Deadly Vows - Chapter 38 (Patreon)

Luca

If there ever is a time when I feel helpless, it is now. We have been at the bottom of this mountain for three days, waiting for this storm to pass. Even when the storm ends, we will have to wait for the snowplows to clear the road before we can get up there. Everyone is steering clear of me, and I don’t blame them. I hate the fact that Elise is up there at the mercy of Alexander.

“You know, no matter how long you stare at the window, the snow isn’t going to let up.” I tense as I hear Nicolai behind me. I turn to see him stepping into the room with an amused look on his face.

“Yeah, well, sitting and waiting doesn’t seem to work too well for me,” I say.

Nicolai chuckles softly and takes a seat.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this nervous before. Not even a little bit.”

I turn back to the window before I slap that smug grin off his face.

“The sooner this damn blizzard lets up, the better I’ll feel.”

The room is quiet for a moment before I feel myself break down. My thoughts are beginning to get to me. I walk over toward the liquor fridge, grabbing a small bottle of vodka out. I take a seat next to Nicolai, pulling the cap off and taking a small swig.

I welcome the burn as the liquid runs down my throat and calms my frazzled nerves. I look at Nicolai to see him watching me in confusion.

“I have never been frightened before, but right now, I am terrified. I’m terrified at what I might find when we head up that mountain. If Elise is even alive. Or if Alexander has something horrible waiting for me.” I look at Nicolai, for once letting my emotions out from behind the door they are always locked behind. “I, for once, am at the mercy of someone else.” Nicolai is silent, so I continue.

“The longer we’re down here, the worse things might be for her. I know I’ve done some pretty bad things to her, but I never pretended to be someone I wasn’t. I never said I was a good man. I never tried to be someone that I’m not. I never lied to her about who I was.”

I look out the window again. As soon as I lay eyes on the snow, my irritation sets in again. Why did that woman have to wait so long before telling me about Elise? I bring the bottle to my lips, tipping back another shot.

“Whoah, slow down. You don’t want to be wasted when we finally go rescue your wife,” Nicolai says. I look at him, and he has a light smile on his face. “Look, I know you’re scared, but we’re close. We know where she is, and as soon as the storm lets up, we can go get her.” He tries to reassure me.

“You don’t understand …” I roughly yank my fingers through my hair, feeling a deep fear coiling up within me. “The last time I saw Elise, I told her about my hand in her mother’s death.” I hold my head in my hands, remembering the look of horror etched onto her face. The fear and need to get away from me. Far away from me. I don’t think I have ever regretted anything in my life more than I do taking her mother away from her.

I never thought I would see her again. It was just a job. A test to show my father I am capable. I do my job and, in return, earn my father’s respect. But fifteen years later, when I stepped into my father’s office and he told me who he had chosen for me to marry, anger was the least of my feelings.

“You should have heard the fear in her voice on the phone before that car crashed. It’s been giving me nightmares. If Alexander broke the little bit of life left in Elise, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” I tense as I feel Nicolai’s hand on my shoulder.

“Luca, we were born to do one thing. Protect the family. And you have done a marvelous job at that. You protected not only the family but your family as well. Elise and Matteo. You spared them and saved their lives on several occasions. Elise may not understand it, because she lived a sheltered life from this world, but you must know deep down that even though you may not be a good man, you have done good things to protect her.”

I look at him, not understanding where he is going with this.

“What I’m trying to say is, no matter what state Elise is in, I know you will do whatever it takes to make her feel safe. I honestly hadn’t realized how serious you were about her until that crazy ex of yours showed up as my date to dinner.” He gives a soft chuckle, remembering the event. I had some words for him after the fiasco, but he claimed he didn’t know who the girl was.

“I remember you even referring to her as ‘just another job,’ but it’s different now. And I know you’re crazy about her. I know you have strong feelings for her. Otherwise, we wouldn’t even be here.”

“Sir.” I look up to see Matteo in the doorway. “The storm has let up. They are sending snowplows, and we’ll be able to go up by tomorrow.”

