Five
DARIO
As I walk through the narrow hall of the soldiers’ house basement, I hear the rattling of chains and the muffled cries of our prisoners. It’s like a sweet melody to my ears to hear their pain—I take a tremendous amount of pleasure in it.
Inching closer to the farthest cell, the wretched smell of burning flesh reaches my nostrils, and I force myself to swallow. I’ve never been able to come to grips with that horrid scent, but Silas… he’s another breed of man. While he hasn’t outright admitted to hate or love it, he doesn’t complain.
Upon entry, I watch as Silas takes careful steps backward to admire his work and I walk around him. The man dangling from the chains has the word ‘filthy rat’ carved into his stomach, which Silas has cauterized with his trusty blowtorch, sealing the wound. It leaves the wretched stench of burning flesh in the air that I force myself to stomach.
“What a mess,” I say, a tinge of disappointment in my voice.
He spins around to face me, his face smeared with lovely streaks of crimson. “Eh, don’t worry,” Silas replies, swatting the air, “I’ll clean up when he’s dead.” He slides past me, returning to his table of toys—an array of weapons he has on standby for this exact situation.
“And not a second before, I hope.” Glancing around, I breathe in my surroundings. I haven’t been in this specific cell in years. We’ve never had to use it, but I guess we’re overcrowded now. The threats against my family and I are increasing with each passing day, and they need our immediate attention.
“There’d be no point, brother. I’m not finished yet. Don’t you see his bare skin? That’s a perfect canvas.”
I sigh, rubbing my eyebrows. “Just… Don’t be trekking through the house with that shit on you. Mama had the floors polished last week. She’ll kill you.”
“Why is Mama having your floors polished? She doesn’t even live in the house anymore.”
“You’re one to talk,” I scoff with a laugh. “You’ve got a whole house of your own, and yet, you’re here more than there.”
“Shoot me for wanting to be around family, damn.”
“Don’t tempt me with a good time, brother.”
He rolls his eyes at me, returning to my line of sight with an old, rusted blade. His favourite old, rusted blade. The tip has long since snapped off from the sheer use of it, and he likes it better that way. To know that he inflicts more pain with this, than one with a tip, brings a wicked smile to his face every time.
The man’s attention turns to the blade as Silas creeps closer. “I-I told you e-everything I know. I-I swear,” he stutters as terror tightens his face.
Silas tuts. “Why don’t I believe that?” He crouches down to meet the weak man’s gaze. Gripping his chin roughly with one hand, Silas brings the edge of the knife to his cheek and slices downward, watching the blood come to the surface and touch the blade. “I’m not done until you’ve spilled every single secret you’ve ever kept and you’re buried so deep, not even the demons of the earth can find you.” He releases his head and it swings back, the thud of it against the concrete wall echoing through the room.
“Alright, you have this one,” I add, retracing my steps to the door. “But, for the love of God, wash yourself off before coming back.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, dismissing me with a wave of his hand.
It’s safe to say that everyone needs some form of release for whatever reason, and this is his. Inflicting pain is his specialty, and he finds peace in that.
∞∞∞
“How was the clinic?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the file in front of me as Kat brings Liana into my office. “How did everything look?”
“It was as good as it could be, I guess,” Liana says, pausing near the couch in the corner, though I can tell something is off. She isn’t nearly as bitter as she should be considering the day she’s had. I expected more of a storm from her.
“Mama was hopeful,” Kat adds. I lift my head and she looks at me before excusing herself.
Making himself known from the right corner of my office, Red goes to stand at attention in front of the door. His hands are placed in front of him, his left over his right, and his eyes fixated on anything in front of him that isn’t her. His black hair is combed back yet still messy as per usual, and his suit is more casual than most days. Liana doesn’t spare a glance in his direction, almost as if she knew he was there all along. She glares at me with nothing but resentment hidden in the guise of numb eyes.
