Chapter 24
Dante
The air changes when we reach the basement stairwell. Colder. Still.
The guards step aside when they see us, unlocking the heavy reinforced door. The iron hinges groan as we descend.
The corridor is narrow, concrete walled. It smells of rust and blood. We pass two more guards before reaching the final door.
Inside, it’s dim.
The only light comes from a single bulb above the man chained to the wall.
Piero.
Or what’s left of him.
He’s suspended by his wrists, chains bolted into the ceiling holding his arms above his head, forcing his body into a mockery of standing. His legs barely support him, knees buckling, weight slumped forward. But the chains won’t let him fall. They keep him upright.
His shirt was discarded days ago, his body covered in bruises and lashes. Skin cracked. Dried blood in streaks across his ribs. His breath comes in sharp, shallow rasps, each one a struggle.
He hasn’t rested in days.
He won’t again.
Because this is the end.
I step into the room slowly.
He stirs, just a trace of movement. Lifts his head a fraction. Even that looks like agony. His eyes find mine and there is no recognition anymore. Just pain.
And I welcome it.
This man touched my wife. Broke her. Tried to take her from me. He made her believe she wasn’t safe in her own skin.
He does not get a clean death.
The metallic door seals shut behind us with a final, echoing clang.
I step forward. Mario matches my pace.
Leonardo lingers off to the side, absently flipping a blade between his fingers, and when I glance down, I realize it’s Niccolò’s knife. Of course it is. The bastard’s obsession borders on theatrical. Still, I’ve no idea how he managed to get it from him, and frankly, I don’t give a fuck.
Two of my men stand guard along the walls, silent, still, and ice cold.
We’ve kept him alive through calculated cruelty. No infection. No escape. Just pain. Sustained. Measured.
Mario used clamps last night, small and brutal, pinched to the nerves under the ribs until Piero passed out. Leonardo broke the bones in his hands one by one two days ago. We made sure he stayed conscious long enough to feel each crack.
I move toward him, unhurried.
“Do you know where you are?”
I ask, because I enjoy watching him struggle to piece it together. Confused. Weak.
He coughs, wet and broken, blood streaking down his chin.
“I’m in hell,” he rasps.
I nod once. “Correct.”
I lift a short blade from the steel tray beside me, clean, polished, perfectly honed. It rests easy in my hand, like it belongs there.
“You didn’t fear me enough, did you?”
I murmur, darkly.
“Seems I’ve been too lenient. I can’t afford men like you thinking I’m easy to disobey.”
I take a step closer, watching his bloodied face.
“You dared to take my wife from me. That tells me everything I need to know.”
I roll the blade between my fingers.
“But you will fear me,”
I whisper.
“You’ll leave this world with my name seared into whatever soul you have left.”
I plunge the blade into the thick of his thigh deep. The sound is sickeningly wet, sharp. He screams, or tries to, but his throat is too ravaged to hold it. It comes out cracked and pathetic.
I draw it back, agonizingly slow, letting him feel every inch of it.
Leonardo materializes like a shadow, delivering a few brutal strikes to Piero’s gut. The chained bastard coughs and wheezes, sagging further against the restraints.
As Leonardo steps back, shaking out his hand in disgust, the door clicks open behind us.
Every head in the room turns.
And there she is.
My wife.
She strides in like the angel of death, head high, gaze unwavering. The two men stationed at the entrance pale instantly. I don’t need to ask to know she threatened them into opening the door. Now they’re terrified I’ll have them executed for it.
As she steps deeper into the basement, her eyes fall on Piero, and she doesn’t flinch. If anything, she looks stronger. I’d imagined this moment a thousand ways. Expected rage, maybe tears. But not this. Not this devastating calm. Not this cold, unrelenting resolve.
There’s no fear in her expression.
Only contempt.
And it makes me want to drop to my knees in awe. Because she’s the strongest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.
And she’s mine.
The thought takes hold, ravenous, consuming, and I don’t fight it.
She is indeed fucking mine.
My woman.
My wife.
She stops beside me and opens her hand in silent command. Without a word, I unholster the pistol at my side and place it into her waiting palm. Small calibre. Light frame. No recoil.
Her fingers curl around it with purpose.
“I’ll be the one to end his pathetic life,”
she says, her voice steady, and final.
I glance at her.
“Are you sure, leonessa? I don’t want this to be too much.”
“I need to do this. For me. For…”
She falters, breath catching, but her voice steadies as she continues.
“For the girls he murdered. For the innocent lives he stole without a second thought.”
She steps forward, standing directly in front of him. The wreck of a man chained upright to the ceiling lifts his gaze, dazed and broken.
“This is me,”
she says.
“taking back my life… by ending yours.”
His lips move. Maybe he’s begging. Maybe he’s whispering to ghosts. It doesn’t matter.
Harlow raises the gun.
“This is for me.”
She fires, a single, unforgiving shot to his chest.
“And this… this is for them.”
She fires again.
And again.
And again.
I take a step toward her, ready to intervene, the bastard’s already dead, and still she keeps firing. But her voice, hollow and numb, stops me cold.
“Thirteen…”
Only then does she lower the gun, her face entirely void of expression, and that frightens me more than any scream would. She doesn’t look broken, she looks empty.
“Thirteen girls,”
she murmurs, eyes locked on mine.
“Thirteen innocent souls died because of… him.”
And I see the flicker in her expression. She almost said they died because of her. But she didn’t. She caught herself. And I am fucking proud of her.
I don’t know what happened to her. But I know this much, none of it was her fault. That piece of shit hanging by those chains was the only monster there.
Her shoulders sag. The last of the adrenaline drains from her body. I watch her knees falter.
“You did good, leonessa,”
I say, stepping in.
“This is what men like him deserve.”
She gives a small, brittle nod. The faintest smile ghosts her lips. Then the gun slips from her hand. Her body crumples.
But I’m already there, catching her in my arms before she hits the ground. I scoop her up, cradling her against my chest.
I turn to Mario and Leonardo.
“Dispose of him,”
I say, tone cold.
“Like the animal he was.”
They nod, though their eyes drift toward the unconscious woman in my arms. Concern shadows both their faces.
I don’t need it.
I turn my back on them without another word and carry my wife out, toward our bedroom. Toward rest. Toward peace.
And if anyone tries to take that from her again, I will burn the entire fucking world down.