17. Chapter 17
I looked down at the scars between my fingers as the cigarette burned to the filter.
I put it out, and before I could grab another, Luca placed a gentle hand on mine, threaded our fingers, and pulled us out of my room and into the living room.
We were still naked, but who cared? No one else was around or could see in.
I let him lead me into my big chair, and as I got situated, he left and came back shortly with a tumbler of Scotch. Then he settled in my lap and rested his head on my shoulder as I played with his hair just as he liked it.
“Please tell me what happened then? Someone saved you, right?”
“To this day, I imagine every man I kill as one of the men who tortured and killed Ben. It makes killing nothing more than breathing or eating.”
I finally looked at him for the first time since I stood in front of my bedroom window. He’d been crying. I wasn’t sure I deserved the tears, but I took them anyway. I set my glass down and wiped away a few tears with my thumb. “You never need to cry for me.”
“Why not? Your story makes me sad.”
“I don’t deserve it.”
I lifted my glass and took a sip of my drink, feeling the burn going straight to my stomach as Luca traced one of my scars, then he pressed his lips to it. That he didn’t flinch at my words just confirmed he was right all along. He was mine. No other man, other than Ben, would understand.
“Anyway, yes. Someone found me. I don’t know who.
They didn’t grace themselves with their heroism.
I woke up the next day, drugged out on painkillers and completely stitched up but still in excruciating pain, lying in a hospital bed.
When my vision cleared, a man sitting in a chair, wearing a three-piece suit with his folded hands resting on his lap, was watching me. ”
“Who are you?” I asked. He was an attractive man in his mid-thirties with sandy blond hair and cold blue eyes. While he appeared to look like a businessman, I knew he wasn’t. Those were the eyes that had seen a lot of death.
The man gave me a dangerous smile. “Let’s just say I’ve been hired to gather information.”
“Then what? Kill me?”
His smile grew broader, but he didn’t laugh. “Depends on what you give me.”
“What do you want to know, because honestly, I don’t care one way or the other? After what happened last night, I kind of wish I was dead.”
Flashes of Ben being killed flickered through my mind in incoherent snippets from the drugs and alcohol.
While I could recall what happened to us, it was like my brain fought off visions of Ben being hurt and mutilated.
I barely remembered what happened to me after Ben died.
The grief tugged at me, threatening to tear me to shreds and finish off the job those men started.
The man offered no sympathy, even when my tears fell. “You were dating Ben Jacobs, yes?”
“Yes. My lover. Boyfriend… He’s gone. All gone.”
“That’s why I’m here, Mr. Varga. His father is demanding answers, and he has paid me quite handsomely to do so. He’s willing to burn all of Washington, D.C. to the ground to find out. And if you don’t have the answers, I can’t promise you, you’ll be allowed to live.”
“Kill me then. If you won’t, my father will. He’s expecting me by tomorrow. But it doesn’t matter. I’m dead no matter what.”
I told him everything I remembered. From my meeting with my father and what happened when I came out to my very last memory of last night before I finally passed out.
“Good news, Mr. Varga. I believe you. Especially with all your injuries. After seeing your medical records, I doubt you could do that to yourself.”
“Whooptyfuckingdo. Is that all? I have to get out of here to meet with my father for him to kill me since you won’t.”
“Why didn’t he just kill you then?”
“Payment for failing him. He wanted me to suffer and watch.”
“I’m aware of Alfonso’s handiwork. But if he’s involved in Ben’s death, his father will want retribution. We’ll have to take him out.”
“No.”
He raised a brow and scoffed. “No? I’m not sure you understand the gravity of this situation, so let me make this clearer.
First, you’re in no position to go anywhere since you’re due for surgery on your rectal area to fix all the damage.
They won’t let you just leave. If you do, you can expect never to be functional again.
Second, your father is ours. We will kill him.
You have no say in the matter. It’s not up to you. ”
“No, you don’t understand…” I was growing tired from the drugs and the pain.
My body was fighting me, trying to stay awake.
With as much venom as I could muster, I eyed the handsome stranger.
“If anyone kills him, it will be me. I want to slice his flesh inch by inch as he screams and cries. The only problem is he doesn’t love anyone, so I can’t take them away.
But I will make him pay. You will not stand in my way.
If he’s going to take me down, I’m going to take him with me. ”
He considered me for a moment before smiling again. “You’re in no position to kill an ant, let alone your powerful father.”
