Chapter 41
There’sa low hum that rouses me from unconsciousness. Though, as I’m met with the pain of an aching head, swollen jaw, and busted lip, I wish I would’ve remained in the quiet darkness of my mind. As the low hum turns to louder voices, I try to move—first my arms and then my legs—but I can’t. I’m immobilized by the pinch of restraints. As flashes of the abduction come to me, chasing away what’s left of my grogginess, my bloodied lip quivers and my tender cheeks tighten as tears and cries for help bubble inside of me. The name Damon rests heavy on my tongue. It’s the only thing I feel I have the strength to say. Though it is my brother’s name that draws me from my spiral and forces me to open my eyes.
“We found your weak spot, Cross. And now we’re going to do to her what you did to Angelo Piazzo. Seven days of torture followed by a death of one thousand cuts.” The decree steals the air from my lungs and my chest burns. No, no! This isn’t real. This can’t be happening. I take in the scene before me as my eyes widen in horror and my heart beats frantically. It’s then that I find my brother sitting fifty yards across from me, bound to a chair with ropes just as I am.
“And what does that get you?” he asks, locking eyes with the man in the navy-blue suit. Aidan’s white button-down shirt has been ripped and is stained with blood. Visible wounds on his face and chest suggest he’s been here far longer than I have and yet, he’s received a similar beating.
As bile rises in my throat, I lower my eyes, daring to take in my own body. Though my dress is short and hiked up nearly to my vagina, it’s still attached to me, which is a blessing. Though there’s bruising on my legs and arms and a red welt on my chest most likely from the scuffle that got me here. Speaking of here—I scan the room as if I have any hope of escape. Are we even still in New Orleans? How much time has passed? Does Damon know where I am? Does he even realize I’m missing?
As a hundred thoughts flood me at once, I take in the dark, dirty space. It looks like we’re in an abandoned warehouse, which tells me there’s no one around to hear us scream or witness these men dispose of our bodies once they’re done with us. In fact, they’ll probably just wrap us up in the plastic tarps covering the floor beneath us and toss us in the Mississippi River. I can see a body of water faintly through the large industrial windows to my right. Well, I can’t see the water, but I can see small lights on swaying vessels in the distance, which, accompanied with the darkness outside and the taste of copper on my tongue, suggests we are still in New Orleans. The cuts on my lip would’ve scabbed over if enough time had passed to get out of the city. I try to let this tiny assumption calm the twisting in my stomach and steady my breathing.
Once Damon realizes what’s happened, he’ll come for me. He’ll find me. But these thoughts do nothing to ease the war inside of my body. I know I’m on the verge of a panic attack. The only thing keeping me remotely present are the dangerous men waiting to descend upon me and the conversation between their rebellious leader and my brother.
“It gets us revenge without a war we can’t win,” replies the man. His voice draws my attention back to them, though, thankfully, he and the others have their backs toward me. Yet, movement in my peripheral vision lets me know the three I see aren’t the only ones here. I look from my left to my right as fresh tears threaten to blur my vision. The thought of these men coming up behind me and putting their hands on my body has me struggling against my restraints even though I know it’s no use.
“And you think abducting, torturing, and murdering my sister won’t earn you a war? I will hunt you to the ends of the earth for this,” Aidan says. When I return my attention to him, there’s a fire in his eyes I’ve never seen before. His lips appear to curl into a warning growl, and his eyes lock in on the man in the middle, unyielding, unflinching.
“You will,” the man before him says. “But Josephine Cullen won’t risk her alliance or new power over the Amato territories because of the sister of some wannabe king. So, she’ll give you a choice—take the loss and maintain your position or give up your crown to hunt us. Either way, we’re going to disappear and you’re going to lose.”
As the man’s words hit him, my brother’s stern display of resistance falters. His lip drops and he looks at the floor as if in thought or perhaps defeat. The look on his face is enough for me to realize that the men are right. The Irish won’t fight for me. The alliance is more important. The money is more important. Once I’m dead, there won’t be anything they can do to make it right, so why risk everything for a ghost?
The men standing between me and my brother take Aidan’s silence as their cue to make good on their plan for revenge three months in the making. They turn toward me then. “No,” I say. The simple two-letter word scrapes through me. My lips are parched and my throat is dry with fear. I watch the three of them with wide tear-filled eyes as they move toward me. “No,” I say again. This time my voice cracks, along with any sliver of hope I may have had that Damon would find me, save me. My reaction only makes these wicked monsters smile.
“It’s a shame it had to come to this,” one of them says. “Who knew his sister would be so beautiful.” The men exchange a look.
“Well, she won’t be beautiful when we’re done with her. She’ll be begging for death,” replies the one in the light gray suit.
As the three of them reach me, I begin to shake uncontrollably. I can’t move. But even if I could, my legs are numb and heavy, and everything inside me—every nerve, every warning bell, every part of my being—is crying out in anticipation of the pain to come. I lower my head as the three of them surround me. I’m unable to see clearly anyway. Perhaps it’s for the best that I don’t see what’s coming. But I can hear everything. I hear my brother fighting against his restraints, shaking in his chair. He calls out for them to stop. He offers himself in my place. He says if they let me go, I can assure his men and Josephine that they had nothing to do with his death. They’ll get what they want, which is him dead without ever even having to disappear. All they do is laugh.
