Deadly Vows - Chapter 46 (Patreon)

Imagine something that you are passionate about. Something that you love to do without hesitation. Once you begin with this passion, imagine the way you lose yourself. You immerse yourself deep into this action that you love. And you love it so much you do it so damn well. That is how I currently feel.

I can’t help but smile as the man in front of me screams in agony. The smell of blood, sweat, and urine permeates the air. Puddles of blood are beneath my feet. There are five dead and three currently tied up for interrogation. One of them managed to lock the system before we could get to them, so we have no idea where the other agents are located. And we won’t figure it out until someone tells us the code. This is a major setback, and if we don’t do something soon, things for us are going to go straight to shit.

We made sure to leave two of the men alive and only one woman. It is a psychological form of torture. She is the one we are watching to crack. But honestly, with the way things are going, the man that is next looks like he is going to crack before I even make it to him.

“You know, I could sit here all night. I enjoy this, I really do.” I smile at the man in front of me. I really am enjoying myself. This is the most fun I have had in a long time.

I pull the knife out of my holster and plunge it into this thigh. He screams, but I don’t stop there. I drag the knife, watching, mesmerized, as the skin separates and blood wells to the surface.

“I just want the password,” I say.

He looks at me through tear-filled eyes, his breathing ragged.

“Go … to … hell …”

My smile grows even larger, and I shove my hand into the now open wound on his leg. The warmth from his body is engulfing my palm, and I form a fist to force the skin to stretch even farther. He cries out in agony, and I cut him off by putting my hand around his throat. I can hear the woman behind me crying as she anticipates her fate. I can feel the man struggling to breathe and enjoy the look of panic in his eyes. His hands are jumping as he tries to pull at the ties, keeping them bound behind him.

I slowly pull my hand from the now-gaping wound in his thigh. He hunches over, spasming beneath my fingertips, and suddenly I am wrenched backward from the man. Romelo is holding me down, and Nicolai goes to check the pulse.

“Dammit, Luca, you were supposed to scare him, not kill him! He may have had the information we needed!”

I slowly try to pull myself down from this high that I am feeling from killing the man. I can’t help it. I laugh. I hear the two agents left cussing behind me in fear. I slowly move, and Romelo lets me go. I stand up, dusting myself off. There is thick blood dripping off my hands, and I take notice that the female agent is literally shaking in fear. I pause in what I am doing and take slow, deliberate steps toward her. Her whimpers grow even louder the closer I get.

I squat in front of her and grab her face in my palm, forcing her to look at me. She squeals even louder as the blood from my fingers meshes where our skin meets. I study her face closely. She is attractive. But nothing compared to Elise. Her face is round. She also has freckles dusting her skin. The only thing about her that remotely reminds me of Elise is the way she is staring at me. Pure fear. I cock my head to the side to study her more closely, and she squeezes her eyes shut in fear.

“You won’t get anything out of us. We have been trained for this kind of thing. No matter what you bottom-feeders do.” The man that is still alive begins speaking.

I stand and look at him. He is staring at me with hatred. Loud, boisterous laughter fills the room, and I realize it is coming from me. I am laughing so hard my stomach is beginning to hurt.

“Bottom-feeders?” I am still laughing and can barely get the sentence out. I walk closer to him until I am standing over his tied-up body. He has to crane his neck to look at me.

“Please, I would love to know what you mean by bottom-feeders.”

His breathing is slowly speeding up, and I can see the exact moment he realizes the mistake he has made. The room is silent when he refuses to answer me. Out of nowhere, an idea pops into my head. I walk back over to the girl. She begins whimpering loudly. The sound brings more excitement to my body. I stare at her dead-on as I speak to the man behind me.

“You know, how about we play a game?”

She closes her eyes, and more tears spill over as she shakes her head no. “Please, please, please no,” she whimpers. If only she knew how much I fucking hate begging.

“I have people awaiting my orders and not a lot of time.” I walk over to the black bag, pulling out a pair of pruning shears, and her cries grow louder. Romelo and Nicolai remain silent and waiting by the computer. As soon as I get these answers, it is time to move.

“I’m going to ask you a question.” I motion to the man in the corner. I step closer to the woman, grabbing her hand, and she cries out. “Each time you don’t answer me, well, that’s a finger.” I place the shears over her finger for emphasis. She tries to jerk away from me, but she is nowhere near strong enough.

“Here’s the catch.” I motion to the woman. “You can’t answer me. Only he can. So whether or not your fingers stay intact is up to him.”

I look at him, and his eyes are wide with shock as he stares at the woman and takes in her predicament.

“Let’s get started, shall we?” I pull her forefinger in the shears. She starts screaming and begging, and I turn on her, giving her the most malicious glare I can muster.

