Chapter 11
11
LUCA
I ’d never lie to my starlight.
But sometimes I might go light on the details.
Amato might as well have been a dead man, but for now, he was alive, not-so-well, and groaning in my basement.
Dante gave me a look when I walked into our house. He didn’t say anything—he so rarely did—but the look was enough.
“Yes, I did have a good night,” I said blithely. “Thanks for asking.”
Despite my callouses, my palm was slightly red and swollen from beating Celia’s ass so thoroughly. But the faint discomfort every time I gripped something reminded me that my sweet girl was writhing around her bed right now, her beautiful ass red and marked by my hand.
I’d wanted to do that for a long time. Every time she looked right through me as if I were nothing, when she was already my everything.
“You’re stupid for that girl,” he warned me.
I didn’t try to deny it. “I’m going to torture Amato. Do you want to come watch?”
“I want to come play,” Dante responded.
“When’s Pretty Boy coming over?”
Dante shrugged. Whenever he feels like it .
I could feel the cool, stale air cling to my skin as I descended the stairs, each step deliberate and echoing despite the soundproofing that cocooned the basement. Dante trailed behind me.
We only needed Amato gone. Dead. And then discovered, when it suited our purposes. Keeping him alive and torturing him was impractical. But we can’t always be practical.
Sometimes we have to have fun.
Once the basement had been used for embalming and there was still an incinerator at one end of the room, which we would put to good use one day.
I approached Amato, who hung in one corner of the room like a marionette. The dim light flickered across his face, casting shadows over his sunken cheeks and gouged-out eyes.
He’d seen my Celia naked, had stripped her as he beat her. Those eyes had to be mine.
“Amato.” I began, the name tasting like poison on my tongue. I watched him, saw the defiance that still simmered as he jerked his head up, trying frantically to figure out where I was. “You remember Celia, don’t you? How you tried to break my girl?”
His voice was a dry rasp, but he still managed to sneer at me. He knew he was a dead man—he must think he had little left to lose. “You think you know her? You think she’ll ever love you?”
“He’s trying to taunt you into just killing him again.” Dante gripped his hair and pulled his head back to study the remnants of his face.
I felt a flicker of anger, but I kept it leashed. Tight. Controlled. “That’s where you’re wrong.” My voice was steady, almost serene in its certainty.
She didn’t know she loved me. Yet. But I would love her enough for us both—and kill anyone who hurt her.
Amato’s laugh was a harsh bark. “She will never want a low-level thug like you. All Celia wants is freedom, and you’ll never be able to give that to her. She needs a man with enough power to protect her.”
Dante’s voice cut through the tension, low and devoid of emotion. “You really shouldn’t mess with his delusions about his girl. You might think you’re going to push him into killing you quickly, but you’re wrong.”
Celia would never know I’d enacted justice for her suffering. But hopefully, she would rest easily now knowing that Amato would never touch her again.
Dante stood to my side, his lips curling up into a fiendish smile. Dante was Captain America compared to the rest of us. But he still enjoyed a little torture and murder for the sake of our girl.
“Let’s make this memorable,” I murmured, approaching Amato with deliberate steps. “You touched what is mine. Hurt what is mine. And now you’re going to pay.”
“When Mal finds out what you did to me?—”
Dante handed me the garden shears. The weight of them was comforting in my hand.
I positioned the tool over his index finger. The metal quivered as if it was an extension of my own need to hurt him.
“Luca,” he spat out through gritted teeth, “do what you want. You won’t change anything. You won’t take over.”
“Change?” I squeezed as Dante leaned in, his broad hands holding Amato’s arm steady. The crunch was sickeningly sweet. “This isn’t about change. It’s about family .”
Even if my sweet starlight didn’t know we would be family yet.
Amato’s muffled scream echoed in the soundproof room. I watched as his body writhed, rattling in a desperate dance.
As his finger dropped to the ground. He let out a broken cry. “You’re insane!”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Now think about that moment when you hit Celia with the buckle end of that belt. When she screamed as it gouged her skin. When you used these hands to hurt her.” My voice was a low growl.
