Chapter 22 Aurelia #2
“Get her in the car and check her blood type,” Pierre said.
What in the actual fuck?
Each guy hooked a hand underneath one of my arms and dragged me up.
In a burst of rage, I was able to shove one aside and scream. Scream bloody fucking murder.
The guy clamped a hand over my mouth and nose, so I was silenced and smothered.
Pierre joined in, grabbing me by the legs to help me into the van.
“Did you give her enough?” one guy asked.
“Yeah,” Pierre said as he walked backward toward the van. “Maybe she weighs more than I thought.”
When they got close to the van, I found another surge of strength and tried to free myself from their grasp, but all I did was tumble slightly and almost hit the ground. My dress was forced up to my waist, my thong was exposed, but my bare ass on the street was the least of my problems right now.
Headlights suddenly came toward us down the small alleyway.
“Fuck, hurry,” Pierre said. “Just throw her in.”
I tried to fight again, but whatever poison was in my body had reached critical levels, and I couldn’t do a damn thing.
Another pair of headlights came from the opposite direction. They grew closer and closer, a beam of light from both directions.
Oh, thank god. Surely no one would see what was happening and just leave me there.
The guys tried to shove me into the van, but only half my body made it. My head hit the edge of the van, and then my knees smacked into the cobblestones. One of the guys stepped on my wrist, and all I could do was groan, not even scream.
Doors slammed. The headlights stopped moving.
“Oh, we’re fucked,” Pierre said. “Guns, quick.”
I tried to crawl away from the van, but all I could do was drag myself an inch or two. Then I jerked when I heard gunshots, a machine gun firing a hundred rounds into the air in just a couple seconds.
I pulled myself away again, my broken body useless, and then I saw the silhouette of men coming near. I hoped they were friends instead of foes, because I couldn’t do shit right now. Not even write my own name.
Then I heard a voice I’d recognize anywhere, in a crowded room or in my dreams.
“You picked the wrong woman, boys.” The machine gun fired again, the noise so earsplitting I thought I went deaf. “Rocco, take Aurelia.”
“Con—Constantine?” I said it so quietly that no one could have possibly heard me.
A man came near, dark hair and eyes like Constantine, but it definitely wasn’t him. He pulled down my dress before he scooped me into his arms like I weighed less than the shirt on his back. He turned me away from the commotion and toward the headlights.
“Round them up,” Constantine ordered.
I heard the sound of fighting and a gunshot or two. I heard a man scream so high pitched he sounded like a woman.
Rocco got me into the back seat of the Range Rover, and the guy who was already seated there put a blood pressure cuff on me and then put the cold metal bell of the stethoscope to my chest as he listened to my heart.
I looked out the front window and watched the horror unfold.
The four men in the van had all of their limbs zip-tied before they all dropped on the cobblestone. Constantine’s men stood back, covered in bulletproof vests and carrying machine guns and shotguns.
I watched it all in the brightness of the headlights.
“Who did this to you?” Rocco asked.
I stared at him, unable to move my mouth.
“I know what they gave her.” The other guy opened a container, pulled out a vial and a syringe, and then injected it into my arm. “Give her a couple minutes, and she should be responsive.”
Rocco left my side, then walked to Constantine. He seemed to report what he’d just learned about me.
Constantine had a look on his face I’d never seen before.
When he said his confrontation with Enzo was nothing, he meant it.
Because it wasn’t just the wideness of his eyes that struck me, but the bloodlust. His neck was stiff, the veins underneath his skin strained so much they looked like they might snap.
He held his body differently too, his shoulders squared like he was in a boxing match.
He was the only one who didn’t carry a machine gun, so he must have handed that to someone else.
When Rocco finished the message, Constantine strolled over to one of the men on the ground, stared at him with a stone-cold expression for several seconds and, with lightning speed, raised his boot, then slammed down hard—snapping bone.
The guy on the ground shrieked more than he screamed.
Constantine continued his stroll to the next guy. “While we wait for the meds to kick in so she can tell me which one of you motherfuckers is responsible, we’ll play a game. See how many bones I can break in five minutes.”
My thoughts and reactions were still suppressed. Otherwise, I probably would have screamed in horror.
Constantine continued to walk and stopped near the next victim.
He trembled on the ground and waited for Constantine to strike.
Constantine remained still, watching the anxiety and fear cripple him without actually doing anything. Then he moved to the next guy and, without a moment’s notice, slammed his foot down onto his knee and snapped the socket.