I nod. He leaves the room. The last thing on my mind is sleep. I need to get up the mountain as soon as possible.

“This is my last chance, Nicolai. I’ve been neglecting my duties as capo, trying to find Elise myself. If I don’t find her this time, it’s over. I have to go back to my duties.”

“We’ll find her, Luca,” he says. And I hope he is right.

* * * * *

We are driving up the mountain with the snow falling softly. Everyone is deathly quiet. They know that if Elise isn’t up this mountain, there will be hell to pay. Nicolai is in the car with me, and Romelo and Matteo are in the car behind us along with the others. The closer we get to the top, the more rattled my nerves become. The drive to get there is about forty-five minutes. So I have to sit in the car and twiddle my thumbs.

“Can’t you make this thing go faster?” I snap at Nicolai.

He gives a soft chuckle. “No. Unless you want me to drive us off the cliff.”

I growl at his response. I know I am being unreasonable, but I don’t care. That’s why Nicolai decided to drive instead of me. If it were me driving, I would have caused us to wreck due to my impatience.

I am looking through my email when I hear Nicolai.

“Shit,” he mumbles under his breath, and the car slows to a stop.

I raise my head to look out the windshield and see an expensive SUV crashed into the tree. There is snow piled up within it, and the only thing sticking out of the snow is the nose of the car. Whoever wrecked this did it before the blizzard. The windshield looks smashed from this angle.

I radio Romelo.

“You guys stay here and check the wreckage. We’re going to head on up.”

I don’t wait for Romelo to respond, but I see his vehicle pull over in the snow. I can also see Matteo’s irritation as he gets out of the car. As Nicolai tries to pull off, I stop him.

“Wait.” I roll down the window and call out to Matteo.

“Matteo! Come on!” His head perks up, and he sprints to the vehicle. I look at Benji in the back seat. “You stay. Matteo’s taking your spot.” He doesn’t hesitate as he steps out and lets Matteo hop in. As soon as he closes the door, we head up the rest of the way.

After what seems like forever, we finally reach the home of Alexander Croff. It makes me angry that the last time I was here, so was Elise. Damn. I should have been more thorough. I just thought he wouldn’t be the fool to take her since he knows who I am. But my arrogance has caused her to slip through my fingers.

Nicolai shuts off the engine, and we all jump out of the car, guns ready.

I step to the door and knock, waiting for someone to open it. There is no way I can kick this massive oak door down. We’ll have to get some heavy ammo to blow it down. After a moment, I knock again. I’m beginning to get irritated. The snow is biting at my face, causing it to sting in pain from the dramatic drop in temperature. Who chooses to live on a fucking mountain where there’s snow everywhere?

The door slowly creaks open, and I see the old maid that let me in the last time. No wonder she looked so terrified the last time I was here. She knew good and damn well why I was here in the first place. And the fact that she helped in keeping my wife hidden … let’s just say I don’t have any plans on her living past sundown. As soon as she peeps her head out far enough, I bring my gun to her head. She immediately gasps.

“Open the door. If you warn him, I will tear off your legs and make you drag your pathetic body down the mountain.”

She nods vigorously, opening the door. As soon as we step in, I bring my gun down, knocking her unconscious. She collapses in the entry area. I push the door open and motion for everyone to follow me inside.

“Fan out. If you find Alexander, do not kill him. Restrain him and get me. Your main objective is Elise.”

Everyone nods in understanding and fans out in different directions.

Nicolai and Matteo stay by my side. I would rather have had Matteo stay down the mountain with the others and that wrecked car, but he is just as eager as I am to find his sister. His lack of experience makes him a liability, though, in this situation. Hopefully, Nicolai will cover him good if something happens.

We walk to the office that I was in when I met with Alexander the last time. I push the door open with my gun at ready and am disappointed when he’s not in here. I turn to Matteo and Nicolai.

“Look around.”

I walk toward the desk, pulling open drawers, finding no indication of Elise.

“Elise!” I shout.