Reading people is what I do best, and as much as she tries to hide things from me, I read her like an open book. Every page of her is either a well-rehearsed lie, a facade that’s for show or the brave face she’s had on since her arrival. Either way, it’s a pleasure to tear it apart and set fire to it while she watches.
“What’s the verdict then?” I ask, closing the brown file and placing it aside.
“Mrs C says everything looks good. She’s… hopeful. Only time will tell, though.” Her answers are short and infuriating. From what I’ve read in the papers, magazines and articles online, courtesy of her father being the man he is, I’m not seeing any of that spitfire attitude they claim she has.
“I appreciate you going, Liana. I know it wasn’t easy.”
“I didn’t think I had a choice.” Her statement comes off as a question laced with an intricate amount of sarcasm and hatred.
“You’re right, you didn’t. But you went with no argument, not spoken, anyway, and I appreciate that.”
She clenches her jaw so tight that she’s one wrong move away from breaking a tooth or two. Taking a step forward, she grabs the hem of her dress and curtseys with a tight, forced smile on her face. “It was my pleasure, your highness.”
“There’s no need for that, Liana,” I tell her in a firm tone.
She subtly rolls her eyes, trying and failing to disguise it with a gentle hair tussle. “Well you’re already up on your high horse, I thought I’d show you the respect and admiration you think you deserve.”
“Did you grow a pair of balls on your way to the clinic?” I query, squinting my eyes at her, a smirk playing at the corner of my mouth.
“I did,” she says in a chipper tone. “In fact, they’re probably bigger than yours.”
A laugh threatens to escape, but I swallow it. “Maybe not bigger, but I’m glad you’ve found some. You’re going to need them.”
“To live with and marry you, I’m going to need a will, not strength, Dario.”
“Au contraire, little one, you’re going to need every ounce of strength you could imagine. Working alongside my brothers is a treacherous task, one you’ll need a mask of braveness for.”
I watch as her mind works wonders trying to decipher my words. I can practically hear the cogs turning, her attempts proving to be futile as she says, “I’m not working for anyone, especially not your brothers. They’re all psychotic, like you.”
“You’re right, you’re not working for anyone. You’ll be working with them, side by side as an equal. And they’re not psychotic, Liana, they’re merely relating back to how they were raised. My father passed on his upbringing to us.”
“Then he’s just as psychotic, isn’t he?” she laughs.
“Don’t let him hear you say that,” I taunt. “He might very well show you how much he hates that word.”
She sucks her teeth and tilts her head back to the ceiling, exhaling a shaky breath before recomposing herself. “I tried so hard to save face, but you make it that much harder to keep my composure, Dario. You’re an asshole, and you love to remind everyone, don’t you?”
I flash her a smile. “Always, little one.”
Tilting her head to the side, a weak crack sounds throughout the air and while he doesn’t move, Red side-eyes her and clenches his jaw. I can tell his patience is wearing thin with her in here.
“This job you speak of,” she continues. “What does it entail, anyway?”
I crack my knuckles with one hand before switching and doing the same with the other, finally clasping my hands together. “I’m sure Kat has told you what Silas does?” She nods once. “Good, that’s one conversation off the agenda, then. Well, he’s taking riskier and longer jobs, meaning he’s away from home for extended periods of time. That also means the jobs he’s needed for here are being neglected.”
“So you want me to take these jobs?” she asks, and I nod. “You–you want me to kill people? Are you mad? I can’t even bring myself to kill a spider. I’ll always try to remove it, unharmed. You want me to kill someone—people? Because you like the tickle it gives you in your balls? Nuh uh, not in a million years.”
“Oh, but you have no choice, Liana. You’ll be my wife before you know it, and bearing my name gives you a rather large bullseye on your head. Wouldn’t you rather know how to hold your own than die a rather gruesome and horrific death?”
She scoffs. “It’s bold of you to assume that I can’t defend myself.”
