I’ve endured so much torture that everything hurts. Not just my cracked skin or the open wounds, but my insides. My organs. My bones. I feel like I’ve been pulled through the wringer, and that’s not putting it lightly.
Still, I have not given them a single clue on the whereabouts of Harper. Not that I would know, as they probably escaped the mansion by now. It’s either the safe house or someplace else if it was overrun.
But I know in my heart she’s safe. Ricardo would’ve taken care of that, and that’s all that matters in the end. At least I’ll die for something that’s worth it all.
What are you talking about, Marcello? You want to see Harper again!
My eyes burst open at the thought. I must not give up. Harper wouldn’t want me to. She needs me. Our baby needs us.
With renewed energy, I wake up Claudio, who’s been in a deep slumber ever since the guard finally stopped beating us and left us alone. “Hey. Psst. Claudio. You awake?”
“Hmm … what do you want, Marcello?” he murmurs, clearly out of it.
“Can you do something when he comes back?”
“Like what?” He coughs loudly. It doesn’t sound good at all.
We’re running out of options. “I don’t know. Anything.”
“Anything …?” he repeats. He sounds like he’s about to pass out. Maybe I should ask for help. It could be the one thing I need to act out my plan. A flimsy plan, but a plan nonetheless.
“Guard! GUARD!” I yell, looking at the camera. “He needs water! Bring some water, or he’ll die! You don’t want either of us to die, believe me. Molly will kill you if she finds out!”
I wait and wait, sweat pooling on the small of my back. This has to work. It just has to. “GUARD!”
After a few more yells, the guard finally bursts through the door. “What the fuck are you yelling about?!”
“He’s lost consciousness. He needs water,” I say, nodding at Claudio, who doesn’t even respond.
The guard turns his back to me and goes to his knees in front of Claudio, inspecting him. This is my only chance.
I lean forward as far as I can while making as little noise as possible, straining the muscles in my arms, pushing myself to the limit. And with the last bit of energy I have left, I jump and wrap my legs around the guard’s neck.
“ARGH!” he roars as I squeeze as tight as I can. “FFFF—”
He can’t even tell me to fuck off. That’s how much I’m strangling him.
He punches my legs, but I’ve endured far worse pain than that. Not even as he digs his fingernails into my skin and claws and rakes at me do I give up. After a few seconds, his strength is wiped out, and his body flops down to the floor.
“Fucking deserved that,” I say, spitting on him for good measure. “Claudio, wake up.”
“Hmmrr …” Claudio murmurs.
“CLAUDIO!”
His eyes finally burst open, and he shakes his head like he was dreaming of some amazing sex with one or a few beautiful women, and the sight makes me shake my head.
“What, what?” he mutters.
“Grab his key,” I say, nodding at the keys dangling from the guard’s waistband.
Claudio’s eyes widen. “Whoa, did you do this—?”
“Ask questions later.”
“Right.”
He crawls up from the floor and quickly fetches the keys, first unlocking his own feet that were bound to the floor before getting up to help me. When I’m finally released from my constraints, I rub my wrists and do some muscle exercises on my shoulders which have been locked in the wrong place for too long.
“Good call, sir,” Claudio says, swallowing. “But I don’t know if we can make it out with just the two of us and no weapons.”
“We should at least try,” I reply, and I look around to see if I can find anything to defend myself with, but all we have are the chains still hooked to the wall. I grab one of them and tug hard, but no matter what I do, it won’t come off.
I sigh out loud. “Prepare for using a little muscle, mi consigliere.”
Claudio balls his fists. “Got it.”
“What the fuck is happening here?!” I can hear the guard yelling up ahead.
“Incoming,” I hiss at Claudio.
Within seconds, another one bursts through the door, and I dropkick him right away. Of course, the second I do, more of them come pouring in from the hallway up ahead. Someone must’ve been watching us through the monitor and sent a signal that we were trying to escape.
But I’m not giving up that easily.
“C’mon then!” I growl, beckoning one. “Bring it!”
He charges me head-on, enraged by my words, but I dodge him right before he slams into me, and he rams straight into the wall. They might be with many, but they’re not smart, and I know just how to use that against them.
Another one comes in, but Claudio incapacitates him with one quick jab in the throat. I fend off the next one, using a punch to the stomach and a knee in the jaw. One by one, they all fall. But more keep pouring in like an endless stream, and the more I fight, the more I’m beginning to lose what little energy I had left to fend off our attackers. And we’re not a single step closer to any exit if we can even find one.
