Chapter 20
RAQUEL
There’s darkness all around, and my eyes are bound, shrouding me with a deep sense of fear. The kind that creeps up the back of your neck and has your body shivering from an icy chill that isn’t there.
Carlito must’ve placed a blindfold around my eyes after he knocked me out. At least I’m not dead. At least there’s a chance.
A chance for what? For suffering?
Who would possibly help me? Dante’s the only person who can, and he doesn’t even know where I am.
I don’t believe for a moment that he’d want anyone to hurt me.
If he knew Carlito brought me here, he’d come.
It’s obvious that my so-called mother lied about trying to help me, so why would I believe her about Dante?
He’s been nothing but good to me, unlike my own family. There’s no way he’d want to kill me.
My wrists throb on my lap, and I feel something tight fastened around them.
Dante. Help me.
The cloth soaks up the silent drops of misery. I hear my breaths and the pounding of feet somewhere further away, taunting me. My lungs ache with heaviness, like bricks upon bricks piling over my fear.
Carlito’s not immediately beside me. I can hear him speaking low with someone else, but I can’t hear what they’re saying.
Who else is here? What do they plan to do to me?
“I think she’s finally awake.” Carlito’s voice buzzes through my mind like a swarm of hungry bees, itching to get a taste and leave some scars behind.
His footsteps crash against the floor, closer now. So close I can smell his rotting body odor, like sweat mixed with death. My pulse accelerates and my stomach fills with terror as I force myself to shrink deeper into the chair.
I don’t have to wonder what he’ll do. I know he’ll hurt me. His viciousness can finally see the light of day, just as he’s wanted it to for so long. I’m his now, and my mother allowed it to happen. My own flesh and blood.
He roughly yanks the blindfold off of me, and my eyes narrow as they adjust to the bright fluorescent lighting and find his irate glare.
I quickly scan the area, noticing the high ceilings and large open space. Thin boards of wood line up next to chainsaws. It looks like a carpentry factory. My insides wrench as I focus on the blades.
Is that what he’ll do to me after he’s had his fun? Cut me into pieces small enough not to ever be found? Did my parents sanction this for my defiance?
I refuse to believe they’d do that. Maybe this is merely Carlito’s way of scaring the hell out of me. Because it’s working quite well.
“Be easy on her, Carlito,” says a voice behind him.
My brows burst up, and my eyes practically fall out of my head.
It can’t be.
My heart constricts so firmly in my chest that the air instantly evaporates.
“No, Sal, that’s not what she needs. You’ve been too easy on her. This is why she ran off.” He turns around, and that’s when I meet the eyes of my father.
“Daddy?” I shudder as tears fill my eyes and cascade down my face.
But he doesn’t even look at me. His gaze is on Carlito, as though I’m nothing but a ghost. And maybe soon, I will be.
“If you would’ve let me have her when she was sixteen like I wanted, we wouldn’t have had this fucking problem!” he howls. “Now she’s probably damaged goods. I’m sure she let that fucker Dante have her.”
My father’s thick gray brows slant with a frown as his head shakes with disgust.
Carlito clamps his shoulder. “Leave her with me, Sal. Let me teach her how to be a proper wife. It’ll be a lesson she’ll never forget.”
I gasp, my insides curling with panic.
“Daddy, look at me, God damn it! You can’t do this!” I wail with more heartache than I can bear, my chin trembling. “Please. Don’t leave me with him.”
His shoulders drop with a sigh, and he walks around Carlito as both of them look at me.
“I’m sorry, Raquel,” Dad says. “But he’s right. You’ve shamed this family with your reckless, childish behavior. And to marry that vile creature of a man? I can’t forgive that.”
I choke on a sob. His love for me is no longer in his eyes. I can see that now. It vanished long before his soul did.
“Carlito is your rightful husband.” He continues with his ugliness. “It’s his rightful place to punish you for the shame you brought him.”
I can’t believe he would allow this. My own father. I can barely look at him. I’m trying not to cry, but the tears of my torment continue to wreck my very existence.
“How could you?!” I scream. “You’re my father! You’re supposed to protect me, not send me into the arms of a savage!”
