They both bark out laughs. My head hangs as I try to just breathe. I try to swallow, but the blood and mucus stick in my throat, and I try to spit it out to clear it. I try to blow out of my nose, and it stings, but I manage to clear it as snot and blood trail over my lips, clotting and coating my face as it drips onto my chest. I pant and hang my head.
They’re gonna kill me, and Bellino won’t care. I’ve never been a proper husband to him; I’ve never asked him anything of substance. I’ve just closed myself off from him and just cohabited. He will just move on and get another husband. No one knows I’m here. No one cares about me. I’ve never been wanted or even liked by anyone. Darius is only my friend because we dormed together. But now he’ll just think I’m home with Bellino. I shake my head.
“Just end it,” I whisper. “Just get rid of me.”
Ricardo turns to look at me. “Ahhh, poor little bastard. Do you want to die? Does no one care?”
“No one loves him. How tragic,” Luciano laughs.
“Even Father doesn’t want you, and your slut of a sister hates you as you stole her fucking husband, and that thing you call a mother, that walking bag of fucking chlamydia, is nothing more than a disease. She thought she could trap our father with you runts, but he wants nothing to do with either of you.”
Another slap rings across my cheek. “You’re a fucking disgrace. You’ll never be a De Luca! You won’t even be a Ricci after we’ve finished with you. You fucking cunt. Trying to steal our legacy.”
The blows start raining down on me. One hits me in the face, the other in the ribs. I’m kicked and punched while I’m tied to the chair. I close my eyes, gasp as I try to breathe. I pass out only to be hit again and scream as I wake. It feels like it goes on forever, like I might die. I never wanted this. I never wanted to be a De Luca. I never wanted to be a Ricci. I never wanted any of this. We have our mum’s name, so I’m not even linked with my father. I just wanted to be me. I just want to be away from here. I just want…
There’s a distant roar. Screeching and a high-pitched noise like metal tearing at something, my captors, Ricardo and Luciano, freeze. I try to focus. I try to see what’s happening, but I can’t.
“Where the fuck is my husband?”
I do know that voice, though, even though he doesn’t speak much. When he does, it’s distinctive, and in this moment of everything I’m so unsure of, I know he came for me.
Bellino
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I head to his car, the watch and phone I bought him tossed on the front seat, clearly visible from the outside. He’s ditched me, found a way to disappear. I got too complacent. I thought he had accepted his fate. But now this, he clearly found a way out. I punch the car. Scream into the sky and vow to find him and drag him back to my side. He’s gone. I can’t believe I can’t find him anywhere. He’s just vanished.
My guy, who was trailing him, turned up dead. A knife to the back of the neck in an alleyway miles away from campus. My fists clench at my side while I try to calm my resolve. He couldn’t have done that, I think as I wait for the images to load onto the screen of the security camera in the university campus office. The image flickers to life. He steps out of the university double doors, someone shouts to him from over the other side of the quad, and he waves and jogs towards them.
“Follow him,” I bark, pointing at the screen. The security guard flinches as he scans from one camera to the next. I see him reach his roommate, they talk and laugh for a few minutes, and then they separate and head in different directions. He walks back across the quad. We follow him through the green as he heads towards the campus exit. We lose sight of him, but then he’s never picked up on the next camera. He just vanishes.
“Where’s that?”
“It’s the edge of campus, there’s a car park and then the main gates, there’s a security office near the gate and an alleyway with the bins in.”
I take off, kicking the door open and storming through the grounds, following the trail he’d last taken. When I reach the alleyway. I take a breath before I calm myself, looking around the area, the scuff marks on the ground, a spilt coffee cup, the same kind he had in his hand as he wandered towards his car. I scan around the alley. He’s been gone for hours. He never came home. I checked the cameras, and he never arrived back at the car. But a hooded figure opened the car with the keys and tossed the phone and watch inside, locking the car back up after.
I’ve been trying to give him some space. A little time to come to terms with his new life. His new role as my husband, my partner. But I knew something was wrong. I know his routine. I know who he sees and where he goes, and this, this is unlike him. I take a deep breath and close my eyes while I think. My hands balled into fists at my side while I try and focus.
I make my way into the alleyway, the scuff marks on the floor. There’s a cloth next to the bin, and I bend down and pick it up. There’s a vague trace of chloroform on it, and I snarl as I glare down at the floor. Think fucking think. That’s when it catches my eye. My blood boils. The cigar butt that’s kicked to the edge of the alley.
There’s only one cunt I know who smokes these. Luciano De Luca. Leonardo’s oldest half-brother. I spin on my heel and take off running to my car. I squeal out of the car park and wheelspin down the street.
I drive like a bat out of hell, but I’m worse; the harbinger of hell has nothing on me. The red mist descends; it’s never been this bad. I normally have some control. Some resemblance to a human. But now, in this second, there’s nothing human left. I spin into Enzo’s drive, slamming my brakes on and screeching to a halt. I throw the car into park and launch the door open, stepping out. I walk around to the back of the car and remove my jacket.
I crack my neck. I roll my sleeves up, and I open the trunk. I slide my guns into my holsters, and I take the tyre iron out and smirk. Heads are gonna fucking roll.
I climb the stairs and pause as I reach the door. I step back and kick out. The big, solid door flies open. I glare around the stark white marble floor, there are slight specks of blood glaring at me, taunting me and breaking my resolve. I grip the tyre iron tighter in my grasp as I scream into the house.
“Where the fuck is my husband?” I bellow as I storm inside. I scrape the tyre iron down the marble of the entranceway. The sound echoes around the walls, ricocheting from the ceilings, my gun in my other hand hangs loosely at my side, both like an extension of each hand. I step heavily, shoes thud as I stomp my way inside. I kick the door in on every single room I get to, checking inside before going to the next. And the next. I leave no door left uncheck as I yell for my husband. I will fucking kill them when I find them. They want to hope he’s still alive, otherwise I will gladly tear them to little pieces while they’re still breathing.
The door splinters as I kick it in and walk into the kitchen. There’s a basement door next to the pantry. I yank the pantry door open, checking inside before I kick the basement door in.
“We’ll fucking shoot him if you come down here, Bellino.”
“Which one of you pussies is gonna fucking die first?” I scream down the stairs, barely keeping a hold of my resolve.
“If you lay a finger on either of us, I will shoot him in the fucking face.”