“It’s good that you can, but a little punch here and kick there won’t save you from a bullet that’ll reach you in milliseconds. You’ve heard the phrase ‘never bring a knife to a gunfight’; I can tell you the same goes for this, too. You never use your fists when your opponent has a weapon that would inflict more harm than a punch would. That’s stupid.”
Glancing over at Red, I give him a firm nod. In a flash, he unholsters his gun and points it directly at the back of Liana’s head. Her entire body turns rigid, almost as if she’s stuck to the spot. Her eyes radiate fear, and she swallows the lump in her throat.
“You see that?” I ask, rising to my feet and stalking toward her. “That’s how easy it is for someone to get the upper hand in a situation. That’s how easy it is to render you absolutely helpless. All Red has to do is pull the trigger and you’re dead. Do you want to die, Liana?”
“Yes,” she says with absolutely no hesitation. The look on her face says she means it in every sense of the word, and her eyes plead with me, almost as if she’s begging me to give the go-ahead for him to pull the trigger.
“Well, I’m afraid that’s not happening. Not now, at least. Down the line, it’s very possible, but right now, you’re still alive and kicking.” Her eye twitches and I hear the squeak of her teeth as they grind together. “Stop clenching your jaw, Liana; you’ll break your teeth.”
“You kill people for a living, Dario; my teeth are the least of my problems.”
“You’re stating facts there, little one, and you’re also being a dentist’s worst nightmare.” She smiles mockingly, her eyes narrowing. Getting back on topic, I add, “You have no say in this. You will do this one thing for me. I’m not asking for much.”
She scoffs, a faint laugh slipping from her lips. “You’re asking for everything.” Her voice is harsh and threatens to pierce my skin with each word. “You want me to marry you, an unnegotiable thing, and now you want me to give you the best part of me. You want me to discard everything I believe in to turn into a female version of you. I knew you loved yourself the moment I met you; I guess I didn’t grasp exactly how much until now.”
Red cocks his gun, one step closer to pulling the trigger. A warning for her attitude.
“If you think the best part of you is what you believe in, then you don’t hold the same high opinion of yourself the press and public do. Liana Moretti is much more than this, or so they say.”
“You’re getting your information about me from those vultures? They will take anything and make it a twisted story of their own design. They know nothing about me, only what I let them see, and whatever their mood is, reflects what they write about me.”
I exhale a weighted sigh, silently telling Red to lower his weapon with a flick of my eyes. “I’m not telling you to go out and kill someone tonight. Silas trained for years before his first mission. When I deem it fit, you’ll go out into the field with him. Until then, he’ll train you.”
“Oh, of course,” she says, her tone thick with sarcasm.
I see Red, his hand still on his weapon, and in an instant, he pulls it from the holster and aims it at the back of her head once more.
“Do it,” Liana taunts, her eyes trained on me, while her words are directed at Red. She twists around, the gun inches away from her face. “I know you want to, Red,” she says in a soft, inviting voice. “You’ve been holding it since I entered, desperate to fire it. Get it over with, would you?”
He says nothing, his eyes finding mine. They plead with me to let him pull the trigger, and I can’t deny him of something he is so desperate for.
“Make it quick,” I reply, walking back to my desk. “Try to limit the blood, would you? Mama just had the floors polished.”
Liana spins to face me as I sit down, disgust written on her features. “You need me. You wouldn’t lose a wife over something as small as whatever this argument is.”
“You’re not my wife, though, are you? No. You’ve done everything you can to get Kat to postpone it, too scared to talk to me yourself. You’re replaceable and eager to get out of my grasp, so why not let you go?”
“My father will kill you!” she spits, seething. “He’ll kill you if I ask him to.”
