Chapter 15 #2
“No. You have to promise me that you will kill him,” Rosalie demands.
“He’s my uncle and…I shouldn’t want him gone, but I do.
I’m so sick and tired of living under his dictatorship.
He’s losing it. He thinks he can take out whoever he wants, whenever he wants, but he’s slipping.
We don’t have the manpower to go up against you, the Tulos, and whoever else he’s pissed off. It needs to end.”
I watch as her breath quickens and her eyes grow glossy too.
“I’ll take him down,” I say as I step closer to her. “I promise.”
She nods. “And I’ll help you rescue Damian.”
“Rescue?” I say quickly, “Where is he, what’s going on?” My heart is drumming in my chest all of the sudden.
“I don’t know where he is, but he let Eivor and the guards take him. He didn’t even fight them off.”
“What?” I say confused. “I don’t understand why he would do that.”
“I think he was trying to protect me. All the guards had guns. It would’ve been a blood bath if he fought back there at the house,” Rosalie explains.
My hands ball into fists. “We have to find him.”
“We will,” she agrees. “I lied to Eivor. I acted like I was angry at Damian for the affair, and that I wouldn’t help him, but I just needed an excuse to stay behind and get to you.”
I step closer to her and place my hand on her shoulder. “Thank you.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I am angry—it’s confusing and weird, but…,” Rosalie admits and shrugs away from my touch. “…at the same time, I’m kind of glad.”
“Glad?” I ask her.
“You’ve seemed miserable, and I don’t want that for you. I don’t want that for me. If Damian can make you happy then…that’s for the better, because I sure can’t.”
“Oh, Rosalie,” I say with a sigh. “It’s not about you. I’m just really fucking gay.”
She snorts and puts a hand over her mouth. “Of course you are,” she agrees. “I knew that. I just thought…maybe we could make it work somehow. I guess I didn’t think we had a choice, but now I know we do.”
“When Eivor is dead, we can annul this thing,” I tell her. “You can marry Julian, or whoever else you want.”
She steps closer to me, her brow furrowed. “You can too. Neither of us will have to agree to marry someone for the sake of our families again. Because I swear, if I hear about Carmine trying to force you into another marriage, I’ll beat his ass myself.”
I smirk at her. “I believe you.”
But then my expression falls as I remember Damian.
“We need to figure out how to find Damian.”
Rosalie nods. “If he’s still alive.”
“Let me get this straight, you want to borrow how many of our men to go on a rescue mission for Damian?” Carmine asks as we stand in the boardroom. “Not to mention at least a fourth of our guard crew has left because they worked for Eivor first and me second. I can’t spare—”
“We can spare six guards; I know we can,” I tell him. “Plus, there’s no way Eivor is going to stage some kind of attack while he’s still got Damian on the hook. He’s trying to get information from Damian so that he can force us to back down quietly. We’ve got time.”
“But not much,” Rosalie adds. “The guards he’s got interrogating Damian aren’t known for being the patient kind. When they feel like he should be dead, he will be.”
Anger climbs my spine and I struggle not to storm out of the room right here and now and just go after Damian myself.
Carmine purses his lips and takes a step to the side, pacing along the edge of the table for a moment.
“If I let you do this…and you don’t come back from it—” he starts, but I cut him off.
“I know. You’ll bring me back and kill me yourself,” I tell him.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve led a mission.
Yeah, I’m usually on the talking side of things and it’s been a while, but I know what I’m doing, Brother.
” My hands ball into fists. “I’m going to rip their throats out for laying a finger on him. ”
Soren who is standing nearby steps over and places a hand on Carmine’s shoulder. “I think he should do this.”
“We,” Rosalie reminds them. “I’m part of this too. No more keeping me out of the loop for protection. If Alessio is kicking ass, I am too.”
“Are you sure—” Carmine starts but Soren is the one to stop him this time.
“My sister can handle her own, believe me,” he assures.
Rosalie smirks at Soren. “Damn right I can. Now, are we going to just stand around here talking about it, or are we going to grabs some guards and get going?”
Carmine waves a hand. “Fine. Take the guards you need, brief them on the mission, but if things get too slippery, you head back here.”
“I’m going to do whatever I have to,” I tell him. “The others can bail if they want but I’m not coming back unless it’s with him.”
