43. Games #4
It was pointless asking Callum about Aria or where he intended to take her.
It was obvious those soldiers refused to speak because they knew if they revealed anything about who they worked for, their families would suffer.
But if Callum wouldn’t talk either, it raised a question...
who was he protecting if his family was already dead?
“Did you murder Aria’s mother?”
He stared at me with indifference, but I caught a flicker of something in his eyes.
Either he did it, or he knew who did. I nodded at Gio, cracking my neck as he stood behind him and seized his head, holding him still.
I’d enjoy this. He finally reacted, crying out as I sliced off his eyelids, making his eyes resemble bulging, slimy balls that could fall out at any moment.
“We’ve reached the final round. It only gets worse from here,” I snarled, walking back in front of them all.
“Starting with you.” I pointed my knife at Contestant A.
“I will break every bone in your body. Cut every inch of your skin. Scalp you. Skin you alive, one body part at a time. And you’ll be forced to watch it all.
” I moved my knife to Contestant B, who was now sitting in a puddle of his own piss.
“Then you’ll get the same treatment. Unless someone starts fucking talking. ”
I unleashed my depravity upon Contestant A, fulfilling every promise I had made. Even Cher couldn’t save him from me. Amidst each new torment and scream echoing through the bunker, I bellowed the one question I needed the answer to. “Who thinks they can take my wife?”
The red haze had appeared over my vision, and it was only when Gio’s hand landed on my shoulder and tugged me back that I realised Contestant A was dead.
I heaved, chest rising and falling with every ragged breath as I tilted my head towards Contestant B.
He was staring at the skinned, mangled corpse next to him with horror and pure fear as I stepped towards him. He flinched back, blubbering.
“O-okay, okay, I’ll tell you!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Callum roared. “Tell them anything, and you know what will happen to your family!”
Contestant B whimpered, shaking his head. I grabbed his hair and leaned over his face. “I can protect your family if you tell me who to protect them from.”
“He’s lying! He can’t,” Callum shouted, and Gio sent a brutal punch to his stomach to shut him up.
“Who is after my wife? Who do you work for?”
“Her–her uncle.”
“And who’s her uncle?” I pressed the knife to the side of his face.
“Your children are dead the moment his name leaves your lips!” Callum yelled, and Gio snapped. He knocked him out in one vicious punch, his body hanging limp.
“Please… pl-please, if I tell you, I’ve won the game, right? You’ll show me mercy?” Contestant B blubbered.
“Who is her uncle?” I hissed, my patience hanging by a very thin thread. The knife sliced along the side of his face, ready for me to peel away.
“M—McKenna…” he cried out in panic, and I paused, the name sparking recognition in my bones. “Sean McKenna.”
Holy fucking shit. The notoriously ruthless Mafia King of Ireland. Sean McKenna was Aria’s uncle? It all slotted into place. Aria’s mother must have been Sean’s sister. She had been fleeing from the McKennas all her life. But how the hell did Callum fit into this?
I stepped back from the Irish soldier with wide eyes and let the knife fall from my hands. I heard Gio muttering under his breath as he paced behind me. This was really fucking bad. Worse than I could have imagined.
“What does he want with Aria?” I had some ideas about what a man like Sean McKenna needed his niece for, but I wanted to hear facts.
“I don’t know…” he cried. “I’m just a soldier.
He hand-picked soldiers who had people they would die for on this mission because he could threaten our families if we failed.
Please… I know nothin’ else. Just that we had to follow Callum’s orders and bring her home to Ireland when Callum said so.
If Boss finds out it was me who told you… he’ll kill my children… please…”
“Who is Callum to the McKennas?”
“I–I don’t know. I’d never met him before I was sent here two months ago to work for him. I swear. I don’t know anythin’ else.”
Then he was of no use to me. I pulled out my gun and shot the soldier in the head. A swift, painless death was the only mercy I could offer.
I locked eyes with Gio, the heavy silence between us so unsettling that my body trembled with it. His dark, horrified gaze mirrored mine.
Aria was an Irish Mafia princess, not just from any Irish family but from the most powerful and merciless mob that had wiped out nearly every rival family in Ireland to claim their title.
We had always refused to ally with them because Sean McKenna had no loyalty to anyone and was a vile, twisted individual who killed his own parents for greed and power.
And I married his niece without his consent. I’d broken the oldest and most traditional mafia code and gave him the perfect excuse for war.
Fuck.