Chapter 8 Francesco #2
“You looked at my tattoo… and you knew what it meant.”
He flinches. His gaze flicks to the sliver of ink exposed just under the edge of my shirt. The black lion.
“See, a normal man would’ve asked who we were. Maybe tried to play dumb. But you?” I smile faintly. “You recognized us the second we stepped inside.”
I rise and Nico hands me a knife, but I shake my head. “I don’t need a knife for this. I want to remember what it feels like.”
I hit him once, so hard I hear my knuckles cracking bone. He jerks back in the chair.
Then again. And again. The sound of skin on skin. Of cartilage shifting as his blood hits the floor.
His breaths turn to gasps, then wheezes. He tries to cry through the tape. I see the panic bloom in his eyes. Then I grab his face, my fingers digging into soft cheekbones, and force him to meet my eyes.
“You thought maybe there’d be money. Fame. Some scandal you could sell for likes. A story to tell your nerd friends on some forum.”
I tilt my head.
“But let me tell you what you really opened.”
My voice drops. “You opened the cage.”
He tries to look away. I don’t let him.
“You opened the cage I’ve spent years keeping locked. The one where I put the part of me that likes this. That wants to hurt you. That needs to make someone else bleed just so I don’t feel like I’m coming apart.”
I stand, slowly, breathing deeper now.
“You know why I’m here tonight, doing this? Because I was stupid enough to think I could want something. Someone.”
My fists clench.
“I saw her. I felt something. And I started to believe I could be more than this.”
I kick the chair, hard. The boy yelps through the tape. It tilts, crashes onto its back. He’s crying now. His eyes are wide, and his chest heaves so fast it looks like his heart is beating too fast for his chest.
I step over him, crouch again, my face inches from his.
“You don’t know it, but you’re doing me a favor.”
He shakes his head. Snot and tears streak down his face.
“I can’t want her. I can’t let that part of me out. The one that dreams, hopes, craves.” I smile slowly and, crooked, the kind of smile that says I’ve done this before, and worse.
“So I’ll let out this one instead.”
I pull him upright again roughly, jerking him by the cords. He moans and tries to squirm away. But it’s useless.
I whisper in his ear: “You are the switch. The sacrifice.”
I hit him again.
“You are the blood price for my control.”
Another, to the ribs this time. He screams into the tape.
“For what I almost ruined.”
Another splits his lip. Blood pours down.
“For thinking I could want a girl like her and still walk away whole.”
I slam his head back against the wall. He slumps, then breathes in shallow gasps. I lean in one last time.
“You didn’t hack a file,” I hiss. “You hacked the last shred of peace I had.”
I step over the wreck I’ve made and grab the burner from my coat pocket. I stare at the number pad for a second. My pulse has already slowed.
Then I dial.
The line clicks. I let out a ragged breath and shift my voice to a higher, frantic tone, with a shaky Slavic accent I picked up from one of our guys in Warsaw.
“Hello? Yes—hello, I-I don’t know if this is right number—uh—yes, police, yes. Please—”
I breathe fast, stumbling over words like I’ve been running.
“I live under apartment 5B, and—there’s bad things upstairs. So many computers. Cameras. Wires. I think… maybe drugs too? I think maybe the guy who lives there is into cybercrime and some stuff? I hear shouting. Some crashing around. I’m scared.”
Another breath. Quick, shaky.
“I smell chemicals. Smoke. Pizza. But… burnt, like… like bodies.”
I let my voice tremble just enough. Not too much. Not hysterical, but like a guy who doesn’t want to get involved but has to.
“I don’t want problem, I just… I think maybe someone should look. Please don’t say I called. I have family with me.”
I hang up before they can ask my name.
Silence returns.
The kid groans behind me in broken sounds.
I signal my men to plant some drugs discreetly around his apartment. I estimate the time the FBI will show up. He’ll probably still be out cold. And when he wakes up, he’ll be in custody, charged with drug trafficking, cyberterrorism, and enough digital dirt to bury him for life.
Unconventional mafia justice. It works best sometimes when I’m not in the mood to dispose of bodily evidence.
The dusk is settling in by the time I return to the estate. The sky is a wash of orange and blue, and when I walk toward the house, I hear laughter coming from the courtyard.
Lia.
She’s sitting on the stone bench under the oak tree with no one else but Marco sitting stretched out and comfortable next to her.
My jaw tightens as I watch the way Marco leans in to say something low near her ear. She nudges his shoulder and scoots closer to him.
I feel something crack inside me.
My hands tremble, and I ball them into fists.
I take a deep breath, and then I turn around and walk away. Because if I stay, I’m not going to be the man I promised myself I’d be.
And I already broke that promise once.