Matteo and Nicolai jump and look at me in shock. Never announce your presence to the enemy. And I just shouted, letting him know where our location is if he is secretly watching us.

“Luca, I know you’re frantic right now, but you need to just calm down. We’ll find her, okay?” Nicolai is speaking to me as if I am a child. I am trying my best to not punch his face in.

Out of nowhere, I hear Matteo hunch over and vomit on the floor.

“What the fuck?” I say out loud but hurry over to where he is seated. At the desk with the computer screen on. I quickly round the corner to see what has him throwing up his lunch.

“Fuck.” My words are the only sound in the room.

Elise is being beat with a belt that has jeweled indentations on it. I can see chunks of skin being literally beaten off her body from the belt. She is tied up and crying. I quickly press the next arrow, hoping it will just be security footage, but it isn’t. Elise is tied up, and Alexander is choking her. I press the arrow, and there is more. She is bound in almost all of them. She is crying in all of them. She is being tortured in all of them. He is whipping her in some, and he is fucking raping her in all of them.

I can feel my anger boiling over. Gunshots echo throughout the room, and I am looking at the computer screen that now has holes in it. That’s when I realize the gun I am holding is aimed at the computer screen. I shot the screen up in my rage.

“Boss.”

“What!” I look up from the screen in rage at one of my men speaking to me in the doorway. He flinches as I shout at him, but I don’t fucking care.

“We found him …” He trails off.

I immediately walk from behind the computer toward the man, grabbing him by his collar and yanking him so close to me I can feel his hair tickling my forehead.

“Then fucking take me to him.” My voice is deadpan and cold as I grit out my words to him. I let go, and he stumbles away from me with wide eyes.

“I want that desktop brought back with us,” I say to no one in particular. But I know Matteo and Nicolai heard me. I follow my guy out of the room as he leads me to Alexander.

“Have you found Elise?” My voice echoes off the empty walls. I can tell by his posture and the way he tenses that he hasn’t.

“No, sir.”

He leads me down the hall and to a living room. I can see all my men circled around him, with guns aimed at him. I slowly walk around the couch he is seated on and am shocked, to say the very least, at what I see.

He looks like shit. Actually, he looks like fucking Frankenstein with all the stitches that cover his body. His eyes narrow at me. I stand in front of him, trying my hardest to filter the rage and hatred I have for this man. If I kill him now, I won’t be able to make him pay for everything he has done to Elise.

I motion to everyone in the room. “Leave us. Your top priority is Elise.” As they file out, I grab one by his arm. “Once Matteo gets here, I want you to send him in. Other than that, no one enters this room. Got it?” He nods with wide eyes.

They all close the door behind them, leaving me alone with the bastard that took my wife. I feel nothing but hate as I stare this man down. I want to kill him right now.

“Where is she?” I ask. The room is silent for a moment before a small chuckle escapes his lips.

“That’s the question of the century.”

I clench and unclench my fist, trying to calm myself. If I kill him now, I will never know where Elise is. I take the knife out of my back pocket, flipping it open.

“You don’t look like you’re in good-enough shape to fight me back, so I suggest you tell me where she is,” I say again. He stares at me in silence, and I can feel my irritation getting the best of me.

“I knew you would come for me sooner or later. I just planned on having her dead body waiting for you when you arrived. Or we’d be long gone by the time you caught on. But she was as stubborn as a mule.” He laughs, as if remembering something. He looks up at me with a sick glint in his eyes. “That’s why I had her tied every time I fucked her.”

I can’t control myself. I lunge at him, about to plunge the knife right in his heart when someone grabs ahold of me. I struggle, but both Nicolai and Romelo are holding me down. Matteo is standing on the other side of me. They arrived just in time.

“This is what he wants. He wants you to kill him quickly, and then you’ll have no lead on Elise. Calm down, Luca.” It’s Romelo’s voice of reason that calms me out of my haze.

“I’m fine!” I jerk. They sit me in the chair, and Romelo walks closer to Alexander. “How’d you get those stitches?”

