Chapter Twelve #2
Information is a real weapon in this world and I happen to be very skilled at obtaining it and spreading it.
I can ruin the Enzinos. I should have done it a long time ago, I guess I needed a stronger motivation.
The memory of Luca’s broken voice when he told me how Mario killed his mother makes my heart throb all over again.
The plan is still up in the air but I’ll help him get his revenge.
If it’s the last thing I do. I can’t stop my chest from feeling heavy.
Nausea has made an appearance, too. But that’s probably because my father is too close to me.
“You’ll be at the altar, saying I do and making me a very powerful man, or else.” The vein on his forehead is popping like a bolt of lightning. I wonder if it will actually burst one day.
“Not a liability anymore, Father?” I can’t keep it in.
He gives me a devilish, yellow-toothed smirk. Apparently, that wasn’t the correct answer. The dark storm in his expression is enough proof of that.
“You’ll do well to remember your place,” he whispers menacingly.
I almost let a bitter laugh slip, Luca said the same. Many times. Fuck, it hurts.
“I know my place very well.”
“You ungrateful—” he seethes, tightening his fingers before letting me go. Another backhanded slap lands on my face, followed by the inevitable burning pain. Only this time, I taste blood in my mouth.
“You’re not going back to your apartment. You’ll stay in the main house until the wedding. I don’t want to give the Leones another opportunity to invite you again.”
“No!” I automatically blurt out. Nacho.
“Say that again, you fucking piece of trash,” he hisses, staring at me until I lower my eyes.
I fucking hate him. What does he want me to do, crawl into a nice garbage bag and take myself out? I fucking wish!
The door opens behind me, and my blood suddenly turns cold. The waste of space I’ve been trying to bleach out of my mind is here. Mario. My half-brother.
A phone starts ringing. “Stay put,” My father says in an annoyed tone, grabbing his cell and turning around to answer it.
The next thing I know, the back of my skull is cracking against the wall.
I feel Mario’s fingers around my throat as pure malevolence crashes over me, making breathing almost unbearable as it fills my lungs.
Stars fill my vision, and my consciousness seems to slip away for a moment.
It’s incredible how different it felt when Luca choked me.
My kidnapper excited me, while my half-brother terrorizes me.
All the violence I’ve been touched with during my entire life broke me, so much that I can’t even remember a time when I was actually whole.
“My dearest, miss me?” Mario’s sweet tone makes my skin crawl like worms in a corpse.
My head is swimming, and everything around me has blurred into a sickening nothingness. But somehow, I gather all my anger and reply with a strained voice, “Like the plague.”
His smile is horribly scary. “That’s my Art,” he states, nuzzling my hair. It disgusts me to have him this close.
His lack of visible anger is unsettling. He is a psychopath through and through. Out of the frying pan and into the fire of this demented, repulsive, terrible excuse of a human being.
I hear my father talking on the phone, uncaring of Mario’s violent actions. But he never stopped him before, so why would he do it now?
Mario’s lifeless eyes make all the hair on my arms stand as he utters, “There’s beauty in all things, how deeply satisfying it is to shatter it into pieces.”
I lift my hands and grab his wrist, but he doesn’t tighten his grip on my throat.
And I force myself to back down from the urge to kick him in the balls and scratch his eyes out.
He’s almost in his fifties, but muscular, bigger than me, and always carrying a weapon.
As soon as I form the thought, the gleam from a knife blade catches my eye.
I grit my teeth as he moves it near my neck.
I squeeze my eyes, terror finding its way into me.
“There’s no greater joy than to push things to their very limit and watch them break under pressure.
But you, my beautiful brother, you don’t break, you bleed, but your pieces I haven’t seen them…
yet. How much longer are you going to make me wait, dearest?
You don’t spoil my fun like those delicate, fragile toys I play with.
No. That’s why I can’t cut you loose, you see. ”
There’s real sickness lying in him. This cold darkness aimed at me feels like someone walking on my grave. Eerie.
“You are rotten inside and outside,” I hiss, plastering myself against the wall as I feel the tip of the knife pressing against my chest.
He chuckles, loving this. Loving seeing me hurt and hopeless.
He’s still the same piece of shit who causes my balls to take cover in my belly.
I feel him stroking his groin against me, and all my muscles tense with revulsion at the same time.
