My Mafia Madness 3

Chapter 23 - You Will Suffer

Dante stood before his restrained father, looming over him like a hungry vulture ready to pick the meat from its helpless prey.

Hungry for blood…

The time had finally come for dear old dad to pay for his treasonous crimes against Dante and Alexa. And the Reaper knew exactly how he planned to do it.

Right now, Diego was tied down to a large wooden table, laying on his back and grunting as he struggled pointlessly against his restraints.

His shirt had been removed, revealing the bare skin of both his chest and stomach.

“What the f**k is this, Dante?” Diego demanded angrily.

“I knew you were crazy, but this…”

Ignoring him completely, Dante turned to look at Nicola as he pushed a small cart over towards him.

On top of it were six different knives, each laid out neatly in a row and gleaming in the fluorescent light.

“You need anything else, boss?” the underboss queried, lifting an eyebrow in intrigue as he took a step back to allow the Don to go about his work.

“No… you can go.” Dante gave his reply void of emotion or feeling.

Dante’s eyes never left his father, not even as he replied to Nicola’s question.

He was entirely focused on the task at hand…

Death by 1,000 cuts… but with a twist.

It was an oldie, but a goodie for a reason.

This method of torture, although agonisingly slow, was thought to be one of the most agonising ways for one to die.

But this one had an unfortunate twist… one that would make things much more exciting.

“Get these f*****g ropes off me!”

Diego snarled directly at his son; his emerald eyes narrowed with spite as he watched Dante slowly approach and stand over him.

“You don’t have the balls to do this to me, Dante. I am still your father!”

A haunting grin suddenly formed and grew wide across the Reaper’s face as he took on this new challenge set by his estranged father.

He would gladly prove him wrong.

“I’ve organised a little game for us to play together this evening.” the Reaper announced, oozing confidence as he stood tall and proud.

“f**k your games!” Diego spat.

“Wow, you kissed my mother with that mouth?”

Dante taunted his father with a smirk, smacking Diego softly on the side of his face in a playful manner as he took a stepped back.

“Here’s how the game works. I have with me here six different knives, as you can see…” he gestured with a wave of his hand over knives displayed on the cart beside him.

Diego eyed the knives for a moment as Dante went on explaining.

“Now, the blade of each knife has been coated with a unique toxin and each toxin will do different things. You will receive one thousand cuts this evening for your crimes against our family. However, there is a catch to my little game…”

Dante paused, before going on.

“I will allow you to choose which knife I use to inflict all one thousand cuts. You must give me a number between one and six for the knife that you have chosen.” he finally announced.

“What?”

Diego queried in confusion.

“I can… choose?”

Nodding his head once, Dante spoke his response firmly.

“Correct.”

But this only confused Diego, who narrowed his eyes as he peered directly at the knives, as if searching for a hidden clue. There had to be a catch here.

With Dante Romano, there always was.

“And if I refuse?” Diego queried, purely out of curiosity in the moment.

Dante’s expression suddenly turned ice-cold, and his eyes instantly darkened several shades.

“Then I will use all six knives to skin you alive… slowly... painfully…”

Diego wasn’t sure which was the better option. Receiving one thousand cuts or being skinned alive.

Neither were preferable, of course. But he had little choice in the matter.

The only thing he did have a choice in was which of the six knives would be used to inflict the cuts.

But which one; Diego needed to think smart right now and the clock was ticking.

Examining the knives for a moment in silence, the older Romano focused in on the second from the left. The one with the curved handle.

It was a smaller one, and Diego felt confident with that, believing that a smaller blade would inflict smaller cuts.

Cuts that he might somehow be able to endure in order to possibly survive this ordeal.

It was a sound plan, given the few options he had right now.

“Time’s up...”

Dante reminded, tapping his watch impatiently.

“Choose!”

Swallowing away his nerves, Diego gave his reply.

“The smaller one.”

The older Romano spoke softly, almost with a defeated tone to his usually commanding voice and Dante smirked at this with great satisfaction.

“Typical. Trust a coward like you to make such a choice...” the Reaper remarked, reaching for the smaller curved blade and picking it up in his hand.

“You’ve hardly given me many other options!” his father shot back at him snidely.

“Just get this over with. Stop wasting my time.”

But it immediately worried him when his son suddenly began to laugh, a full-bellied laugh, deep and terrifying in nature.

The Don then shook his head from side to side as he spoke his next haunting words to Diego.

“Oh no… no, no, no… I don’t intend on killing you quickly, padre carissimo.” (father dearest)

Diego’s emerald eyes widened only slightly as he stared Dante down.

The obvious stench of his growing fear mixed with sweat suddenly beginning to reek from where he lay, bound and completely at his son’s mercy.

He watched as the Reaper came to stand right over him in an intimidating-like fashion, knife in hand and with that crazed glint in his eye.