“How many more of you are there?” Claudio growls after punching down another one.
“As many as it takes to make you kneel.”
The shrewd voice up ahead makes my skin crawl.
“Molly,” I say through gritted teeth as she steps into the hallway, blocking the only exit from this hellhole.
“A little birdie told me you were trying to escape,” she says, flicking her finger back and forth. “Bad little dog.”
“Come here and fight me, you witch!” I bark.
Claudio steps in front of me. “You want him? You gotta go through me.”
She clacks her long fingernails together, throwing a terrible smirk at us. “Hmm … I think I will.” She points at us, and yells, “Get ’em!”
More guards than ever before come pouring in, this time wearing a whole different outfit, causing me confusion. Were the guards we fought just now and before not hers? Because these men coming at us right now are definitely Irish, but the other men who we just beat up definitely do not belong to the same family.
Are we even in Irish territory? Or are we being kept elsewhere to keep Mario from finding out where I am?
Of course, Molly would do something so devious to try to shake off anyone who would come to rescue me.
“C’mon then,” Claudio growls, punching his way through the men who come near.
I throw some punches too. Even though every muscle in my body aches, I refuse to give in.
However, they just keep coming and coming, and eventually, one of them manages to grab my arm while another grabs me by the neck, and they pin me down to the floor. Soon, Claudio is captured too, and shackles are put around our wrists which are bound on our backs.
“Give up, Marcello,” Molly muses. “You can’t win this fight.”
“Like hell, I will!” I yell back. “Mark my words. You will die by my hands.”
The chilling look I give her even makes her smile disappear, and she sucks in a breath. “Take them away.”
We leave the hallway filled with bodies behind as the guards escort us to a new area. The place looks grimy, old, and dusty like no one’s been here in ages. There are a dozen doors with small peeping holes in them but no windows. When one of the doors is opened, and I’m shoved inside, I dig my heels into the floor. One of the guards picks me up, and they haul me inside, locking my wrists to a small bed in the corner.
“I’ll kill you all!” And I spit on their faces.
They don’t even flinch.
“Where the fuck is Claudio?” I bark, but there’s no response.
The two of them leave, slamming the door behind them.
“LEAVE CLAUDIO THE FUCK ALONE!” I yell because I know they’re probably going to bring him to another cell to try to separate us. They know what we’re capable of now when we’re together. Of course they don’t want me to try that again.
“Fuck!” I stomp my foot on the ground and bite away my rage.
The door opens up again, and Molly walks in only slightly, leaning against the doorjamb with her brow raised and a vicious smile on her face.
“There you are again, chained to a bed in this miserable little cell. Pity you couldn’t save your cellmate,” she muses.
“What are you going to do to him?” I growl, jerking my chains. “TELL ME!”
“Whatever I want, dear.” She touches her own skin right underneath her neck. “Maybe I’ll even enjoy myself a little before chopping him to pieces.”
“You’re a sick, twisted bitch, you know that?” I hiss.
“Not as sick as you for impregnating my little girl,” she spits back, and she approaches me only to slap me in the face hard. “But you will learn your lesson.”
“Oh … just like Frank did, right?” I quip.
Her nostrils flare, and her lip twitches. I know she wants to do something, but she won’t kill me herself. No, she wants to keep those manicured nails and that caked-on makeup intact to hold up the façade of being a perfect woman.
But I see the medusa underneath.
I snarl, “What an unlucky bastard to have met you.”
She hits me again, this time harder than before, raking her nails along my cheek until I bleed.
“You will pay for every inch of suffering you gave him,” she hisses. “In fact, I think I will keep you as a pet. Just like you did with Harper.” She eyes me up and down. “I will keep you alive only barely and make you watch me tear Harper’s baby to shreds until you beg me to kill you.”
I open my mouth to say something, but the sound of guards yelling up ahead stops me from doing so. Because there is one word I did not expect them to say.
Harper.
At first, I think it’s all in my head.
But then Molly turns her head to listen too. And within a hot second, she’s disappeared through the door.
Harper? Is she really here?
No, fuck, she can’t be. She wouldn’t endanger herself like that.
Or maybe she would … to save me.
Fuck!