His twisted affection forced upon me makes me want to throw up.
His dick remains flaccid as always, thank fucking God.
I don’t think he ever got it up. He threatened me multiple times with rape, but I don’t think he actually meant it.
Sometimes I feel like his obsession with me could swallow me up. Those light blue eyes, the same as my father’s, same as mine, are filled with so much…emptiness. His hand slips around the back of my neck, grabbing it with force.
“After all I’ve done for you, you ran? That’s not very nice.”
“What have you done, you psycho?” I ask, showing him my teeth.
An evil smile kicks his lips up. “I fucking love when you get all feisty with me.” He snaps his teeth near my cheek. I jerk a little and hate myself for that. I don’t want to show him how scared I am. I only want him to see my fury and disgust. I want to water the ground with his blood.
The words are in my mouth, but I can’t bring myself to open it. Fear seals my lips because I know that the moment I speak, something horribly irreversible will happen.
“I knew where you were at all times, my dearest. I always do, and when I noticed that Leone’s rat was spying on you, I tried to get rid of him.”
Is he talking about Luca and his stalking?
“Unfortunately, things didn’t go as I planned.” His fingers sink into the sides of my neck painfully. “The present I left for the police in Bronx Park was found too early and covered by the Leones.”
Doppio’s son, is that the present? So he did kill that boy to frame Luca.
He snarls. “Then they kidnapped you, and I missed that rat again when I shot out the safe house where he kept you.”
“The shooting was you?” His fingers loosen enough for me to form words.
He nods looking all proud of himself. “I started to feel very, very irked, Art. Especially when I received that fake message from you, only to see you at the club later, disappearing with that fucker in the club office. Did he touch you?” His tongue comes out, brushing against my ear, almost making me hurl.
I manage to shake my head in a weak response.
My eyes fill with tears. I knew this would probably happen.
It’s okay. I just need to remember why I am doing this.
For whom. The sharp blade slides down, ripping the collar of my sweater.
The clinking of his little charms on his bracelets almost makes me scream.
That horrible sound is connected to the agonizing pain that always follows.
My father’s voice cuts through the hideous memories. “Cazzo! Mario. What the hell did you do?”
My half-brother moves back, still keeping his tight hold on my neck.
“The corpse in the park! I told you to wait.” My father’s face has turned red. If only he would have a heart attack…and Mario would get eaten by a bear.
“That scarred fucker from the Leones was stalking Art. I knew he was plotting something. I wanted to stop him.”
“And how did it work out for you? You should have come to me.” My father grabs his bag from the desk.
Mario huffs. “You’re busy.”
“I’m planning a don’s murder. Do you have any idea how hard that is? Spoiled brats.”
Which Don? Coretti? Leone?
“Father, about the bitch—”
“Fuck, son, we talked about it. You can kill her, but only after the ink is dry on the documents.”
What bitch?
“I have to go,” Jack Enzino states, moving to the door. “Don’t leave signs on his face and let the doctor take care of the wounds when you are done.”
My father glances at me with such indifference that I feel the furious scream rising inside my throat. But it doesn’t come out. It would change nothing. Mario is a vile psycho, but Jack Enzino is the real devil here.
The sound of the door closing is like nails in a coffin. My coffin. Mario has an ominous smile, so ominous. His reptilian eyes, as Fly described them once, are locked on me. His tongue comes out, and the tip touches my cheek this time.
“It’s time to remind you who you belong to, my dearest.”
“Go fuck yourself, oh wait, you can’t!” I growl in his face, pulling on his dark hair while pushing my thumb into his eye. Kicking and thrashing, trying to do some damage. Until he bangs my head against the wall; my brain rattles inside my skull. I never get used to the pain.
He spins me around and traps my hands over my head. Then rips my sweater to bare my back. His excited growl makes my fists ball up. A sob rises inside my throat, but I swallow it.
The tip of the blade digs into my skin without a warning, and like a fever, pain hits, burning me alive.
I always thought Mario’s obsession would be the reason for my death, and it turns out I might have been right.
Short breaths slip out while my body twists in agony.
My legs start to give out, and everything is dark.
Somewhere in all the blur, I remember to fight, to resist, not to lose myself.
I almost call out Luca’s name, but he isn’t here.
He won’t help me. Why did I ever think I could be free?