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Giancarlo
PLAYLIST: ? WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER - NINE INCH NAILS ?
Darkness becomesthe only thing I know. Nothing but pitch-blackness surrounds me at all hours of the day and night. The silence is no different, loud and endless. I’m provided with the bare minimum of food and water necessary to keep me alive.
Once a day, the slot in the door of my dark cell slides open. A tray is shoved inside before shutting again, closing out the light slanting through. I can barely move. My body’s a destroyed mess from the torture its had to endure. Missing fingers and toes. Blisters from scalding acid and flesh raw from burns. A blown kneecap and the hole in my face that’s been left untreated.
Often, he questions me. Attempts to force information out of me, like what really happened with Falynn. Though I scream in agony, I don’t give in. I never tell him. I never will.
The torture’s always just enough to keep me alive. Always just a step away from ending it. He’s tempted, barely able to hold himself back, likely out of some foolish hope he’ll break me enough to find out the truth.
But the worst is the withdrawals. The way I shake and sweat, crawling inside my mutilated skin for a hit. Without my highs, I’m just pounds of empty flesh. No heart, no soul, hardly a mind that works.
Not in the way it’s supposed to. Never has. Never will.
Ma appears to me here and there. Always with a pitying frown and plea that I beg him for mercy. I ignore her, rolling my battered body over.
I don’t know where I am, but if I have to guess, I’m underground at the Vittoria. After the night my brother and I faced off at his desert compound, I was blindfolded and transported somewhere.
My brother’s fury is unmatched. I stole his empire and hurt his woman, so now he’s ensuring I suffer in the most gruesome ways possible. He takes pleasure in our torture sessions. Time’s impossible to tell when held captive like this, but if I had to guess…he comes every few days.
Just me and him. Locked in a cell together as he exacts his revenge. Death isn’t good enough. I don’t deserve its mercy.
In his eyes, I deserve every breath I take to be painful for what I’ve done. I don’t know if he’s right. I do know I’ve done equally fucked up shit. I’ve killed,slaughtered. I’ve gotten off to screams of agony and human pain.
Where Falynn was concerned, I couldn’t help myself. I tried to force her to be mine. Any piece of her I could have felt like it was enough. I was finally proving I could be what my brother had always been, ruling in his place, having everything that was his.
But he can’t see one truth is really a lie—Inevertried to kill him. I won’t pretend I haven’t blacked out, lost my mind long enough to do things I’m later unaware of, but my gut instinct tells me I didn’t do it.
I didn’t blow up Giovanni’s yacht. I was the family backup. The one who became heir when he could no longer do so.
My brother’s mistaken.
“Gianni, please beg for forgiveness,” Ma says into the silence. She appears from thin air, emerging as a ghostly white figure in the darkness. “Gio will see the error of his ways. He’ll take mercy.”
“Don’t talk to me. This is on you. You did this. You had me. You created what I am.”
“Gianni, all I ever did was love you.”
“And then leave.” My throat burns as I speak, the muscles in my face sore. Talking hasn’t been the same since part of my jaw is missing. Every word is a struggle, but I’m past noticing pain. When everything is pain,nothingis pain. “You should stay dead. Away from me. Get out of here!”
She extends her see-through hand, hope in her dark eyes. I don’t take it.
Numbness has always plagued me. Except for when I’m using. But there are moments like these where the situation draws enough emotion out of me that I finallyfeelsomething. Hate fills my barely beating heart.
“Youchoseto leave us!” I howl. “You think I don’t know the truth? What really happened?”
Worry spreads across her ghostly face, my name forming on her lips. I don’t let her get a word in. For once, I’m alive with emotion, anger and bitterness pushing me over the edge.
“Pa wanted us to believe you were murdered…but you never were! You gave up on us. I’ll never forgive you for what you did.”
“No,” she murmurs, shaking her head. If she were alive, she’d be crying. Since she’s not, no tears fall. The sadness remains only an expression on her dead face. “That’s not what happened—I never wanted to leave you. I tried, Gianni. I tried so much. But I was unwell. I needed help. And your father…he was never an understanding man. Don’t you remember what he’d do? How he’d lock me away?”
“I don’t believe you. You left me, and nowthisis what I’ve become. Because of you!”
In a blink, she disappears. The door opens, the light in the hall shining into the room before the door closes.
“Who are you talking to?” my brother asks. He steps deeper into the dank, dark cell. He switches on the ceiling light with a dial he keeps in his pocket. It operates as a smart device that controls the temperature and lighting and even calls for assistance if needed.
