Chapter 4: You're A Monster
1180 Words
[Sloane's POV]
My eyes flickered open to the dark and unfamiliar room. For a moment, I didn't move. I just lay there letting my pulse settle, while my body remembered things my mind hadn't caught up to yet.
He'd taken me.
I sat up too fast, the memory landing all at once. I stood up quickly before I finished thinking and reached for the door. Thank goodness it wasn't locked.
The hallway outside was lined with portraits of men who all wore the same flat, unbothered stare…. generations of Delvecchios watching me try to find my way out of their house like they already knew I wouldn't get far. I'd barely made it past the third one when I heard it.
A scream.
It was distant, ragged, cutting through the silence like a blade dragged across glass.
Every instinct told me to go the other way. I didn't listen. I followed it down a narrow corridor, down a flight of stone steps that hadn't seen a decorator's hand in decades, until a thin red light spilled out from beneath a door at the end. I told myself I'd stop there.
The room was washed in red….some kind of bulb overhead, casting everything in the color of a wound. A man was on the floor, wrists zip-tied behind him, his shirt soaked through with sweat and blood. Two men in dark suits stood over him, and for a moment I thought they were simply watching.
Then I saw him.
Antonio.
He stood apart from them, sleeves rolled, black gloves stretched tight over his hands, studying the man on the floor the way someone studies a math problem that's taking too long to solve.
"One more time," he said, almost gently, like he was speaking to someone he liked. "Who sent you?"
The man on the floor spat blood onto the tile. "I told you everything I know pl….”
"You've wasted forty minutes of my time," he said, crouching in front of the man, "lying to me about a name that doesn't exist. I checked. There is no Marco Bellini in my organization, in my rival's organization, or in this city. So." He tilted his head. "Try again. Who sent you to follow me?”
"I told you…"
"You told me a bedtime story." He rose, crossed to a steel table I hadn't let myself look at, and picked up a pair of tongs, turning them once in the red light like he was admiring them. "One more time. After that, I stop asking, and we start removing things you'll miss."
The man's whole body was shaking. "Please……please, I have a family…”
"Then you should've thought of them before you decided to follow me and you should've been more careful not to get caught." He crouched again gripping the man's hand, forcing his fingers flat against the concrete.
"That was your last strike. I'm done asking, you're gonna feel pain in every way possible.” He pressed the tong between his fingers as he ripped it out. The sound that came next didn't belong in this world….high, raw, tearing out of the man's throat as Antonio worked.
I stumbled back a little, pressing both hands on my mouth to suppress my scream, it was too late that little gesture was what gave me away.
Antonio's head turned a fraction. Not startled. Aware.
"Check the door," he said, without raising his voice.
One of the suited men crossed the room in three strides and yanked it open before I could move. His hand closed around my arm and dragged me into the light.
Antonio looked up from where he crouched on the floor, the tongs still in his gloved hand, blood on the tile beside his shoes. For one fraction of a second, something flickered behind those charcoal eyes… surprise, maybe, that I'd found my way this far on my own. It was gone before I could be sure I'd seen it at all.
"Ms. Ashford," he said, like we were meeting in a hallway and not over a man bleeding out on the floor.
"You should be asleep," he said, like I'd interrupted dinner instead of a man's nails being removed one by one.
"You're a monster." I said giving him a disgusting look, but he didn't mind, like he was enjoying every bit of it.
"You keep saying that like it's new information." He stripped off one glove, finger by finger, completely unhurried. "It isn't going to land any harder the fifth time.”
"Antonio, please…" the man on the floor sobbed.
He didn't look at him.
"Continue," he said to the two men, like he was telling a waiter to bring the next course. Then his hand closed around my wrist…not rough, exactly, but absolute, the kind of grip that didn't leave room for argument…and he pulled me out of the room as the screaming started again behind us.
He didn't let go until we reached the living room. Dark wood, low lighting, a fire already lit like he'd know he'd be bringing me here eventually. He crossed to a desk, pulled out a folder, and set it on the table between us with a sound like a door closing.
“Sign it.”
I picked it up and laughed at the first page. I could see the surprise in his eyes.
“A marriage contract?!” I said through my laughter. “You expect me to sign this, after what you just did to that man?” I continued talking as the laughter died in my throat, replaced by disgust.
"Sign it now, refuse, and we will find out how creative I can get with the alternative."
"You tortured a man in your basement ten minutes ago. Forgive me if I don't trust your idea of alternatives."
"It's not torture." Something flickered behind his eyes…. there and gone, too fast to name. "It's leverage. I'd have thought your father's debts taught you the difference."
"I will never marry you."
"You say that like it's a negotiation." He studied me, head tilted, the way he might study an animal that hadn't yet understood the bars were real. "It was never a negotiation, Sloane. I only offered you the paperwork as a courtesy. I can withdraw the courtesy just as easily."
"Then withdraw it. I don't care."
"You will." He turned toward the hall, voice flat. "Enzo."
A man appeared almost instantly… probably the same age as Antonio, lighter on his feet, the only person in this house who looked like he still remembered how to smile. He handed Antonio an iPad without a word, like this had been arranged before I even woke up.
He turned the screen toward me.
The figure was bound in a chair, expression weak. I recognized the figure immediately. I knew that face my entire life.
"Mrs…. Hathaway…?" The name came out of me broken in half. I was on my feet before I'd decided to stand.
"W…What… did you… do to her?" My voice was low and cracking at the edges.
- Writer
