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  Just behind me, one of Leonardo’s men spoke up, trying to get their bosses attention. Leonardo barked back a word, shutting the man’s mouth before he could say anything further. I could tell that my captor was a man of many turbulent moods; like son, like father, perhaps I would be safer with the devil that I know.

  Not a second later, and the gangsters led me through their ghostly lair. Curiosity got the better of me, “How come you don’t have anybody outside?” I asked, “you know, to keep watch.”

  Leonardo’s tone was short, and his eyes cut me down with a glance. “We hear that someone’s looking to hit us, we kill their whole family. We don’t keep the coffin business alive anymore because nobody will come at us.”

  His words sent chills down my spine, and I anxiously swallowed. The corridor in which he led me down was all too narrow. As though the walls themselves were out to get me. Decoration was sparse, and the walls themselves were made of concrete; the only light to guide our way were these small, yellow burning bulbs that were strung up in such a way that they criss-crossed all along the ceiling. Feeling my heart thump in my chest, I contemplated running. They couldn’t kill me, they were crazy enough to think my life had value – but they would surely maim me.

  I rather enjoyed having the ability to run.

  Pushing the thought from my mind, we continued down the corridor until we came along an old steel door that was long since corroded, beaten in with indents of people’s fists, scratch marks adorned it like old lines might sit on a lion’s face.

  This was a door that had seen it all. A door that most, I suspected, did not live to see again if they were an outsider to this shadowy organization.

  Leonardo gave a short, rhythmic tap against the door, and after a moment, he opened it and ushered me through. Once inside, the room was extravagantly large. There were a mix of people scattered about the room, maybe two dozen men in total. A good number of them sat down at various green felt poker tables, a few smoked and nursed their drinks in the corners of the room. Bright, daylight white poured from the ceiling lights, and cool air was pumped from the old air conditioning vents.

  What truly caught my eye, however, were the men at the head of the room. The ones who sat at a white cloth table which appeared that it could sit maybe a maximum of six men. At that table, proudly sat two individuals. One an older man, maybe just pushing fifty years of age. The other, gracefully reaching his thirty year mark.

  The older man seemed to be discussing something with the younger, and they both shared a glass of red wine. After a quick moment, the two looked towards me and Leonardo.

  Leonardo made a low snarling sort of noise and yanked at me to come closer; I didn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing me yelp in pain. “What’s he doing here?” Leonardo asked, seemingly toward the men at the head table.

  The eldest at the table, I presume Leonardo’s father, spoke up, “Well well, what do we have here? Such natural beauty…” a spot of warmth bloomed in my chest at the man’s words. Look old man, but don’t touch – get me out of here and home before my favorite show airs, and maybe, just maybe I’ll look back on this terrible deed as some silly fever-dream adventure.

  “I said, what the hell is that snake doing here.”

  The older man’s face scowled with some displeasure. He had numerous lines of age, and his skin was anything if not leathery. His hair was short and made of dull silver. There was something that I could see in his eyes, some gleam that made me sure he was Leonardo’s father. Most of the city knew who he was, but face-to-face, he doesn’t look quite the same. Less regal, more tired; as though the world has wronged him too many times and that the weight of all his sins could kill him at any moment if he were to let his guard down. Unexpectedly, I felt the strangest pang of sympathy in my chest – some small, sharp stab. “Address your brother with some respect, Leonardo.”

  Brother? I’d never seen or heard of a second Ligotti child.

  Leonardo’s brother brushed some of his long, elegant black hair past his shoulder. He was a well-dressed man, coming across as modern royalty in his rich navy blue suit; where Leonardo was a lion snarling beneath, his great muscles only barely contained by his clothes – the brother had an untouchable aura of pride.

  If Leo were the Sun, his brother was the Moon.

  I simpered at Leonardo, deriving some simple pleasure of watching my captor be spoken to coarsely. “Looks like your brother is a real charmer. He the golden boy of the family, by chance?” I asked, hoping to get a rise out of the man. Maybe not the smartest of moves, but definitely one that made my insides sing with basic joy.