“Ahhhhhh!”
Constantine went back to the man he tortured a second ago but didn’t draw it out. He just went for the ankle.
The guy screamed in horror when Constantine barreled down on him, screamed just as loud as the moment he’d snapped his ankle.
Then Constantine moved fast, going to each one and breaking another bone .
. . and then another bone. Stomping his boot down with enough force to shake the ancient cobblestones beneath us.
It was the most violent thing I’d ever seen, all of the men screaming and crying as Constantine continued to pace and find something else to break.
The police never came. No one intervened.
Rocco addressed me again. “Which one, Aurelia?”
“Um . . .” I couldn’t believe I could talk. I started to feel myself return. “Dirty-blond hair . . . green eyes . . . skinny.”
He left the Range Rover and walked over to the men who writhed on the ground.
Constantine took a break from the torture and let Rocco survey the sea of future corpses.
Rocco stopped at one and then motioned for the guys to lift him from the ground so I could see him clearly. “This the guy?”
“Yes,” I shouted from the back seat.
The guys immediately dropped him, and he slammed back to the cobblestone.
Rocco stepped aside so Constantine could finish.
“Get the gas,” Constantine ordered.
Gas?
Two of the men went to the other Range Rover behind the van and retrieved canisters. Then they started to douse all the prisoners on the stone, drenching them in gasoline so strong I could actually smell it through the open door.
Constantine pulled out a book of matches from his back pocket. He ripped one out and struck it across the edge, making it light up.
All the guys on the ground started to plead, whimpering when they knew what was coming.
He went to the first one and stood over him, holding the lit match before him. “You’ve violated the laws of the Roman Republic, and as Emperor Constantine of the Roman Empire, I hereby sentence you to death.” He flicked the match on the body, and flames immediately ensued.
The screams . . . I would never forget them.
The guy desperately rolled as he tried to put them out, and he rolled into his comrade, who also caught fire. Another wave of screams erupted as they were both burned alive, screaming for a reprieve that hadn’t come yet, not until the flames made it past all the layers of skin.
The screams abated, but they continued to burn.
Constantine went to the third man and did the same. Lit the match and read out his sentence before he tossed the fire onto the pile of gasoline. Another ball of flames exploded and illuminated the alleyway between the closed businesses.
That left Pierre.
I knew there was something wrong with Timothée. He knew this entire time. He didn’t stare at me because he was attracted to me. He stared at me because he thought I was a perfect target. No family. No boyfriend. And I lived alone. He assumed no one would notice I was gone until it was far too late.
“Tell me who you work for, and I’ll be merciful.” Constantine pulled out the handgun from the back of his jeans and cocked it. “Or don’t—and you’ll burn.”
The answer was clear to me.
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” Pierre said as he trembled from the ground. “If you let me go.”
Constantine smiled down at him, but it was fucking eerie. Then he raised his gun and shot him in the leg. The gunshot reverberated off both the walls, amplifying it to reach across the entire city.
Pierre screamed like he’d been set on fire.
“I’ve laid out your options—now choose.”
Pierre continued to writhe, blood pooling out of his broken leg, his body already a crumpled pile of messed-up bones. The flames beside him made him perspire. He already looked like he was on the precipice of death. “His name is Clement . . .”
“Where can I find him?”
“I’ve never met him.”
“How do you get your orders?”
“He calls.”
“Where were you supposed to take her?”
“To a warehouse. The address is . . .” He struggled to hold on to consciousness. “Via di Casal Boccone . . . 283.”
Constantine raised the gun and shot him in the head. “Thank you for your cooperation, asshole.” He turned to Rocco. “We take the warehouse now. Might already be tipped off.”
Rocco nodded in agreement. “What about Aurelia?”
“I’ll have the doctor look after her until we’re done.”
Rocco headed to the other car. “I’ll send a cleanup crew and meet you there.”
Constantine headed toward my Range Rover, and my heart gave a lurch when he neared. His enormous body came through the open doorway, and then he was there, his neck bent down to look at me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“My doctor is going to take care of you until I finish this. Meet you at the house.”
“Oh, okay.” I wasn’t sure what I expected, but I hoped for something more.
Like a passionate kiss, even though the situation didn’t permit it at all.
The bodies in the road were still on fire.
Constantine had just shattered a dozen bones with just his boot minutes ago.
And just because he saved me didn’t mean he wanted to be with me.
He’d slept with Isabella and that meant nothing, so maybe this meant nothing too.