47. Back To Hell
Back To Hell
Perched on the wall outside the underground Buccini cells, I lit a cigarette and watched the steel door with surprising patience.
McKenna had been locked beneath my feet for nine days, yet I still hadn’t been down there. Not because I didn’t crave his blood, but because Raya needed me more.
Christ, talk about personal growth.
She’d barely left my side since Giovanni’s death.
Today, Aria had organised a girls’ day upstairs, with spa treatments for her, Raya, Lili and Olivia.
A few hours to be together and pretend their world hadn’t been turned upside down.
Olivia amazed me the most. She’d lost the love of her life, her husband and the father of her children.
She was distraught. Yet every morning she got out of bed, put on a brave face for her kids, and only fell apart when they couldn’t see it.
Now, I knew where Soraya had learned her strength from.
Plus, it helped to know that McKenna wasn’t having an easy time.
The Buccinis had taken their anger out on McKenna and Oscar daily.
Even Olivia and Raya had been down there to make them bleed.
Yesterday, Alessio and Max went a little too hard on Oscar, and he hadn’t made it through the night.
McKenna was different. They knew they could do whatever they wanted to him, as long as he stayed alive.
His death belonged to me.
The steel door groaned open, and Raffaele stormed out into the sunshine. His shirtless chest was streaked with fresh blood, and his permanently scarred face was twisted with a rage that hadn’t existed in him before the attack.
He paused when he saw me, our eyes meeting for a moment before he rampaged back to the mansion without a word.
I’d watched that happy-go-lucky boy become a vengeful man overnight.
His family had to restrict him to going to the cellar only once a day and always supervise him because…
if it were up to him, McKenna would already be dead.
Santino emerged a few seconds later, looking half the man he was.
Dark circles beneath tired, sunken eyes stared back at me.
He made his way over, wiping the blood from his hands with a rag and pulling himself up on the wall.
I offered him a cigarette, even though I knew he only smoked cigars. He took one.
We smoked in silence, listening to the birds chirping and the tree leaves above us rustling in the breeze. I gave him a sideways glance as he stared at the gravel, that hollow look in his eyes telling me he was either lost in his own head or completely numb.
Letting out a deep exhale, I moved my gaze back to the steel door.
“No more,” I said, putting an end to this family’s vengeance. “McKenna’s mine now.”
He said nothing, just gave a slight nod of acknowledgement. The silence stretched once again.
“Do you believe in karma?” he asked eventually, his voice low.
I frowned, taking another drag on my cigarette. “I don’t believe in shite.”
“I killed your brother.”
My shoulders tensed. It was the first time he’d acknowledged what had happened with Connor. We’d planned to have the chat when we got back from Belgium, but… after everything that had gone down, it never happened.
He lifted his head and looked at me, pure guilt and torment in his bloodshot eyes. “I didn’t pull the trigger, but I led him to it. Callum—Connor—died because of me. Your brother.” His throat worked. “Karma took mine.”
“No.” I blew smoke into the sky and watched it come apart beneath the clouds. “McKenna did.” I turned to face him. “Just like McKenna sent my brother to Italy to fuck with you, he wanted us to tear each other’s throats out instead of his. I’m done givin’ him that power.”
Santino’s lips trembled, and he glanced away, rubbing his hand across his mouth to hide his emotion. He nodded. “I’ll never ask for your forgiveness, but I am sorry.”
I swallowed, clicking my neck to the side. “I know.”
For the first time, the air didn’t hang heavy with hatred. It simply settled. We were two brothers who had both lost one, yet somehow gained each other.
“Don’t let McKenna get in your head,” he said, sliding off the wall and grinding out his cigarette under his boot.
“I’ll let him try.”
Santino gave me a weak smile. “You’re a strong man, Maddox Moriarty. It will be over soon. Then you can start living for yourself.”
“Already am.” I flicked ash from my knee. “Tell Raya where I am. I know she likes to watch, but I need to do this alone.”
He nodded and walked away. I threw my cigarette over the wall and jumped down. The gravel crunched beneath my boots with each step towards a moment I had waited for my entire life.
The faces of my family flashed through my mind. My da’s words: May he rise up and send you back to the hell you came from.
All the cells were empty except for one. The cold air and damp stone reminded me of the bunker, but this place was tainted by the stench of blood, decay and piss. My boots sounded loudly with each slow step. I took my time; there was no need to rush.
The Buccini soldier outside his cell unlocked it when he saw me coming and pushed the door open wide.
I stopped at the threshold, staring at the battered, bloody and bruised body hanging from chains around his wrists.
His head dangled to his chest, and what was left of the signature three-piece suit was in shreds.
He was barefoot, and his broken toes barely scraped the floor.
“You can go,” I said to the soldier, then stepped inside. The sound of my voice made McKenna try to lift his head. I grabbed a metal chair from the corner, dragged it a few metres away from him, and took a seat.
I stared. I took him in, one injury at a time.
His swollen face was a mess. One eye sealed shut, the other bloodshot and glassy.