“If you don’t shut the fuck up, I won’t be able to hear him. And if I can’t hear him, I will assume he didn’t answer.” She immediately pulls her lips into her mouth, trying to stifle her sobs, and nods furiously.

“So …” I turn to the man. “What’s your name?” I look at the man. He looks between me and the woman, and when he doesn’t respond, I begin to press on the clippers. She screams as the blade barely punctures the thin layer of skin.

“Dylan! It’s Dylan!” he shouts at me.

I stop what I am doing and watch as the blood begins to trickle down her finger. I wave the shears at him in a scolding fashion. “You may want to answer a little sooner next time, Dylan.” The girl is behind me, sobbing like a crazy person.

“And tell me, Dylan, what is her name?”

He responds immediately this time. “Lissette.”

I give him a sarcastic smile and nod. “Now, understand this, Dylan. Lissette. I have a wife at home. A lovely wife. And she’s pregnant. With a son. I believe he’s my son. She says she was pregnant before she was sold as a fucking sex slave by your superiors. I want my son and my wife to be safe. Which is why I need that password. So,

Dylan, what’s the password?”

He stares at me with wide eyes and closes his mouth.

Snip.

Lissette screams at the top of her lungs as her finger falls to the floor. The sickening snap of her bone being severed echoes throughout the room. She is still screaming, and the chills on my arms are growing into more excitement as I take in her cries.

“Password, Dylan.”

He still doesn’t make a motion to speak. I barely register Lissette in the background screaming and begging him to tell. Damn, this guy is an asshole.

Snip.

Lissette is screaming at the top of her lungs. Dylan looks torn, but he still doesn’t step up. I move to chop off another finger when Lissette screams the password.

“Porthouse44! Please, it’s Porthouse44. We change the password every hour. We just changed it. Just please, please stop!”

I register Nicolai and Romelo putting things in the computer and getting the information. Now that we are in the system and getting what we need, I can have a little more fun. I look at Lissette, giving her a scolding look.

“Thank you, Lissette, but it was Dylan I asked. Remember?” Snip.

She is screaming again at the top of her lungs, and the sound is sending vibrations throughout my body. I shudder in pleasure at the agony that leaves her lips. I pull out my knife and hold it to her throat, ready to slice it open. She is trembling in fear, and her pants grow darker as she loses control of her bladder.

“Luca.”

I stop immediately and look over at Romelo, who has an amused smile on his face. He motions toward Nicolai with his eyes. I arch my eyebrow at them. Nicolai won’t meet my gaze. And when he does, I can see a red tint across his cheeks. Then realization dawns on me. I laugh out loud.

“Holy shit!”

I slowly stand and, without warning, throw my knife, loving the sound it makes as it penetrates Dylan’s chest. He cries out in shock and looks at me with wide eyes. I step closer to him and pull it out, only to plunge it back in. I move lower and make sure to puncture his lung. When I finally pull it out, he is staring at me in shock, making a choking sound.

“You will not die quickly. You will suffer.”

I grab the bucket of blood from the corner, where we’ve drained his fellow agents’ bodies, dropping it in front of him. Before he can think, I kick the chair forward and plunged his head in the thick liquid. I hold his neck down as his body jumps and struggles. Eventually, it stops, and I leave him like that.

“Bring me some ice.” A second later, Romelo is setting a bowl of ice in my hands. Lissette is sobbing in the corner. I place her fingers on ice in the bowl, kneeling in front of her, grabbing her face in between my fingers and forcing her to look at me.

“The only reason I am letting you live is that he wants you. If it were up to me, you’d be dead. Pull anything on him and I will drown you in your own blood. Just like Dylan here.” I roughly push her face away from me and stand to look at Nicolai, putting on the most serious face I can muster. “Do you have the address we need?” He nods.

“Stay here, survey cleanup, make sure this place is destroyed. Leave no trace of us being here.” I motion to Lissette. “She’s all yours.

If she escapes and we get caught, I will kill you before the cops can.”

He nods in complete understanding. When I am sure he understands, I let my amusement shine through at the situation.

“Enjoy.” I can’t help but laugh as I walk away with Romelo to fulfill the rest of this plan.

“Luca!” I stop and turn around to face Nicolai. He has a serious look on his face as well. “Be careful. We don’t need Elise becoming a widow now.” He gives me a small smile, and I nod.

We all know we are far from in the clear. We have no idea if the leaders already know about our infiltration or not. Romelo and I just know the addresses where they reside and spend most of their time. We are literally going in blind. We have no time to do recon and no time to pick up on patterns, security, etc.

“You too,” I say.

Nicolai is in just as much danger as we are. He has to get rid of this place and the evidence before anyone shows up. If there are reinforcements, we have no idea if they are headed this way. Romelo and I exit the building to fulfill the demands of the rest of the night.