“You bitch!” Carlito roars, his palm striking my cheek and whipping my face to the side. “You don’t talk about me that way!”
My face pulsates with white-hot pain. I inadvertently yank my hand up, wanting to ease the ache, but forget the rope binding my wrists.
“Go, Sal,” he tells my father. “I’ve got this. I won’t kill her, I promise.” His eyes are on me with a hateful sneer. “But she’ll wish she was dead.”
“I’ll be downstairs.”
And with that, my father slips out of the room and leaves me alone with my abuser.
“Tell me, Raquel.” Carlito treads around me slowly, garnishing my anxiety and fear. “You let him fuck you?”
His hand sneaks to the back of my head and clutches my hair, pulling so hard my scalp burns as he looks at me.
“Did you give that scum something that belongs to me? Did he take your virginity?”
A laugh bubbles out of me, small at first, until it collects more fury and begins spiraling into cackling too big to control.
“You thought I was a virgin?” I ask, tears running down my face. “You’re a bigger idiot than I thought.” My shoulders roll with another laugh. “I haven’t been a virgin since I was seventeen, when Lenny fucked me in the back of his mother’s van.”
His other hand surrounds my neck, his fingers creeping deeper and suffocating me as his glare turns harsher.
“Dante, even with all his lies…” I huff. “…is a better man than you could ever be, and believe me, the orgasms he gave me were the best ones I’ll ever have.”
The punch to my cheek comes so fast, I don’t even see it coming. Light flickers in and out of my right eye, and stars go off like fireworks on the Fourth of July. The taste of copper filters through my tongue as I try not to cry.
Carlito stands before me, removing a knife with a long, shiny blade from his waistband. The sheer level of anger on his face is scarier than the weapon in his hand.
“I didn’t know who he was when he got all friendly with me at the club,” he tells me. “Did you know about it?”
He bends, his face nearing mine, so close I can smell cigarettes on his breath.
“Did you know what he was doing, you bitch? Were you in on it?”
“No,” I hiss with a tremor, not from fear anymore, but from pure, unadulterated rage. “He’s going to find me. And whether I’m dead or not, he’s gonna kill you. So painfully, so slowly, you’ll wish you’d done it yourself.”
He chuckles, running his knuckles down my face and pushing into where he hit me. “I’ll gladly die knowing I took you from him.”
“If you kill me, my father will kill you.”
“Is that what you honestly think? He left you here with me, didn’t he? He’ll forgive me if I take things a bit too far.”
His words sting, pouring salt on a wound that already bleeds. His hand clamps around my jaw, but I fight the pain, refusing to let him see me crumble anymore.
“Do you think he really gives a shit about you?” he says too close to my face.
“Your mother gave you up, and your father abandoned you when you begged for help. You’re a stain on your family’s name.
They don’t want you. Your death will be celebrated.
And if you don’t die, you’ll be too ugly for anyone else to love you. ”
His fingers tighten, making my pulse fire faster.
“I’ll take your fucking tits and slice open your cunt. Then I’ll carve out your face.”
I gasp for air, unable to hold back the terror crawling over me. The skin on my arms prickles and pinches.
“You’ll be no good for anyone.” The knife nears and slices down my black t-shirt until it comes apart, the pointy tip almost piercing my skin.
My entire body breaks into a tremor as my heartbeats race so quickly they nearly explode out of me.
Using his thumbs, he yanks the shirt completely open, exposing me to him.
“Mmm,” he moans, walking back a step so he can take pieces of my soul I’ll never get back. “I’ve been dying to see you naked for so long. It’s a shame what I’ll have to do to your body. But…” He takes a step up, the tip of the knife against my breast. “You’ve left me no choice.”
“Ahh!” I scream as the first slice to my areola comes.
The cut is small, but deep enough for the blood to ooze, dripping down my breast and onto my jean-clad thighs.
“This is only the beginning, Raquel. Better get used to the pain.”
Then I scream as the next slash comes.
DANTE
“Where the fuck is she?” I ask Raquel’s mother, Simona, while my brothers stand behind me in her kitchen.
“I don’t know.” She narrows her eyes, tipping her chin up.