Some of his teeth were missing, and his cheeks were sliced with deep cuts and reopened wounds.
I didn’t need to guess who gave him those.
The fingers he had left were bent unnaturally in all different directions, and something had been done to his knees that had made them triple in size.
His skin was branded with burns, cuts and bruises.
Basically, he was nothing more than a broken bag of meat, swinging from a chain.
He finally found enough strength to rest his head against one of his biceps and look me in the eyes. He gave me a revolting, bloodstained smile.
And I felt… nothing. I expected more. Seeing the man who had tormented, abused and manipulated me for nearly my entire life reduced to this… was anticlimactic at best.
I braced my elbows on my knees and leaned closer to him. I stared.
“Monster.” A wet rasp bubbled from his lips. “I was startin’ to think you weren’t comin’.”
I said nothing.
“How the tables have turned, my boy. Look at you, sittin’ there. Free. Me hangin’ here, waitin’ to die. Does it feel like you always imagined it would?”
When I didn’t respond, he chuckled, which dissolved into a wheezy cough. “It doesn’t, does it? You want to know why? Because she made you soft.”
Silence.
His one functioning eye narrowed as he sneered. “She’s made you pathetic. And she’ll grow bored of you now, you watch. You’re not the excitin’ monster she wanted to tame any more. She’ll realise no amount of love can fix a creature like you. You’re just broken.”
I held his gaze, refusing to react to a single taunt. All he had left were his vicious words. He knew he would never leave this cell alive. Surviving was never the goal. It was to make me more broken than when I walked in. One last win. One last masterpiece of manipulation.
“How many failures can a man live with, Monster?” he asked, his hands twitching above his head, shackled. “Hmm. Your mam. Your da. Roisin. Connor. You’d even have failed Soraya if her fiancé hadn’t come to her rescue.”
My jaw clenched, but I refused to let his words sink beneath my skin.
“Does she blame you, do you think… or herself?” He smirked. “For Giovanni.” He tilted his head towards the other bicep. “You want to know why I shot him?”
Give. Him. Nothing.
“She might eventually forgive herself for fallin’ in love with you and for bringin’ me to her door. But you…” He shook his head. “You will never forgive yourself. Giovanni died because she let you into her life.”
My heart thundered against my ribs, and I hated it.
That was the wound. He knew. Years of breaking my bones, starvation, or hours in my father’s grave never hurt me as much as the knowledge that I could have prevented someone’s death.
That the weight of it landed on my shoulders, every damn time.
If I’d never come to Italy, Soraya would still have her brother.
He watched me and waited for it to eat me alive.
I leaned back in the chair and folded my arms. No. Fuck his manipulation. He was wrong. Raya may have made me softer, but she made me stronger, too. Strong enough to sit here and recognise this for what it was. His bullshit.
When I didn’t react again, I saw the first flicker of confusion cross his mangled face. A tiny crack in his bravado.
His sneer dropped. “You’d be nothin’ without me,” he rasped.
“Dead, along with the rest of your family. I built you to my own design. Everythin’ you are is because of what I made you.
I’ve taught you everythin’. Every skill, every scar, every fucked-up thought in your head belongs to me.
Remember that the next time she tells you she loves you. ”
I pulled a knife from my boot and a needle and thread from my pocket, balancing each on my knee. He frowned, his eyes darting between them.
“Choose.”
The first word I said since entering the cell landed exactly as I wanted it to. With recognition. He wasn’t in control of the games anymore. I was.
He swallowed. “Stop being a pussy and kill—“
“Choose.”
He huffed through his broken nose. “Needle.”
I stood up. I walked the short distance to him and stared into his eyes.
“Do you know what your problem has always been, McKenna? Apart from bein’ a cowardly cunt?”
He smiled. “Tell me.”
“You never knew when to shut your fuckin’ mouth.”
I caught his lips, pinched them together, and drove the needle through the corner. His scream was muffled, his body thrashing against the chains as I began to sew his mouth shut agonisingly slow.
“You didn’t teach me everythin’,” I said, working the needle through his flesh slowly. “My mam taught me to cross-stitch, not you.”
When I’d finished, I stepped back and admired my work. He’d lost the only power he had left, sealed behind twelve neat stitches.
I smiled.
“I reckon Da would want me to send you back to hell in pieces. What d’ya think, Sean?”
Incoherent sounds vibrated from behind his sealed mouth. I turned and dragged six wooden trunks into place, leaving them open in front of him. Whenever I’d take a life, I’d try to make it as swift as possible, but not today. Today, I was going to take my motherfucking time.
“First, I’ll skin you alive and put it all in here,” I said, pointing to a trunk with my knife.
“Then muscles.” I pointed to the next and continued along the row.
“Organs. Bones. Cartilage.” I stopped behind the last one and looked at him.
“And this one is for your head. You always liked a good beheadin’. ”
His single eye stretched wide. The stench of fear from a panicked man filled the air.
I closed my eyes and breathed in. It smelled fucking fantastic.