Romelo and I are standing together, getting all our weapons loaded and placed in the right places on our bodies. We are silent. The only sound is coming from the reloading of our guns. Once we are ready, we finally face each other. Two leaders. We are both about to split up on our own and take them down. If we fail, we die. If only one of us succeeds, we die. We both have to succeed.

Romelo looks at me with a calm demeanor. He reaches out and clasps my shoulder. “No matter what happens, I’m glad to have been sworn in under you, Luca.”

“Thank you, Romelo. I couldn’t ask for a better man to be at my right side.”

He nods in understanding. From the moment we were born, we have been inseparable. Romelo and I actually grew up together, whereas I met Nicolai years later because of complications with his family. All three of us are very close and would take a bullet for one another. So this is almost like saying goodbye. Until that phone call comes in that we have all done our part, we are not in the clear.

We both move to our cars and depart on our separate ways into the unknown.

* * * * *

Jared Mitchum. Head of the secret agency called A-417. Skilled in hand-to-hand combat, weaponry, torture, etc. Lives in the middle of nowhere. He has been itching to take us down for years. And he almost did. If I hadn’t found Elise and gotten things in order, they were going to hit us hard. Kill every last one of us. Elise is my weakness. And in the time she was gone I neglected things I shouldn’t have. And they were going to have the perfect opening. But I found her. And I doubled up my security. They were responsible for all the rats in the family. They were the ones that were working with Arianna and the other Trovoli’s to take down the northern mob and give the Trovoli’s immunity.

It was all a part of Eli Trovoli’s plan from the start. Marry his daughter off and kill us using her. But when she proved to be useless, he planned on pitting her against me. Which is where Arianna came in. Getting information from Elise in her emotionally unstable state, which they then fed back to their capo, who in turn feeds it to the feds. Trying so hard to claw his way to the top. To power. To have us out of the way. There would be no one left to stand in his way. But what he didn’t take into account was that I didn’t trust them. And I foiled his plans. But now that Eli has given them their opening to rid the world of the Italian Mafia of the North, well, they are taking every chance they can.

Judging by the loud music I can hear playing and the lowlights he has currently pouring out of his upstairs window, I am guessing he currently is getting ready for something or about to go to bed. If he is going somewhere, I am screwed. My mind inadvertently wanders to Elise. I wonder how she’s doing. I hate the way I left things, and I can’t imagine what she is like right now. She is more than likely hysterical that I am not there. She probably won’t even look at me when I get back, since I drugged her.

I let out a deep, frustrated breath. Damn. I should be focusing on how to get in the house instead of on Elise. It’s distractions like these that will get me killed. I reach in my pocket and pull out my phone, unlocking it and scrolling to Elise’s picture. The night of our wedding, the photographer emailed me all the photos from the wedding. Among them are a few individual shots of Elise. She looks so beautiful. So innocent.

I scroll to the photos we took the night of her recital. In that deep-red dress she wore. She looked absolutely stunning. Sexy as hell. There is a small smile on her face, and her violin is in her hands in front of her. She always has that small smile on her lips. Like she is shy. I just stare at the picture, memorizing every little detail. My love, my life, my wife, my Elise. This may be it for me. I really hope it isn’t, though. I want to be there when she gives birth. I want to hold her hand and witness the first few moments of our son’s life together.

Even if she goes into labor while I am away, I want to be able to go to her and see her once again and meet my son for the first time.

The lights in the window turn out, and I wait another ten minutes before I move. If this goes well, I will be there. For Elise and for my son. And if not, Elise will be free of me. And the Mob. No one knows where she is. She can start a new life and raise our son outside of this life.

I take a deep breath and move from my hiding spot. It is time to execute the plan.

I walk toward the door of the house of the man that has fucked up everything for me. Using my tools, I open the box on the side of the house, from the blueprints, and cut the wires to the security system. After, I bolt the lock back so that if push comes to shove, no one will be able to turn it back on without breaking off the lock.

I step toward the door and begin working on the lock. It opens within fifteen seconds of me messing with it. I slowly ease the door open and close it behind me, grabbing my gun from my holster and heading up the stairs. If my memory serves me correctly, the blueprints read that the master bedroom is up the stairs and to the left.

I carefully tread up the stairs, and to the left, the bedroom door is cracked. I am about to push it open when I register a shadow moving in the corner of my eye. I turn with my hands on the defense just in time for a Louisville slugger to connect with my forearms. My gun falls out of my hands, and I don’t have time to dwell on the pain shooting through my arms. I immediately grab the bat with my free hand, absorbing the hit and bringing my leg out to kick my assailant hard. He lands on his ass and lets out a loud grunt of pain. He doesn’t give me time to pick up my gun and comes at me again.

He swings at my face several times, not landing a blow. He swings past my face, and I grab his arm, yanking him close to me and smashing my head into his. He stumbles back, obviously caught off guard, and I don’t give him time to recover. I immediately start swinging at his face, my fist connecting with bone. He stumbles back, and I can feel the excitement coursing through my veins. It’s been a while since I’ve fought hand-to-hand combat. And this guy is good.