  Leonardo turned to face me, immediately, his beautiful if not thuggish looking face went into a scowl. “Watch that tongue,” he warned gravely, “or I’ll show you just how bad my ‘golden boy’ brother really is.” His pronounced adam’s apple bobbed, sending delightful signals straight to my stomach. For one brief wink of time, my chest became a battleground to a war I’d never noticed I started; every dreamlike lull between our words was a soldier loading his gun. “You trust a snake in the grass? Don’t blame me when you get bit.” Bang. Just the way he said it enthralled me. Consumed me in a way that only a man with such flagrant bravado could.

  This flawed part of me tried to dilute those pesky emotions. Feeling something led to pain, and pain was a path I knew too well; all the verses of it were written in invisible ink – between each word that I spoke, I battled with the desire to build my walls higher and higher. “I think someone’s just being the slightest bit melodramatic,” I managed to verbally jab despite my growing annoyance with this whole kidnapping business. I narrowed my eyes at the man. He didn’t even look like a normal person. Whatever normal was, I knew that he was certainly not it.

  Still, each flicker of life in his strong, yet elegiac eyes was another shot of orange against the night in our private war, the splendor of it enough to soak my insides warm – as though I’d found myself wrapped tightly in a burrito of blankets on a winter’s morning.

  We made a perfect pair for cutting one another down; something that I was not used to in life. It seemed, that I got along too well with every one that I’d ever known – with every man especially. All of my practiced courtesies flew away in the face of Leonardo. “You’re envious of your brother’s good looks,” I continued, waving my hands around defiantly as the subject of our discussion watched us like a black hawk. “Not that you’re a slouch yourself,” I added just barely beneath my breath, so much so that I hoped he did not hear.

  “Excuse me?” Leonardo growled, pulling me an inch closer with a firm pull against my wrist. I could feel the anger radiating off of his person, as though his body were just a conduit for some greater power to surge through. He narrowed his green eyes and made sure there was nothing but a finger’s distance between us, and said in a gravelly tone: “If your aim is to embarrass me, you’ll have to do a lot harder than this. You need to be taught a lesson.” He pulled his head back, and the shadow of a grin formed, “I don’t teach with an easy hand,” he added in a small, smoky breath.

  “Is that her?” A voice came out. When I turned my head, I saw that Leonardo’s brother was pointing at me. “Tabitha Godric,” he said, his voice making wrestling eels of my stomach.

  Stepping forward at the audience of gangsters and thugs and what-have-yous, I clipped, “Tabitha Summers.” Looking at him, I studied his face. There was a quality there that Leonardo did not have; at least on the surface. Yes, this man had a mind that was working at all times – and if a working mind could be construed as sinister, there was much to fear with the way that he stood.

  The brother just gave a wickedly curious smirk, like I’d cracked a joke that I was not privy to. “You’re even more beautiful than your pictures led me to believe.” The tones of his voice were rich. Dark. Inviting. But I did not wish to step any closer.

  “Flattery doesn’t change the fact that I’m being held hostage.”

  Their father leaned forward in hi
s chair, “I hadn’t expected you to work so fast, Leo. Laine was just telling me about how much respect he had for your crew.” Was Laine his brother’s name? “You’ve really been whipping them into shape.”

  Leonardo’s face hinted at a great discomfort. A subtle loathing. “When I say that I’ll do something, that’s my word.”

  Laine spoke next, “Nobody’s doubting your word. Though, that would require someone to actually care in the first place.”

  The father shot his dark haired son a nasty look, “Killaine,” he warned gravely. Guess Laine was for short.

  “Sorry,” the brother said perfunctory.

  Leonardo brashly walked forward and over to his brother, the eyes of every man tracking him as he did. He brought his hands to the scruff of the man’s neck and lifted him. Promptly after, the father jumped up from his chair and scolded Leo.

