Angelo Cavetti was standing in the doorway. "Were you expecting someone different?"
Two of Cavetti's goons were standing behind him and looked loaded. I stood up and prepared myself for a fight. "What do you want?"
It was only at that point that I realized Angelo's brows were pointing a little deeper towards his nose than evenIhad seen them before. Something or someone had pissed him off, and he was prepared to take it out on me.
"I hope you've enjoyed your little vacation, Bonifacio. It's over now."
He snapped two of his ring-adorned fingers and his cronies stomped around him and made their way towards me. I kept my arms down by my side until they were close enough to me, and then I sprung into action. My left side was still weak, and I tripped as I lunged forward, but I didn't let it throw me off. I curled my arms around one of the goons' waists and took him down to the ground. I socked him across the face once and then again, feeling proud when the man's head went limp.
With lightning speed, I got to my feet and leaped across the bed, and pulled my fists up to defend myself. The goon I hadn't punched looked at Angelo, but the Cavetti patriarch only offered an amused smile like a Roman emperor overlooking a fight in the coliseum. He nodded off towards me and the man approached, looking fearful - almost apologetic. For me or for himself, I wasn't sure, but he advanced regardless and earned himself a swift kick to the groin. He lurched to the side but recovered quickly and threw a punch across my face. Another fist swung towards me, but I caught it in my own, shoving it back at him, striking him in the nose once, twice, three times.
His face began to bleed, but a pleading look towards Angelo was only met with pursed lips and a narrowed, uncaring gaze. He tipped his head in my direction and the goon approached once again. Unfortunately for him, I had him clocked now, and wasn't afraid to stomp forward and initiate. We both pulled up our fists and it turned into a proper fight. We exchanged blows across the face and torso, but I eventually got the best of him and knocked him to the ground. Setting my knee in his chest, I crouched down over him and pulled my first back behind my head, prepared to strike.
Just as I was about to swing down, there was a familiar click in my ear. I froze as Angelo set the barrel of his gun right at the side of my head. "You don't want to meet the same fate your brother did, do you, Giorgio?"
He flicked his gun backward as I glared up at him, so I stood up off of his useless thug and backed up. Both goons gathered themselves, wearing the scars of our battles, and glowered at me with newfound hatred.
It was all part of Angelo's sick games.
Send them into a battle he knew they couldn't win - not fairly anyway - so that when he came to their rescue, it wasmethey hated, not him. Moments ago, Angelo had urged his man on, even though the guy’s begging gaze was ignored, yet somehow he made me the enemy.
If nothing else, it was impressive.
"I'm here to bring you back to your room," Angelo said. "You've been away for too long. Clearly, you've regained too much of your strength." Had that been his goal? To see how much of my power I'd regained so he knew exactly how to break me - how to do it permanently? "Seize him."
Knowing Angelo wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet through my brain, I didn't resist his thugs the second time. They zip-tied my wrists behind my back so tight it felt like my blood circulation was going to be cut off, and one of them rammed a foot into the back of my leg, knocking me down to my knees.
I looked up at Angelo and he gave me an evil smirk. "Let's go play, shall we?"
"What about the deal you made with Romeo?" I asked, recalling the conversation they'd had right before I was removed from the dungeon. "You're breaking the rules."
Angelo bent down, towering over me, and looked right into my eyes. He was devoid of any feeling other than sick, demonic loathing. "I make the rules, how can I break them?" and he brought the back of his gun down across my face, knocking me unconscious.
When I came to under a splash of water over my face, I was back in the dungeon that still haunted my nightmares. The cement walls felt like they were closing in on me already, and my throat refused to let air through. My arms were, once again, strung up into shackles and I hung with my feet barely grazing the floor. Fluorescent lights flickered above me and a damp, mildew smell filled my nose and made my stomach sick.
Angelo's gravelly chuckle filled the room. "You know, it's really dangerous to be sleeping at a time like this." A sharp pain cracked across my left side as Angelo, I could only guess, beat me with a metal bat. Maybe it was all in my mind, but I could have sworn I heard my ribs crack. "You don't want to miss the fun, do you?" There was breathing in the room that let me know the goons were hanging around at the back of the room as well, but Angelo had clearly asked them for space.
He walked around to my front so that he was looking at me and slammed the bat into my stomach. I would have screamed out, but a gag had been shoved into my mouth to prevent me from doing so. Angelo laughed at my struggle and swung back before hitting me right across my knees. Again, I felt like I could hear them crunch as the bat made contact, but the pain that showed on my face only seemed to spur Angelo on.
Evidently bored with the bat, he set it down and walked over to the newest addition to the cement cell, a metal table with various instruments of torture. He leaned the bat against it and then scanned the table for what he’d use next. The iron he’d nearly used on my face right before I was saved last time was there, along with the whip that had torn my back to shreds along with some of Angelo’s own children, but they didn’t seem to be the items that attracted his interest.
With a poisonous grin creeping along his cheek, he set his hands down on the electric prod. He’d used it a few times before, but I was still dripping wet from the bucket of water he’d just used to wake me up. He lifted it up off the table and turned it on. He turned it up to the max electrocution level, so quickly, it crackled with energy. He walked over to me and brought the prod up in front of my face. It hissed as he dragged it down and then he set it against my neck. My entire body jolted and shook under the prod. My mouth clenched around the gag and I groaned out. If it had been a few inches over, it would have been at a pressure point that might have knocked me out, but it was almost as if Angelo knew that.
I did the best I could to hang onto consciousness, but then he moved the prod to my chest and stabbed me there. My arms, my stomach, my legs, my hands. Anywhere he could shock me, he did, and when my body started to dry up, he splashed more water over me and shocked me more. It was so bad that my body was shaking even when he wasn’t shocking me, or jolting just as he brought it near me. My eyes were blurring with tears, my nose was burning as if poison had been shoved directly up it.
I was nearing the end.
Each time my muscles seized with electrical energy, it brought me closer and closer to the brink of death. Over the course of the next few hours, Angelo exercised every form of torture he could imagine. He used vice grips to pull my skin and crack my bones, he used the whip to lash against my stomach and back before tossing lemon juice over the open wounds and shocking me in the same spots. Soon, the only reason I was up at all was that the shackles were holding me there. I was limp and my arms were getting closer and closer to breaking under the strain of holding up my body which wouldn’t hold itself up anymore.
And then he picked up a gun.
He stomped over to me and yanked the gag out of my mouth, rattling my teeth as he did it. His fingers dug into my jaw and dragged it down so he could set the barrel of the gun within my mouth.
“Well, this has been fun,” Angelo said. “I’ll need to find a new toy now that you and your brother are both gone, but…” A grin snaked across his face. “I still have your sisters after all.”
He cocked the gun, and I closed my eyes, thinking of all the things I wished I could have done. Been with Natalia one last time. Made it clear to her that my feelings for her were stronger than just friendship. Given each of my sisters a final hug and begged them to remain strong. Maybe if I could have spoken with one of the other Cavettis, Romeo, Marcello, or maybe even Savio whom Natalia claimed wasn’t as much of a monster as the others, I might have been able to change things.
A loud bang made me jump. My eyes shifted in every direction, wondering how I was still living, or maybe if I’d died and been condemned to hell, but then I focused on Angelo. His gun was still shoved down my throat, but his attention had been drawn over his shoulder. I followed his gaze to the door on the opposite wall, which had been thrown open, and Romeo was standing in the doorframe.
