CHAPTER EIGHT #2
One eye was swollen shut, the other missing entirely, plucked out by me. It was now somewhere on the floor, mixed in with the other body parts scattered across the concrete. If I had to search for this bastard’s eye among the others, I wouldn’t be able to pick it out.
His entire crew was dead, eyes plucked, limbs severed. This one was nearing death’s door, but not there yet. Like his buddies, we’d tortured him for information. We then killed his team because they didn’t deserve to live. He would soon meet the same fate.
None of them deserved to be on the same planet as my Sienna, breathing the air she breathed. I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the images I’d seen on their laptops. They’d taken photos of Sienna and Eve.
They’d been following them to their cooking classes, recording them entering and exiting the building. They had videos of the two of them chatting together. Of them laughing. Videos of them being happy, enjoying themselves, not knowing they were being watched.
However, that wasn’t what had pushed Enzo and me over the edge. The worst part was that they’d used those recordings along with AI software to make pornographic images and videos of Eve and Sienna.
Videos of the two women together intimately. Videos of this crew with Eve and Sienna, taking their turn with them. Videos of them torturing the women, ganging up on them, and hurting them in unspeakable ways.
We’d caught them watching one of those degrading clips when our team raided the warehouse. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, trying to force the images out of my head. But they were burned into my mind.
During my torture session with these fuckers, I’d learned that this piece of shit in front of me was one of the idiots who’d created the filthy videos.
The one they’d been watching when we attacked was of him fucking my Sienna while she screamed for help, crying out to me, calling my name, begging me to save her.
I knew it wasn’t real. I knew none of it was real. But I’d seen it, and now I couldn’t unsee it. All I could do was make this bastard wish he hadn’t created it. I opened my eyes and stared down at him, with his weak, whimpering ass.
“Please…” he begged, blood spilling from his mouth as he talked. “I’m so sorry. We… we never should’ve…”
Before he could finish that sentence, I slammed my fist into his mouth, knocking more of his teeth loose. If his chair hadn’t been secured to a beam, it would’ve toppled over from the force of the blow.
I shook my hands, shaking off bits of flesh that coated my black gloves. Then I grabbed his jaw, fingers digging into the bruised skin, and forced his head up. He couldn’t see me, not with one eye gone and the other swollen shut.
I couldn’t see the fear in his eyes. But I knew it was there. I could feel it radiating off him like heat. I wanted this moment, this gruesome image, to replace the ones burned into my memory from the videos he’d created.
I wanted the sound of his pain to drown out what I’d heard from those videos. Around us, the cleanup crew worked quickly, loading bodies into black bags, mopping up the blood, and collecting severed body parts.
When they were done, they’d load the bodies into the van waiting outside and take them to be incinerated. The men who’d stormed the warehouse with us were gathering IDs from the corpses, making sure we knew exactly who had been involved.
They were also severing a finger from each body, to send as a message to the family this filthy crew worked for.
A message that couldn’t be misunderstood for a family that should’ve kept their fucking distance.
These bastards worked for a family that I’d never expected to get involved in DeLuca business.
“You’re not going to get anything else out of that one,” Enzo drawled from where he was leaning against a support beam, his tailored suit now splattered with crimson.
His expression was cold, detached. He was trying to hold himself together. But when he’d been torturing motherfuckers for information, he’d looked like a madman, a psychopath. That was probably the look I was wearing right now.
“We know who told them to keep an eye on Sienna and Eve,” Enzo continued. “We’ve removed the eyes of all the fuckers who watched those videos. They’ve paid for what they did. Just kill him and be done with it so the cleanup crew can finish their job.”
I released the man’s face, letting his chin drop to his chest. His breathing was ragged, his body so battered that he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own, even if I were to let him go. He wouldn’t last much longer.
However, the thought of him dying without suffering more rubbed me the wrong way. He’d created those fucking videos of my Sienna. Had probably jacked off to images of her. Had imagined his hands on her, mouth on her. I would keep this fucker alive until I was ready to grant him the mercy of death.
“Be done with it, Stefano,” Enzo ordered again.
“Be done with it?” I snarled, turning to face Enzo, rage building inside me. “How the fuck can I be done with it?” I took a step toward my brother. “The Abelis have been watching them for weeks, and we’re just now learning about it.”
If it weren’t for the Chatter software Rome Cattaneo created for us, we might never have known what that family was up to. The thought made my skin crawl. How much longer would they have watched?
What else would they have done? The crew we’d tortured didn’t know the reason behind the surveillance, just that they were told to keep an eye on the two women and gather as much footage of them as they could.
“They’ve been stalking Sienna and Eve for weeks, and we didn’t know. Our shadows never spotted them.”
Guilt hummed through me. I’d failed her. We’d failed them.
“Killing these fuckers is not enough,” I told Enzo.
The don’s gaze slid past me, landing on the last man alive from this crew who worked for the Abelis, Enzo’s mother’s family. The family that had disowned Enzo. The family that despised me because of what my mother had done decades ago. Enzo sighed, his shoulders dropping slightly.
“I never thought my mother’s family would get involved with DeLuca business,” he muttered, voice lower now.
“They’d stayed out of our way all these years.
For their sake, I’d hoped they’d continue to do so.
” His expression hardened again. “Since they’ve decided to get involved, they can’t blame me for raining hell down on them. ”
“Can you do it?” I asked, wanting to know if he was really willing to go against his mother’s family.
A family he never personally got to know, but one he respected.
“Will you really be able to kill members of their family if it comes down to it?” I asked, needing to know we were on the same page.
His dark gaze met mine.
“If they’d come after me, maybe I would’ve been able to let it go or handle things in a peaceful manner,” he told me. “But they went after Eve and Sienna. There will be no peace. Those responsible must die today.”
I smiled as blood dripped from my gloves. We were on the same page. It was time to kill… some more. And we needed to do it before Eve and Sienna returned from their cooking class. I had to make it home in time to taste my woman’s dessert.