The one in gray brings his hand to my arm then and caresses my skin as he moves behind me. I shake my head and do my best to disassociate, but as he leans forward and locks his forearm around my throat, my adrenaline kicks in and I try to fight him off. I toss my head back, knocking into his thick skull. I lurch forward in an effort to get away, disregarding what the fall would do to me if I actually managed to overturn my chair. Nevertheless, it’s bolted to the ground. I go nowhere and I’ve done nothing but give myself another headache and piss them off.
“Stupid bitch!” The one I headbutted moves in front of me. Rearing back, he smacks his palm across my already aching, tender cheek. I scream, both because it hurts and because I know this is only the beginning.
“Please! Stop!” Aidan begs.
“We don’t want you dead, Cross,” the one in the navy suit says.
“We want to make you feel pain,” continues the predator in gray. “And believe me when I tell you, there is no greater pain than watching the brutal, unrelenting, dehumanizing torture of someone you love. Though something tells me Anastasia here will disagree. I wonder what will break her—the removal of her fingernails and toenails, the breaking of her ribs, the repetitive strangulation, the twisting knife I’m going to shove into her stomach, the brand I’m going to burn onto her face. Or perhaps it’ll be the sting of my dick ripping through her tight cunt. I can’t imagine there’s anything more dehumanizing than that.”
The man in gray places his hands on my knees. His dark glare steals my fight. I feel so hopeless I may as well already be dead. He leans toward me and nuzzles his nose in the crook of my neck. Slowly, he inhales my scent. “Yum,” he moans. “Covered in tears, snot, and sweat and somehow, still sweet.” He moves his hand to my breast and gives me a rough squeeze. I wince and cry out.
“What about your code?” Aidan asks. “Everyone knows Amato men don’t hurt innocent women and they certainly don’t rape them.”
The one in gray doesn’t acknowledge my brother. Instead, he stares at me and brings his hands to the neckline of my dress. In one swift motion, he rips the silky fabric all the way down to my belly button. I bite my lip even though it hurts. My body continues to shake, and warm urine flows from me and covers my seat. It’s the one in the navy suit who addresses Aidan.
“Well, Cross, to use your own words against you—the Mafia is no more. Therefore, so is our code.” He takes a step toward my brother, though my eyes don’t leave the man standing before me who is taking his time admiring his handiwork. This isn’t the kind of dress you wear a bra with, and considering Damon’s no-underwear rule, I’m practically naked before him. “It’s not as if we enjoy this,” the one in navy continues.
“Yeah, fuck that. He looks like he’s enjoying every bit of it,” my brother says. The man in gray smiles then and finishes ripping the dress from my body. This is it. There’s no stopping them now.
“Well, what can I say? She is beautiful and he’s human.” No, he’s a monster. A real man would never do this. Nor would a man allow this to happen or barrel his fist into my jaw. The one in gray may be the one to rape and torture me, but the one in navy is just as dangerous, just as responsible for what’s about to happen to me. Though, as I grapple with what is to come, I consider Damon and what it will do to him when he finds me. After what happened to his mother, this will destroy him. Knowing that pulls loud, desperate cries from me as the man in gray pulls a knife from his pocket and gets to work cutting the ropes from my wrists and ankles.
Damon—I pinch my eyes closed and do my best to think only of him. I revisit our last moment together, the one where I told him I’d fight to get back to him. I said I would fight for us, because I’m going to marry him. I picture myself doing just that as the man in gray pulls me from the chair and throws me onto the dusty, dirty floor. I scream as the concrete tears into my exposed flesh. My hands and knees sting as they bleed. I know I should try to run, but my body has given up on me. As the man moves toward me, unhooking his belt and unbuttoning his pants, I close my eyes once more, retreating to the only place, the only man, who can make me feel safe. Fresh tears spew from me as I do.
I wear a nude, jewel-encrusted dress with a flowy white mermaid skirt. It has a sweetheart neckline and long off-the-shoulder sleeves. I shimmer like a diamond as I walk down a blurry aisle toward Damon. I can’t make out our surroundings or who is in the audience, but I see him. He waits for me, dressed in an all-black suit, with a smile on his face.
As I feel unfamiliar hands on my body, I focus even harder on my fantasy. I move faster toward Damon and his outstretched hand. As a sharp pain between my legs draws another scream from me, I grab hold of Damon’s hand. He pulls me close to him and wraps me up in the arms I’ve always felt safe in. I do my best to pretend I’m with him now, to pretend he’s the one thrusting inside me. Though it doesn’t work, because he would never touch me like this. He would never hurt me like this.
Sharp pain rips through me to the point that I can’t ignore it any longer. I can’t disassociate. I am fully present and I am terrified. Terrified by what is happening, but also of what is to come. They promised my brother they’d torture me for seven days and they aren’t wasting any time getting started. How will I survive this? But that’s just it, I won’t. I’m not meant to survive.
Knowing this, I fight to get back to my mental safe place one last time before giving in to my fate. Once more in Damon’s arms, I look up at him and I kiss him. It’s a kiss that feels like an oath. And I pledge myself to him, so that at least one version of us gets the happily-ever-after we both so desperately wanted. There was always a part of me that felt we were destined for a tragic end. I just never could’ve imagined this.