“Mr. Jacobs can have my father’s dead corpse by my hands. No one else's. It doesn’t matter when it’s done.”
“Very well. I’ll discuss the matter with Mr. Jacobs.”
He stood and handed me a card with only his name and a phone number with a D.C. area code and nothing else.
Sid Virgil.
“I’m also familiar with you, Dante Varga. You’re quite talented in your own right, which I’m sure is thanks to your soon-to-be-dead father. Perhaps we can work something out. Call me when you’re ready to listen. In the meantime, I’ll be in touch with what my employer wants.”
I placed the card on my table. “And what if he wants me dead?”
“Then you’ll be dead.”
“Can it wait until after I kill my father?”
His laugh boomed in the small room as he walked out and flicked me a wave.
“Sid? The man we met?”
“Yes, one and the same.”
“I’m glad he didn’t kill you.”
For the first time, I laughed. I didn’t do it often, but Luca pulled it out of me. “Indeed.”
“So, you finally got to kill your father, right? You said you did. Mr. Jacobs let you?”
“That he did, Sunshine.” I kissed his head as he nuzzled tighter to me. It was then I noticed Cleo sleeping on my feet as if she understood my painful story. “Aren’t you tired?”
He nodded and yawned to confirm it. “I want to hear about your revenge first.”
“Interesting bedtime story, weirdo.”
I felt the pull of his mouth into a smile that was pressed against my chest.
I thought telling my story would hurt more than it did. Perhaps it was all the time that had passed, or maybe it was Luca, who was a strange sort of comfort.
Mr. Jacobs gave me the green light to take my father out.
I was filled with a mixture of glee and fear.
I couldn’t wait to make him feel the pain I went through, but I was terrified of failure.
That he’d get to me first before I could kill him.
My only consolation was that he wouldn’t expect me to stand up to him since I never did.
The next day after my surgery, I left the hospital.
I was a day late seeing my father, but it couldn’t be helped.
The pain was excruciating, and I was barely able to walk, but I sucked it up.
I didn’t want to take painkillers, making me slow.
As I shuffled into his house, I checked my pocket to make sure my gift from Sid was still there.
When I reached the closed French doors to his office, I knocked.
“Come,” said the deep voice in the other room.
I opened the doors and walked in, then dropped to my knees as I had been ordered, keeping my head down. It was humiliating as fuck, and it took all my willpower not to tell him to shove it up his ass. But I held firm, knowing my revenge was near.
“You’re late.”
“I had to have surgery. They wouldn’t let me leave.”
“No excuse.”
I bit my inner cheek to keep from lashing so hard that I tasted the tang of blood. “Yes, Father. I’m sorry.”
He stepped out from behind his desk and stood in front of me as I had hoped. He couldn’t help himself, showing his power and intimidation over me.
Just a little closer.
He grabbed my chin and lifted my head to look at him.
“I hope you’ve learned your lesson. No more men.
My son will not be a faggot. It is just you and me until the day I die.
I will not tolerate your insolence. This is your last chance to redeem yourself in my eyes.
If you cannot, I won’t be as kind as the last time. Do I make myself clear?”
My hand slowly slipped into my pocket, and I gripped the syringe tightly in my hand, pushing the cap off as I held back my biting anger.
“Crystal,” I said.
He scoffed down at me, then turned around, but he didn’t make it two steps before I was on him, grabbing him from behind and pressing the plunger into his neck.
Father pulled on my arm and quickly flipped me over his shoulder and onto my back.
The syringe went flying as I gasped for breath.
The pain radiated through my entire body as several stitches pulled from my skin.
Warm blood seeped through my shirt, but it was too late for him.
The drug was in his system. That didn’t stop him from kicking the shit out of me.
I rolled over, gasping again for breath while keeping the bile where it belonged.
“Traitor!” he yelled and wobbled on his feet. He gave me one more kick to the face, nearly knocking me out before he fell on his ass.
I got up on my hands and knees, spitting out blood on his precious rug as my body threatened to fall over and pass out. Summoning as much power and energy as I could, I controlled my body to calm down and stay alert. My revenge came first. I could die later.
As the drug took effect, his legs tried to find purchase to get up, and his fingers clawed at his ten thousand dollar Persian rug that I had bled all over. “Wha-what’d you do… you… fool. You’re… dead.”