AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nine
RAOUL
Damien Sylvester stares back at me when I step in front of him. He’s gagged and tied to a chair in the middle of the basement, the floor is covered in plastic and two of my men are standing guard at the door. There’s nowhere for him to run, his fate is in my hands now.
“Long time no see, Damien,” I speak coolly, the plastic squeaking beneath my shoes as I pace in front of him and take another drag on my cigarette.
“Last night, an unfortunate thing happened to my brother, I was wondering if you knew anything about that?” I nod my head at Sal to pull out the cloth stuffed into the bastard's mouth so he can give me his answer.
“Your brother fucked my little sister.” Damien flares his nostrils at me and his eyes fill with anger.
“And do you have evidence of this?” I ask, after blowing the smoke out of my lungs.
“I will in about four months' time,” he tells me, acting far too smug for a man who’s in this position.
“And I assume she intends to keep the child?” I check, knowing that this could be bad for Rhett if she isn’t lying.
“No choice, by the time she got brave enough to speak up about it, it was too late. She’s just a baby herself, Raoul, she’s still in fucking high school.” He shakes his head in disgust and I take a step closer and grab the front of his hair, forcing him to look up at me.
“My brother didn’t fuck your sister, whatever she tells you, is lies,” I rage at him, pushing his face away again then sucking hard at the tip of my smoke while I pace some more.
“We have been good to you. You’d still be selling heroin from the streets if we hadn’t given you a chance to make a better life for yourself.” I point the fingers that holds my cigarette at him. “We line your pockets and keep you off the streets, and this is how you show us your appreciation? Who are you working for now?”
“No one,” Damien answers far too defensively. I tut and shake my head at the same time.
“Damien, I’ve respected you by giving you the opportunity to speak to me. Show me some gratitude and at least be honest. You forget that I know you. I’ve welcomed you here in the past, played poker with you. You have a tell. When you're being deceitful, your left eye gets a little twitchy.” I reach down and pull the knife from my ankle strap and when I touch it to his skin, just millimeters from his eyeball, I watch the sweat pour from his brow.
“I think you believe your sister’s lie about my brother, but I know you are lying about working for someone else. Who are you working for?” I ask again, somehow still remaining calm.
“I’m not, I swear to you,” his voice shakes as he speaks and his eye twitches as it focuses on the blade beside it. “Please, Raoul, believe me. I would never deceive your family.”
“Tell me who you work for now, or I will cut out your eyeball and make you swallow it,” I threaten. “Then, I will drag your whore sister here and punish her in front of you for the lies she tells.”
“No, you can’t. Please,” he begs,
“One more chance, Damien.” I make sure the tip of my knife touches the corner of his eye so when he blinks, he feels the tip of the blade press under his eyelid.
“Prizrak.” He says the name I’ve been expecting him to.
“And who is he?” I ask, clutching the knife tighter in my hand.
“I don’t know, I've never dealt with him face to face, only ever spoke to one of his men. But he means business, Raoul. Let me help you, I’ll be loyal to Burlusconi, I’ll work harder to build his trust and feed back whatever you need to know.”
I can’t help but laugh at the sorry assed fucker for being so delusional.
“Forgive me for not being enthusiastic. I’m wondering how you can be of any use to me when you're dead.” I balance my smoke between my lips as I drag the knife over his cheek and step around his body. Then using all the strength in my forearm, I drive the knife deep into his back, aiming for his liver and twisting the handle.
“You stabbed my brother in his back, all because your slut sister needed someone to blame her bastard on,” I tell him after he’s stopped screaming. He bites hard on his lips to try and sustain the pain he’s in, and I smile at him. “Now take a good look around this room. These walls will be the last thing you see, the smell of your blood and fear will be the last things you smell. And my voice and your own screams will be the final sounds you hear. You will die here alone, slowly and painfully,” I whisper, cleaning off my blade on his cheap silk shirt.
“You fucking bastard,” Damien chokes, blood pouring out of his wound and dripping onto the plastic as his skin starts to pale. There are plenty of vessels in the liver, his death may take ten minutes, it may take a few hours but he will bleed out eventually.
“You made a foolish mistake. You could have come to speak with us about your sister's condition. We would have helped you, even though the problem wasn’t ours. You picked the wrong side, my friend.” I look over to Sal and nod my head toward the door so he knows to follow me out, then I make my way up the stairs into the kitchen and away from the ears of everyone else.
“I want you to go pick up his sister and bring her here.” Sal’s eyes narrow judgingly at me. My cousin is without doubt the toughest guy I know. Before he started working for my father he was a Seal, he’s seen bad things in his life, and I’m sure he’s done much worse.
“I don’t intend to hurt her,” I assure him, in case that’s what’s got him looking so doubtful. Not that it would make a difference. If I give the man an order, he’d see it through even if he disagreed with it. He signed his morals over the day he swore his loyalty to us.
“Damien is her only support, and if there is a slight chance the child she’s carrying is Rhett’s then we have a duty to her and that child,” I explain. “Fetch her here, and we’ll decide what to do with her.”