He regains his posture and comes at me swinging again after he takes his stance. I pull my hands up to block my face, and a searing pain flashes across my flesh.

“Fuck!” I cry out.

He has a fucking knife, and it connects with my skin, tearing through the fabric. He lunges at me, and I have to use all my strength as we both go crashing to the floor to dodge the knife. We roll backward, and I eventually kick him off me. Both of us are panting hard.

“Luca … fucking … Pasquino. I knew you’d show up at my door sooner or later. Tell me, how’s your wife? Pregnant with another man’s baby?” He laughs, as if it’s funny. “I’m no expert on how you filthy crime bosses work, but isn’t that not good for you—”

He doesn’t have time to finish his sentence. I lunge at him, making sure my fist connects once again with his face. Before he can stand again, my leg shoots out, nailing him across the face. I can’t get distracted by his taunting.

“You’re right, I did fucking come for you, and I’m going to kill you.” I pant.

He laughs. Fucking laughs.

“How’s your dad these days? Last I checked, you had some traitors in your midst. How’d that go?” He chuckles again. The fucking bastard is trying to get under my skin.

He slowly moves backward toward the archway to leave, but before he can move, I throw another knife I have in my holster, pinning his hand down on the wall. I flip the switch and look at him. I immediately tense. Something in here isn’t right. He is smiling. As if he won the lottery.

“You wanna know something about me? I’m a prideful man.” He is speaking in riddles.

I only pull out my second gun and aim it for him. Out of nowhere, he pulls some kind of rectangular object with a button on it. His smile drops from his face.

“I’ll be damned if I let someone like you be the one to finish me off.”

His words cause a switch to flip within me, and I realize why he was so calm about getting his ass kicked, and kept running away toward a certain spot in the house. I immediately take off toward the door. I can hear his words as they follow me.

“Fuck you, Pasquino! Burn in hell!”

With that, the explosion goes off. The house around me is engulfed in a blazing inferno. I try my best to reach the door, a window, anything. The aftershock from the explosion blows my body forward. I feel as though a thousand needles are sticking to my skin. My body feels like it is broken in a thousand places. I open my mouth to cry out in pain, but nothing escapes my lips. Then there is nothing. Only darkness.

* * * * *

She is smiling at me with such love and compassion, as if I can do no wrong. She is speaking to me, but I can’t hear her. There is no sound. She reaches out to me, but when I reach for her, a white light flashes, and I am looking at her. The moment we met. She is sitting in her chair in her practice room, her back to me. And when she turns around, I know my life will never be the same. The scenery changes, and I am watching her walk up the aisle. She looks beautiful. Her eyes are wide and uncertain before me. She touches my hand once she reaches the altar, and the scene changes again.

She is underneath me in the shower on our wedding night. Her face is flushed pink. Her eyes are tightly shut, and her mouth is open as moans of pleasure escape her lips. The water from the overhead shower is cascading down her body, causing her long hair to stick to her body.

The scene shifts, and her hair is short. I can see her face more clearly now. She can’t hide behind that thick curtain of hair. I am watching her from a distance. It’s the day she decided to check out the library in our home. A small smile brushes its way onto her lips.

Next, I am watching her from behind as she stares in the mirror at my name now scrawled on her side. Tears well up within her big brown eyes.

As I reach around her to pull her in my embrace, the scene shifts, and I am watching her in the front yard. She has her face turned toward the sun, a small smile of appreciation on her face. I see her chained to the chair, screaming at me and pulling at her bonds. Her face is red from exertion.

I see her standing in that beautiful dress when my father was murdered, the look of fear plastered on her face.

Next, I am looking at her onstage. I admire how beautiful she is in red, the confidence she sports when she plays her violin. How she sways with the music and tends to smile at the most beautiful part of her melodies.

Everything dissipates, and I am watching her stare at me with hatred outside of my car. She mouths something inaudible and slams the door, running away from me. My world tilts, and I see her look of horror as she runs away from me out of the house and the look of hurt when I rescue her. The relief and happiness that radiate from her in my office when I tell her I won’t touch her brother.

I see the flush of her cheeks when she gets aroused and the way she licks her lips. The way she looks at me as if I were a puzzle she is trying to figure out. I can see the adoration she has for me once we find out that we are going to have a boy.

The love and care that pours out of her. I see the need for me seared deep within her. The love when she touches her belly. And suddenly, I am looking at her. She reaches out and touches my face with her soft fingers. I can’t help but close my eyes in comfort. I open them and stare into her lovely brown eyes. She opens her mouth as a smile crosses her face.

“I love you.”

People say that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. My life did. My love, my wife, my life. Elise.