  Killaine just stood there with a slight smile on his face.

  It wasn’t long before Leonardo put Killaine down. Somehow I got the impression that this was a normal occurrence between the family. Christmas gatherings must be something else. Afterwards, Leonardo looked to his father, and put up his hands in apology, stepping a few paces back to his original position.

  “Sorry,” Leonardo said, much the same that his brother did.

  “Leave us,” the Father said, “I’ll have to figure out how best to use this… new asset. Take her with you and clear out.” He flicked his hand and everyone went up from their seats. Leonardo bowed his head and licked his lips, turning to face me. His eyes met mine, and a tight ball of energy formed in my core. Whatever was about to happen, it wasn’t going to bode well for me.

  CHAPTER SIX

  FORCED BONDAGE

  THE PRINCE OF CRIME

  Every nerve in my body was going haywire. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t fucking right at all. Things had been made perfectly clear time and time again; Killaine wasn’t ever supposed to be in the same room as me. I liked it the way that it was supposed to be, with Laine staying at his own base of operations, with him keeping count of finances and juggling our criminal network.

  There was something that didn’t sit well with me, the way that he and Pops were looking at me.

  I’d made it clear to Pops and his Consiglieri. Not. Here. Not while I’m fucking here.

  That regal looking girl had her arms folded over each other, and she wouldn’t stop looking at me. I snarled at her and asked, “What?”

  “You look displeased.” Bet you’ve got a college degree with that kind of observation.

  I didn’t immediately answer her. She was sitting down in a dark, cushioned blue chair. There were a number of guest rooms at Pop’s place, but this one was the one that I used most when needed – secluded and quiet compared to the rest of the building. “That obvious huh?” I said through my teeth, only locking eyes with the woman for a moment.

  Maybe I was afraid to look at her too long. As though I’d be staring at the sun.

  The quiet of the room grew, then, and all the empty space between us melted away. I felt the strings of my soul tug towards her, which was a hell of a strange feeling, but I refused them. Stuff like that? That wasn’t like me. Time and time again life would prove that.

  “You’re terribly easy to read,” she quipped.

  Ignoring her to the best of my ability, I couldn’t get my mind off of Killaine. The thought of Pop’s legacy being handed over to him on a silver platter disgusted me. It couldn’t have just been some coincidence that he was here, but how would he have known? Getting Mr. Godric’s bastard daughter was supposed to be my gift, my way of showing that I could do what Laine wished he could.

  Ever since that day… I’ve tried to right that wrong. I need more power, to save what family I still have left.

  “Is it normal?” She asked, pulling me from my train of thought.

  “What?” I questioned.

  “Is it normal,” she repeated, “for the men at the front. The guards or whomever, to be wearing protection?”

  “Kevlar?” Had she noticed that? I hadn’t. “No,” I admitted, my head already lost in thought about Killaine, “not really. Can’t be what you saw.”

  “It’s what I saw,” she insisted like a dragon would pull its riches closer to it at the sight of a shining knight. What was she gonna do, puff smoke at me next?

  “Tch,” I voiced, “alright you sound convinced I’ll play along.”

  “No no no,” she sassed, “I’ll keep what I see to myself next time.”

  “Next time you won’t end up with me,” I remarked, raising my brows as I did. Damn if it wouldn’t be like Pops to have Killaine take charge now. I couldn’t let something like that happen, it’d be too much humiliation to withstand. Tabitha remained quiet where she sat for a while, and the two of us stewed in our own anger and reflections.

  “I don’t have the handbook to being kidnapped,” she started, “but if I did, I’d wager that staring off into space in total silence would be considered bad form.” The words coming out of her mouth grated on me, but the dulcet tones – the ferocious intellect that dripped from her tongue, it fascinated me. She sounded different from the women that I normally talked to, hell from the people that I talked to.

  Course, most of my talking with women was just over what hole they wanted me in first. So I guess I’ve set my bar pretty low for stimulating conversation. “Bastard’s always scheming,” I let the words slip from my mind, more loudly than I should have.

