Chapter 31 Sandro #2
The air grows colder and damp once more as it comes to life with the smell of mildew and fear.
The stairs narrow, the walls scraping against my elbows and shoulders if I sway even the slightest bit off track.
The light filtering through my hood dies until the only thing is the sound of my breathing and the hard slap of my captors’ boots.
The shriek of metallic hinges tells me I’m being put into a cell, where they shove me down onto the cold, hard floor. Chains rattle heavily. Then strong iron closes around my wrists. And a moment later, the bindings up to my elbows slacken, allowing circulation to flow through my arms once more.
Only then is my hood removed, the gag roughly shoved from my mouth, and as I blink, disoriented but trying to take in my surroundings, the man beside me quickly retreats, as if frightened of what I might do.
I can see why when I glance down. Both my wrists are chained to the wall behind me but I at least have enough freedom to bring them in front of me as long as I have my back against the wall. Too bad everyone’s out of reach now.
So, instead, I look around.
The small space is hewn from rock and mortar.
The iron bars that serve as two sides of my cage look new—like they’ve only been added in recent months.
But the chains that hang from the ceiling beyond look like they’ve been there for a while.
And the dark stains that surround the drain beneath them would say they’ve seen their fair share of use.
A thin stream of water drips from somewhere above. The iron on my wrists is heavy, a foreign weight that settles like lead in my stomach.
Footsteps echo down the corridor and then stop. A shadow pools in the doorway as Kenji stands there, framed by torches, his suit is smeared with dust now, as if he’d been out in the courtyard, watching us fall apart. He looks entirely too serene for my liking.
“Poor, Sandro. Abandoned by your brothers. I have to admit, they seemed a bit too willing to leave you behind,” he says, strolling into the room to stop in front of my cell as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
My arms ache beneath the manacles, where the cable rubbed my skin raw.
But I ignore the discomfort as I lunge upward off the floor, straining to get at Kenji.
I thrash and jerk, the metal groaning, but it holds fast to the rock, so all I can do is glare at my mortal enemy, willing him to drop dead of his own accord.
My fingers curl and find nothing but the cold of my own blood from where one of the iron cuffs has bitten into my flesh.
I snarl—an animal sound, not a word—and Kenji chuckles.
“You really thought you could take my house in the middle of the night?” he taunts, rounding the open door of the cell to step inside with me.
“How foolish. How theatrical. You took a gamble and paid in men.” His voice is clinical now, like a doctor reading a chart.
“And best of all,” he adds, pausing to let the words roll through the cell like a sacrament, “you left your own house empty. Left your doors unattended. Your wife unprotected.”
My lungs seize with cold panic, sharp terror sliding in under all the other emotions.
Evi—my Evi—she’s at our home with only minimal guards, vulnerable because of the strike we pulled that required nearly all our forces.
The thought is shrapnel. I thrash, desperate, blind with the image of her at my house, alone and frightened as the Yakuza breach our defenses once more.
Please, let Raf have made it home in time.
But if he had, I doubt Kenji would sound so proud. And my heart stutters as my blood turns to ice. I stumble backwards, collapsing to the ground as my knees give out. All I can hear over the roar in my ears is the clack of Kenji’s shoes as he draws closer.
He leans forward, face close, breath a fume of incense and old whiskey. “You are the kind of men who trade everything for revenge,” he says. “So dependable in your fury. So easily manipulated. But I wonder, what lengths might you go to in order to save your pretty little bride.”
I lunge again, metal screeching as my hands come within a foot of Kenji’s throat before I reach the end of my chains and stop with an agonizing jolt. “Evi,” I croak, my throat hoarse with rage. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”
Kenji’s smile is an invitation to madness. “Patience,” he says almost kindly. “All in good time.” Then he turns and pads out, his suit whispering like silk on stone, leaving me in my dank, cold cell.
The door clangs shut behind him, and as his footsteps recede, I’m trapped with the dripping water marking time like a countdown.
Left alone, I can only breathe hot and ragged and imagine everything that might be happening out there.
I turn to the wall, gripping one chain with both hands and putting all my muscle and weight into loosening the bolts.
But it doesn’t budge. With a huff of frustration, I try to stand tall and meet the stone face of the world.
But suddenly, I feel very small—a man tied to the earth while his home is a door blown open to the wolves—and my forehead meets the cold rock as I brace against it in defeat.
All I can think about is her. Evi. I hate that I’m here, bound, while somewhere out there, she could be in danger.
The dread that Kenji planted in his last words takes root and grows.
I’m failing everyone in my world who matters.
First Raf at the ascension ceremony, now Evi after I overcompensated for my shortcomings and drove her away.
I never should have said what I did. Yes, I let Evi distract me. But she is mine to cherish and protect. And I pushed her away because I didn’t trust myself around her. I left her vulnerable in my desperation to prove that my feelings for her don’t make me weak.
And now something terrible could have happened to her. Because of me.