He studies them closely, not waiting for a response. He obviously already knows.

“They look fresh. Very thick scarring also. Like someone did that frantically. Not calculated, but in a panic.”

I study the stitching. He’s right. The stitches look horrid. Like something a two-year-old would scribble on a paper. The scabs underneath the stitches are dragged as well. As if someone was frantic. He didn’t get those wounds from a professional.

“We found these in that car down the road.” Romelo pulls out a set of keys, dangling them in the air. He points to a button. “Along with some blood in the seat.”

“This works the garage. I’m assuming these are your keys.” He tosses them at Alexander, who is watching him with anger behind his gaze. We got him.

“Elise isn’t here, is she?”

Alexander doesn’t budge; he still glares at Romelo with all the hate he can muster. I hear shuffling behind me and Matteo’s irritated voice.

“I don’t have time for this.” Matteo stands in front of Alexander, taking a knife and ripping through the stitching across his chest, dragging open the wounds. Alexander cries out in pain and grabs Matteo’s hand, twisting it, and a sickening snap echoes throughout the room. And now Matteo is crying out in pain.

“Fuck!” I jump up, as do Nicolai and Romelo.

Matteo is crying out in pain, and Nicolai grabs him back from Alexander. Romelo immediately goes to look at Matteo’s wrist. I wrap my hand around Alexander’s throat and squeeze as hard as I can, shoving him deeper into the couch he is sitting on. my intention was to restrain him, but as he claws at my hand, I don’t let go, the darkness enveloping me. I squeeze even harder, thinking about all the things I saw him do to Elise on that video. How he tortured her.

His struggling becomes weaker and weaker. I can feel his pulse underneath my fingers becoming weaker and weaker. Suddenly, my body is jerked backward, and I watch in disappointment as Alexander hunches forward, coughing violently and holding his reopened wounds. He looks at me with hate.

“You know where she is? Dead. She’s fucking dead. I killed her, slowly and painfully, and I made sure to leave nothing behind.” He smiles at me, and I can feel my heart sinking. He has to be lying.

“I will never forget the sound of her screams as she begged me to spare her. Her cries as I ripped her apart slowly and painfully.”

I can’t move. I can’t bring myself to do anything. He is lying. I won’t believe it. I refuse to.

“You should have seen the fear in her eyes. It’s something that will keep me smiling in my dreams for a long time.” And he laughs. He fucking laughs.

Out of nowhere, Romelo’s fist collides with Alexander’s face, knocking him instantly into unconsciousness.

Everyone is quiet. No one dares make a sound. She is not dead. She is not. She can’t be. He is lying. He has to be.

“Luca, don’t listen to him. He’s just trying to get you riled up because he knows she’s alive somewhere. She must have escaped. We’re going to test the blood in the car to see if it’s hers,” he says.

“Go get the maid,” I say. “We’re going to interrogate her until she wishes she were dead.”

They exit the room. I see Matteo still in the corner, cradling his broken wrist. We have to get that set before it starts healing.

I walk toward him in silence, standing over him. He looks up at me, and I stare back. I bring my hand out quickly, striking him across his face. He cries out in pain, and before he can think, I grab his shirt, pulling him close to me.

“If you ever pull some shit like that again, I will send you away to boarding school. You are not a professional, you are not even in this profession. He could have killed you and taken your weapon. You could have killed him before we got information, and you set off a chain of events that could’ve ended badly.” I let go of his shirt, and he stumbles backward.

“We need to get your wrist set.” I step out of the room, not waiting for a response.

I’m not entirely convinced if Elise is alive or not, but I hope more than anything that she is.

I step into the hallway and see Nicolai messing with the desktop of the computer.

“I’m going to find another screen to connect this to. There could be more film on Elise. Maybe we’ll find a clue about her whereabouts on film.”

I nod. In my anger, I shot the screen. Luckily, I didn’t shoot the desktop, because we would have been screwed if I did.

I nod as everyone begins setting up shop. We aren’t leaving here until we have some kind of lead on where my wife is.