  “Who?” She asked quietly.

  I turned around to face her, “The thing my father calls my flesh and blood.”

  “You two really don’t get along,” she pointed out, adjusting her position on the chair so that her elbows rested on her knees. “Count yourself lucky that you even have a brother.” It wasn’t my brother that I was thankful for.

  Heat washed over me, and for a moment, anger gave me wings. “Blood doesn’t make you family.”

  There was something in that beautiful girl’s eyes. For a moment fleeting, I felt a sense of regret – all this time I was sure that no true harm would come to her, but with my brother in the picture… I wasn’t sure what was going to happen now. Her eyes reminded me in a most painful way, a way that cut at my chest and let the feelings spill like blood.

  She swallowed absently, and I watched her captivating neck carefully. There were words there, words that were supposed to have been heard – instead, only a sullen note unheard filled the room.

  “I’m sorry,” I offered, striding over toward the king sized bed and sitting at its end. It all crept up on me at once, the guilt for taking this girl from her normal, mundane life, and giving her a dalliance in this darkness that was my world.

  “If you were you would have already let me go.”

  “Let you go? Babe, if I had my way with you, I’d never let a vision like you leave my sight,” I let out a rumbly, amused laugh. She got under my skin, but for every time that she did – she somehow pulled me to a place that I’d never thought I’d go to. A place where every word belong, every silence had a point and every tangent of silliness didn’t go to waste.

  Connifer’d quite like her. Maybe too much.

  She crossed her legs, “Drink me in while you can,” she said, “because when I’m gone. I’ll be gone.”

  “I have a way with finding things.”

  “I’m not some thing to find – and I’ll have you know hiding away is a specialty of mine.” Shame she’s got a knack for that, most men are probably afraid to be within ten feet of her.

  “Never would have guessed,” I teased, and for once tonight, we shared a smile.

  There was a moment of silence as we continued to wait. I wondered what my father was discussing with Killaine, but either way, if the girl ended up in his hands… it wouldn’t be good. I tilted my head to the side, and I wandered off from Tabitha’s pretty face.

  “Since I’m stuck here… Can I ask you why you hate your brother so much?”

  That wasn’t
something I was willing to tell a woman that would soon have no place in my life. Ever since that day… I never tell women much anymore. “He promised he had my back,” I explained, the dagger of guilt stabbing at me. “Well, he didn’t. Don’t have no fairy tale for you, princess.”

  “Delightful, if I’d known you’d give such a stiff answer I would have asked you sooner,”

  In a world of crime and a downward spiral of destruction, I knew that I shouldn’t have found myself getting so worked up over some outsider’s lack of respect. Feeling my jaw tighten, I glared at her and said, “You wouldn’t know the first thing about suffering—“

  “Is that so?” She interrupted, and before I knew it, I was standing up and fast approaching her. I could see the anger in her eyes, and not the slightest hint of fear. There was something absolutely captivating about that.

  Hell it was more than captivating. It was downright erotic to not be feared.

  Closing the distance between us, Tabitha sprang from her seat and we locked eyes with one another; in that moment, if I was the sea – then she was the storm.

  We danced a subtle dance. Every look an intricate move, each breath a flourish, even the way that her pink lips curled. The heat between us became intense and I was certain that she felt it too. Was hate supposed to feel this good? I wanted to say something, but my brain got tangled up. My tongue wouldn’t work right, and even breathing felt like it had to be relearned. If she were a bed of thorns, I would let myself be wrapped in her bite if only to feel sweetness from her torturous kiss. I brought my hands to either side of her and pressed them against the wall.

  She did not budge. Now there’s a spine that I can admire.

  Bringing my lips closer to hers, I could feel the soft warmth of her breath. For some reason an image scratched at my brain, I pulled back and tried to push out the vision of her heart shaped face.

  Red, red, red. Screams like anguished sirens sing through my head.