“You’re a liar.” I press the barrel of my nine-mil under her jaw. “I know she spoke to you before the van came. I know whose phone she used to call you. You’re the one who told Carlito to take her. I should kill you for it.”
I crouch my face to hers, my teeth gritted like a caged animal.
“And if I wasn’t falling in love with her, I wouldn’t hesitate to slice your throat.”
“Love?” Her cackle is as cold and vile as the heart she doesn’t have. “Oh, God. You’re as foolish as my daughter.” She presses her lips tight, mocking me with a laugh, like I’m pathetic. “Love doesn’t exist, my boy.”
I back away, not wanting to be anywhere near this insane excuse for a woman.
“Love is a made-up feeling we experience, but it slowly dies until nothing is left. You’ll see that if you ever get to find her.” An ugly smile makes it to the corner of her mouth. “She knows who you are now. I made sure of it.”
I really want to kill her, but I won’t let her get to me. If Raquel knows about me, that’s something we’ll figure out together. But my focus right now is finding her.
“I’m not interested in a philosophy lesson from you.
” I lift the weapon, pushing it into her temple.
“Let me make this crystal clear. I don’t care that you’re a woman.
You hurt my wife. So you either tell me where she is in two seconds, or I beat it out of you.
If you prove to be anything but useful, my men outside have been instructed to slit your throat and let you bleed out on your pretty white rug. ”
“My husband was right about you all,” she hisses with a sneer. “You’re animals.”
Her bound legs jerk against the chair, making it rattle on the floor.
“He should know. He created us.” I straighten myself as I continue. “I guess he should’ve thought better than to have a hand in the murder of my family.”
“That’s not my problem.” She arches her chin, brows bending in indifference. “I had nothing to do with it.”
“Maybe not.” I shuffle a step, glaring into her hard, cruel eyes.
“But you’re no innocent. You sent her to him.
You knew what he’d do to her, but you didn’t give a fuck, did you?
What sort of mother would do that? Not mine.
She’d do anything for us. And your husband—your family—took her. They took everyone from us.”
“I expect a certain level of respect from my only daughter,” she continues, running a finger past the edge of the hair surrounding her face. “And she’s failed. The consequences of that are entirely her fault.”
“Wow! You’re an evil bitch, aren’t you? Maybe I should kill you and save Raquel from you.”
I don’t understand how any mother worth a damn would allow her own child to be hurt in any way. But it’s like she really doesn’t care what happens to her own kid. How someone like this gave birth to Raquel, a good fucking person, I will never comprehend. There’s something not right with her.
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. You wouldn’t hurt a woman.”
“Bitch, you’re not a woman. You’re a monster, just like your husband.”
Pop.
“Ahhh!” Her screams shatter through the walls, cracking like the bones in her foot.
I slant my body forward to whisper in her ear. “That was for Raquel.”
She pants, her body trembling. There’s no pity, just feral wrath.
“Whatever I do next will be for me, and believe me, it’ll be a lot worse than that,” I warn. “So, again, where is she?”
She weeps openly, no longer holding on to her bravado. Slanting my eyes to a close, I pull in a dramatic inhale, my gun pointing to her stomach.
“Wait,” she snivels. “I…I’ll tell you.”
But she doesn’t. She sobs instead.
“I don’t have all fucking day!” I shout. “He could be killing her already!”
“There’s a carpentry factory that Carlito’s uncle owns. They’re there.”
She grumbles off an address, and Dom’s already texting the men in one of our cars outside, so they can head there first and wait for us. If she’s there, they’re bound to find some vehicles outside, and if Carlito moved her, we’ll need to know that too.
I give her my back, marching toward the door.
“Wait!” she calls. “Aren’t you going to let me off this chair? I need a doctor. Please!”
“You’ll stay right there until Raquel is in my custody. My men will cut the ropes when I text them, so this is your last chance to tell me if you’re lying. And you’d better fucking hope she’s alive, or I’ll come back, and this time, the bullet won’t be so kind.”
Then I’m rushing out, hoping like hell that the woman I want to bare my soul to is still alive enough for me to do it.