Everyone in the room stares at me like I’m crazy, but I don’t care. Carmine glances at Soren after a moment, and I see a familiar look there.
“I didn’t realize you felt so strongly,” he says while still looking at Soren.
I know in this moment that he understands how I feel, but I didn’t even realize I felt this way until this very moment.
“I didn’t either,” I admit.
Rosalie clicks her tongue. “Alright enough with the fluff, let’s get going.”
I nod my head and give one last glance to the room before I walk out with her. Prepared to grab some guards, call some more in if needed, and get on the path to find out where Damian is.
“He’s not here,” Kellen, one of the guards assigned to this mission, tells me. We’ve just finished trashing a third building on the list that Damian gave me.
“I’ll be the one to decide that,” I snap at him.
I’m growing impatient. It’s been five hours. Who knows what they’ve done to Damian by now. Cut him, bruised him, burned him…killed him.
I shake my head, trying not to think about that last one. No. Damian is alive. He has to be.
“There’s an old factory compound that they own about ten miles from here,” I tell the group. Six guards stand around me and Rosalie. All armed to the teeth with multiple guns and knives. A couple of them even have brass knuckles.
“We don’t have time to check every building on the list,” Rosalie reminds me. “Do you think they’d have him there or not?”
I think for a moment, looking at the other options. A townhouse, a villa…a church. It could be possible that they’d have him in the basement of the church, but something is pulling me toward the factory compound.
“I think so. If he’s not here, we’ll rethink our strategy, but I think it’s a good bet.”
“Alright then. Let’s go.” Rosalie turns and heads back to the cars a few feet away. I follow after her, feeling both irritated that she’s ordering me around as though she’s the one in charge and grateful that she’s here.
I adjust my bulletproof vest as I swing open the driver’s side door and hop in.
If there’s one thing I know, it’s that we won’t be stopping until we find him.
Chapter Sixteen
Damian
“You think you’re something special.” The guard that’s been working me over for hours says. I know exactly how long it’s been, because I’ve been counting the entire time.
Every single time they strike me, whether with their fist or the butt of their guns, I don’t say a single word. I know that anything I say will be used against me. They’ll just try to find a way to pry the information out of me.
They won’t succeed. No matter how badly they beat me.
Five hours and forty-two minutes. That’s how long I’ve been in this godforsaken chair.
If anything, my ass hurts from the hard metal underneath it more than anything else. It’s a constant dull ache, whereas the bruises on my face and cuts made into my neck and chest go numb after a few moments.
“Tell me what you know,” he says for the twentieth time. As if he doesn’t know anything better to use. “If you just tell me what information you got from Alessio, this can be all over.”
It would be over, but so would anything meaningful I have in my life. Would I be able to live with myself afterward? Yes. I would—but would I want to? Not particularly.
I’ve done worse things than hand over sensitive information to a parasitic mafia boss, but this time…this time there’s more to it.
Alessio.
I can’t get him out of my head. The way his mouth fits so perfectly against my own. The way his body feels underneath my hands…
Thinking about how warm we feel pressed chest to chest is what helps me get through this.
Imagining the way he’ll smile at me and how I’ll kiss that smile… It helps me tune out the pain.
Still, I grunt softly as a knife blade digs into my now bare shoulder and slices me open. Blood drips down my arm and soaks into the ropes around my wrists.
“Or maybe you like this?” he asks me. “Are you some sick freak who’s into being tortured?” He cuts me again, this time in an X pattern from the other side of the wound he just made.
I grit my teeth and ignore the drag of the knife that cuts me open and makes my blood pour even more heavily. It’s worth it. This is all worth it if it means keeping Alessio safe.
One of the other guards lights up a cigarette and steps over to me.
“Let me have a turn at him,” she says.
“I’m not done yet, I’ve almost got him,” he insists.
He’s delusional, clearly. He does not “almost have me” in any way, shape or form.
I don’t say this though. I continue on my vow of silence as the woman steps over to me and leans down, blowing smoke into my face.
“We can make this even worse for you,” she reminds me. “And remember, whatever happens to you…even worse will happen to your precious Alessio Dresvanni.”
Not likely. Still, the thought that they might capture him just as they’ve captured me makes my hands ball into fists. This only causes the blood leaking out of me to do so quicker as my pulse races through my veins.
“Cat got your tongue?” she asks and places the cigarette closer to me.