The only thing that could’ve distracted me from the pain of that mental image was taking another finger, so I did.
“Remember when you kicked her with your boots until you broke her ribs?—”
I let him scream until he fell silent, his breath a loud, desperate rasp in the room.
“Enough,” Dante finally intoned, his hand on my shoulder, heavy and grounding. “This is starting to look personal, and we want the Carmichael’s to believe it was the Dempsey family.”
I paused, my jaw working. Amato was reduced to nothing but a husk of the man he had once been, but it still wasn’t enough.
“I know you’ve been torturing him behind my back,” I told Dante. “It’s hurtful.”
Dante shrugged without a hint of apology. “I had my own questions.”
“Such as?”
“There’s so little we know about Celia.” Dante’s voice took on an unexpectedly dreamy note.
“Not for lack of stalking on your part,” I muttered. “Dante, have you been torturing Amato to find out her favorite flowers?”
Dante frowned in annoyance. “He followed her constantly, yet paid so little attention to anything that mattered.”
“Roses!” Amato wailed desperately. “Her mother used to grow roses and put them in her room.”
Dante’s lips curled in satisfaction. “You did try to remember since we spoke last. Thank you, Amato.”
I stared at Dante. The man was not quite mentally right. Though I supposed it was understandable, given everything he had experienced.
“Is there anything else?” I asked Dante, my voice dry.
“Can you think of anything more?” Dante asked. “I asked about her favorite colors, hobbies, books, food, music. Can you believe Amato never once let her choose the radio station?”
Amato couldn’t see the disappointed look that Dante leveled his way.
“I intend to learn all about Celia for myself.”
“Why are you obsessed with her when you don’t even know her?” Dante frowned.
“Obsessed?” I scoffed, as if we didn’t both know damn well the word applied. “I know her. I don’t need to know her favorite movie to know her .”
She’d clung to me when I held her in my arms. She’d looked at me as if I were her savior. It was a high I’d never felt another day in my life. I would do anything to get my Celia to look at me that way again instead of looking straight through me, the way she had before.
“Those things matter,” Dante argued. “How are you going to do anything thoughtful for her if you don’t even?—”
“I saved her life. I think that was pretty damn thoughtful.”
“Please, you?—”
Amato let out a groan, reminding me that we probably could save this mildly pathetic conversation for a moment when we weren’t about to commit murder.
“You’re going to be so useful to us,” I promised Amato. “Die knowing you’ll help bring down the family you vowed to serve.”
I headed for the stairs because we would need to move him, then turned back to look at him. “Why did you enjoy it so much? Hurting Celia? Who was she to you?”
His breathing was ragged.
Dante drew his knife, his eyes gleaming. He’d wanted to do this part.
“Time to spill your guts, Amato,” Dante told him.
“Who is she to you ?” Amato’s voice was a hoarse croak, almost lost to his screaming.
“She’s my bride,” I said.
Even if she didn’t know it yet.
“Now tell us,” I said, as Dante slid the tip of the knife low across Amato’s skin. Just barely scoring him. A thin line of red opened, just above his pelvic bone, and a trickle of blood ran down his lower stomach and thighs.
“Fast or slow, what do you want, Amato?” I asked.
“Fine! Fine.” His chest fluttered wildly, his pupils wide with panic and darkness. “I wanted her bitch of a mother, a long time ago. She chose Mal. And then the girl, she looks so much like her mother…”
“She does,” I agreed, remembering Celia and her mother walking hand in hand when Celia was little. Her hair had been brown back then. I wanted to see Celia with her natural darker hair again, not the harsh platinum blond she dyed it now. “So you hurt Celia to get revenge on her mother?”
“It sounds stupid when you say it out loud, doesn’t it?” Dante asked curiously, fingering the bloody tip of his knife.
“I’m sorry!”
“No, you aren’t. You’re only sorry for yourself.” I tilted my head, studying him.
Amato screamed as Dante ripped the knife across his torso. His guts spilled out onto the cold concrete floor.
“I asked what you want, but I don’t care. It’s going to be slow.”