another gunshot pierces the air, and I flinch.

“ Shhh,” Luc soothes, running his hand through my hair. “You’re okay. It’s over. That’s just our men finishing off any survivors.”

“Speaking of survivors…” Massimo drawls from somewhere in the hallway behind us.

It’s only then that I realize he hauled Elenora out of the closet. I push away from Luc’s crushing embrace to find my sister held hostage against Massimo’s front. He holds the barrel of a handgun against her temple, and silent tears stream down her cheeks.

Her eyes never leave mine.

“Kill her,” Luc growls, clutching me closer to his chest again.

“ No! ” I shout, using my good arm to worm my way out of his hold. “Don’t hurt her! She helped me escape. She—”

“She delivered you on a silver platter to Nathaniel!” Luc snaps, his jaw tight with barely restrained rage. “A quick death is a mercy she doesn’t deserve.”

“Do not kill her.”

Luc’s nostrils flare. For a moment, I worry he’ll argue. He holds my gaze for several long beats before his chest inflates and deflates, and the fight leaves his eyes. He looks back at Massimo and nods once.

“You heard my wife,” he grumbles, practically brimming with violence. “Get her out of my sight.”

Massimo drops his gun, but he doesn’t loosen his hold on Elenora’s chest. I have no doubt that he doesn’t need the firearm to end her life. One of his arms could snuff the life from her lungs, like a python constricting around its prey. In fact, he looks dangerously close to doing exactly that. “She masterminded this plot beside my half-brother. If you do not punish her, Venturi, I’ll do it myself.”

Luc rises from where we’d been crouched on the ground, bringing me with him. We face Massimo and Elenora, the latter still crushed to our rival’s chest, and my husband’s lips press into a thin line. “Elenora is Cosa Nostra. I’ll handle her punishment myself.”

“But—” I start to protest, but Luc silences me with a hard look.

“I said I would not kill her, cattivella, ” he warns, his voice low in my ear. Then, he lifts his head and addresses Massimo again. “But she will be punished. As soon as I’ve ensured that my wife is well.”

His words squash any hope of reasoning with him. He’s made up his mind about Elenora’s fate. I won’t be able to change it, at least not right now. Frankly, I’m not sure I’d be capable of carrying on such an important conversation in my current state.

Massimo looks less-than-thrilled by Luc’s decision. For several long seconds, I fear the notoriously ruthless man might refuse and snap my sister’s neck where she stands. Finally, he releases her. Elenora falls to the ground at his feat, gasping for breath. He steps over her, sucking on his canine tooth and stopping in front of us.

“We’ll take Viviana to Chicago General to be checked. We have a doctor there on our payroll that you can trust.”

Panic rises inside of me. I want Luc to take me home. I don’t want to spend another minute in this God-forsaken city. But turmoil roils in my husband’s eyes, and I know he won’t rest until he hears from a professional that I’m unharmed. I can survive a few more hours in this hell, so long as Luc remains by my side.

“Thank you,” my husband murmurs, and I press myself closer to his side, burying my head in the little gap between his arm and chest. There, beneath the overbearing stench of iron and gunpowder, his comforting scent fills my lungs.

“And thank you for helping me find Viviana.” He extends his hand between them. “I’m indebted to you. Whatever you need from me, I’ll do everything within my power to give it to you.”

Massimo eyes Luc’s hand before stepping forward and taking it. Their handshake lasts a beat longer than normal, and some unspoken communication passes between them.

Though I doubt they’ll ever be friends, it’s clear the events of the last twenty-four hours have cemented an alliance between the Cosa Nostra and the Chicago Outfit, far stronger than any contract scrawled on a piece of paper. Luc and Massimo spilled blood as brothers tonight, That means something in our world.

When he steps back, something eerily close to a smile dances in Massimo’s eyes. “Let’s hope it never comes to that.”