“I promise that I will do everything within my power to ensure your death lasts as long as I possible. In fact, I will see to it personally that you remain alive until the very moment I have inflicted that one-thousandth cut…”

Dante spoke with pure hatred in his eyes.

“Only then will you be granted the sweet release of death.”

Diego felt fear for the first time in so long, that if felt somewhat foreign to him.

This was his son speaking in such a vile way to him; the man he had created in one form or another.

His heart racing, his forehead sweating uncontrollably and the very real possibility that he may not make it through his intended torture had him fearing for the worst.

As he opened his mouth to try one last time to reason with his son, Dante lowered the knife’s blade down to rest upon the surface of his father’s bare chest, right above the pectoral muscle.

The Don then spoke with a sadistic grin.

“Now, try not to scream…”

With that, the Reaper pressed the blade into Diego’s skin, immediately drawing blood and slicing it across about two inches in length before lifting it up to reveal his first official cut.

The first of one-thousand.

Hissing in pain, Diego tried to mask his emotions by pursing his lips together. It was one cut. He had experienced many cuts throughout his lifetime in the past.

So he should be able to manage that sort of pain…

Right?

But at that moment, the sinister twist had suddenly revealed itself.

Seconds after the knife’s blade had pierced through Diego’s skin, a burning wave of fiery pain emanated outwards from the fresh knife wound, making it feel as if his skin was on fire!

The burning pain was worse than anything he had ever experienced and with every second that passed, it felt worse and worse.

“AHHH, f**k!”

It didn’t take long, only a matter of seconds before Diego was screaming out in terrible agony, his eyes closed tightly together as he fought to control the unspeakable pain.

But it appeared useless.

“I thought I said don’t scream.” Dante spoke sarcastically with a large grin spread wide across his handsome face.

“f**k! It f*****g burns!” Diego spat angrily.

“Dante, what the f**k did you do to me?”

Lifting the blade up and taking a look at it, Dante soon gave another deeply demonic chuckle as he went on to confidently gloat.

And what he would say next would ultimately seal his father’s fate, destroying all remaining hope for the former Don of getting out of this predicament alive.

“You really thought that I’d make it this experience easy for you, padre? After everything you put my Alexa through? After trying to KILL HER?”

The Reaper shouted the last two words, showing just how much rage he was fighting to hold back right now.

His eyes were practically glowing as they fixated on his pathetic captive.

A man he felt disgusted to call his flesh and blood.

“You see, I had all six blades coated with a powerful toxin so that no matter which one you chose, it would all lead to the same conclusion…” he lifted the knife in his hand and forced a smile.

“What the f**k is it?” Diego cried out, saliva spitting from between his lips as his brows furrowed inwards.

“It f*****g burns!”

“What else?”

Dante replied lifting his left brow proudly.

“Bullet Ant venom, of course.”

You could see within his father’s panicked expression just how well and truly f****d he was as he glanced up at his son in terror, his eyes wide with disbelief and his lips parted.

His chest heaved in and out with each of his panicked breaths as he tried to remain calm and in control of his unfortunate situation.

One he could not find a way out of.

And Diego knew that venom extremely well.

He too had used it many times to torture countless other victims into giving him information in the past.

But Diego had never before felt the sheer ferocity of the toxin for himself.

It was utterly unbearable!

A single cut had felt like he had been stabbed in the chest. And the burning never seemed to cease! It just kept on coming in non-stop waves and waves of fiery agony.

Then like lightning, the Reaper reached down with his free hand and grabbed a fistful of his father’s hair before pulling his head up to meet him eye to eye.

Dante’s glare was ultimately ferocious, his face contorted up into a vicious snarl as he spoke again.

“You will endure all one-thousand cuts I have to give you, do you understand?”

The merciless Reaper spoke through gritted teeth, fighting to hold back his inner demons from being unleashed so soon into their little game as he went on with his insidious promise.

“If you do happen to faint due to shock, I will wake you to resume our little game. And if your heart gives out, I have the equipment ready to have you revived. I will do whatever it takes to ensure that before you eventually die… you… truly… suffer!”

“Dante, please!” Diego attempted one last time to convince his eldest son to show mercy.

But Dante was no longer in control… now it was the ruthless Reaper who was at the wheel.

And mercy was a concept that he didn’t comprehend.

Placing the edge of the knife down against the skin on his father’s left arm, the Reaper spoke in a sadistically calm tone as he began to slowly slice the sharpened blade across his father’s skin, inflicting the second cut.

“Mi divertirò davvero a vederti morire urlando.” (I will truly enjoy watching you die screaming.) he purred proudly.

The sounds of his father’s screams echoed throughout the cell, bouncing from one wall to the next as Dante began counting with each incision that he made.

This was certainly going to be a long night...