“Tell me, Liana,” I ask with a tilt of my head, “how exactly will you tell him with a bullet through the centre of your skull?” She opens her mouth to speak, then clamps it shut. “All your father would know is that an enemy infiltrated our compound and killed you, wounding myself and a few of my brothers. My parents were luckily away for a second honeymoon, so they were unharmed. You, on the other hand, weren’t so lucky. After all, you brought your fists to a gunfight. What an unfortunate end to a story that had barely begun. I’ll have your father by the balls and he won’t even know it. He will believe whatever I tell him because he longs to be in my good graces.”
“You’re a compulsive liar.”
“And what of it? In my line of work, if you don’t lie, there’s no point in leading. You need to be sharp and quick; telling a few white lies here and there does exactly that.”
Turning back to Red, she grabs his hands, directing his weapon to her forehead. “Do it,” she tempts again. “This is what you want more than him. Be selfish, pull the trigger. You’re a big boy; you can deal with the consequences later.”
“This won’t change anything, you know,” I add, sitting back in my chair to admire the scene unfolding. “You’ll die knowing you amounted to nothing in life. You’ll die having lived your life through a camera lens, plastered on billboards and front pages of magazines, portrayed as the perfect daughter of Gabriel Moretti. We both know you’re far from that. Don’t we, little one. You’re just as bad as I am in terms of lying. So do it, Liana. Force Red’s hand, but just know that when I eventually die, I’ll make your life even more of a living hell in death than I have in life.”
Without hesitation, she forces Red’s finger, the sound of his empty weapon sounding through the air: click. Another two clicks, both of them making her flinch and she finally gives up, shoving Red’s hands away.
“What was this, a fucked-up test? Does it get you off to see me in pain?”
“You could call it a test. I know you have what it takes to stay calm in tough situations. You put yourself in them, but still I know you’d make a good addition.”
“A good addition to what? Your trophy case?” she scoffs. “I’m not a possession, though you might think I am. I’m a woman who got dealt a bad hand in life, per my father’s actions and hunger for money. I’m not a puppet or marionette here to perform while you pull my strings.”
“I’m not pulling your strings or forcing you into anything… If you want to live to see another day, you will do this. It’s not a threat; it’s a promise that if you don’t, you won’t survive.”
“I can hold my own, Dario. I may not know when I’m in danger; that’s been fucking proven by you and your bastard of a bodyguard, but I don’t need a gun to protect myself, unlike you.”
Within an instant, Red raises his gun again and fires, the bullet flying past me a few inches from my face as it buries itself in the bookshelf behind me.
Spinning around on her heels, a frightened look plastered on her face, she turns to face Red. “Are you fucking crazy? You could’ve shot either one of us.”
“I’m an excellent shot, Liana. I don’t miss. Ever.”
“Prick,” she breathes before turning back to face me.
“You think you can fight a full-grown man who has most likely spent their entire life being trained by their father or uncle, or whoever, to be the best they can be, with just your fists? Liana, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re barely pushing five-foot-two and you can’t be more than, what, nine stone? What on earth kind of pain could you ever inflict to someone twice your height, size and weight?”
“I could do this,” she says, exuding calm. I watch as she spins around in a swift motion and kicks Red right between his legs, and he keels over, his knees clashing to the floor. “Like I said, not everything has to be resolved with the amount of violence you use on a daily basis.”
God, I know you can’t feel other people’s pain, but I felt that through every ounce of my body.
“You bitch,” Red seethes, breathing through the pain.
“That was unnecessary, Liana,” I say, repositioning myself to rid my mind of the unimaginable pain Red is experiencing.
“What was unnecessary was this entire conversation. I won’t be a toy for you to play with or use at your disposal.” With that, she steps over Red and leaves, slamming the door behind her for effect while Red reaches behind him to flip her off.
I sigh. “Are you good, Red?”
“What the fuck did I do? Damn.” His breathing is heavy and jagged.
Maybe I was wrong. The spitfire attitude has always been there, only hidden beneath a tough, yet rather easy to break, exterior. She’ll make a fine addition to the team. My very own little warrior.