by Olivia Deici
“You know, you raped Izabella at seventeen.”
He sneered. “Is that what she called it? She wanted it. I needed and wanted to sample the goods before marrying her. She was an uppity bitch. Brought her down a notch. Pussy wasn't that tight. Doubt she was a virgin anyway.”
“Says a man who probably has a pencil for a dick.”
That angered him and he spit my way. I tsked.
“Don't interrupt me again, Valenti.”
He turned his head away from me.
“You raped her at seventeen, and she was so scared, she ran for fifteen years.”
Marcelo jumped in. He was foaming at the mouth.
“You fucking lied to her and told her we would turn against her! You fucking pedophile! I saw you looking at her since she was thirteen. I told my father and he wouldn't listen. I fucking protected her as much as I could but your lies still managed to affect her.”
Marcelo wound his fist back and punched Valenti. Valenti reared his fist behind him but missed Marcelo.
“Like I was saying. She was on the run and looking over her shoulder for fifteen years. Recently, you began stalking her, bringing back up all of those painful memories and fears. And you had the nerve to kidnap her.”
He shrugged. “She was always mine.”
I got up and got in his face. “She was never yours!!!”
“It was a negotiation between families!”
I looked at Marcelo, who spoke to Valenti. “My father would've made an alliance but he would have never tolerated the abuse, the rape! My mother’s death hit him hard. And you took advantage of it.”
Valenti uttered a mocking sound. “Whatever it is that you need to tell yourself, Marcelo, to sleep at night knowing that your family was the one to rape your sister first. Your father used her. You weren't there for her, and I was.” He smiled. I couldn't stop my arm as it punched his abdomen.
“Stop interrupting me, Valenti. You're here today so that you feel everything you've done to her. Really feel.”
I began ticking off her many injuries, and finally I arrived to the major ones.
“And of course the big injuries- gunshot to her right leg, fractured tibia, broken right arm, and skull fracture. We're still a little confused as to what happened. The bullet entered her right thigh diagonally from behind, so I'm guessing she was trying to climb up and while she was there, you shot her from the back like a coward.”
He remained silent.
“What, Valenti? She put you down a few times with her martial arts training, that you had to go dirty and shoot her from behind?”
His silence told me all I needed to know. I smiled.
“I knew that my Izzy was a fighter. You tried to rape her again, but she fought back. We saw your teeth marks on her breast you fucking piece of shit.”
“Fighter? A slut, that's what she is.”
Moving back to the table, I grabbed a small jaw trap, the kind with sharp teeth that was used for setting traps in the woods for defenseless animals.
His eyes widened.
“We’re going to revisit all the wrongs and injuries you did to her, Valenti. Even after we get through with you, you still wouldn't have suffered a tenth of what you made her suffer.”
I looked at Marcelo. “I'd love to clamp his dick but I think that would put him out too early and we can't have that.”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
I nodded at Valenti while looking at Marcelo. He walked to him and Valenti swung and missed. Marcelo punched him twice in the abdomen, and backed up. I walked over to him and let the jaw trap bite into his left arm where it remained. He howled like a bitch.
“Fuck!”
I took my place back leaning against the metal table again, crossing my arms.
“That's for biting her.”
“Cowards!”
Laughing, I boosted myself onto the tabletop. “Come on. Stop crying like a baby. It's your non-dominant arm, Valenti! I left you your right arm so you have a fighting chance. Fucking cry-baby.”
Marcelo laughed.
“Alright. So you bit her. The trap represents that. What's next, Marcelo?”
I grabbed a can of Coke from the table and the snap of the tab sounded loud in the room as I opened it. Valenti quieted as I looked on at him with amusement.
“Fucking good. Nothing like a Coke.” I looked at Izzy’s brother. “Want one?”
Marcelo laughed as he walked over. “Sure. Don't mind if I do.”
He took the other can from the table, opened it, and drank while looking at Valenti, who was sweating. I guess our casualness about this situation unnerved him.
“So what's next?”
Shrugging, I said, “Well, we got the bite done. Ahhh. We missed the pistol whip. I saw it on the recorded feed. He did it when he kidnapped her from her home.” I grabbed a gun and Marcelo got his.
“Was it like this?” he asked as he struck Valenti across the cheek.
“No. You got the wrong cheek. It was the other. Here, watch.” My gun struck his other cheek and he fell to the floor. He spit out blood.
“Are we getting back to the order of events?”
“Yea, definitely.”
“Idiots. You're not.”
I squatted down to his level. “Oh no, we are. We’re starting from when you kidnapped her and we’re moving backwards.”
He looked from me to Marcelo. His gaze settled on me again and I couldn't help it as my smile broadened.
“You see, I was going to do all this by myself, and Marcelo wanted in.” My shoulders moved up in an easy careless shrug. “And well, I thought to myself he had a right to fuck you up, too. We’re saving the best for last, Valenti. Marcelo made me promise that that right was his. I'm a fair man, so after thinking about it, I agreed.”
At his confused gaze, I laughed. I moved towards the weapons on the table.
“Here. It's laid out for you. We accidentally used the clamp first, but it should've been the pistol whip. We fixed our mistake.”
Marcelo laughed and patted his chest. “Guaranteed, we won't go out of order again, Giulio.”
Valenti’s eyes moved back to the table. His gaze settled on the really long knife at the end of the line of weapons. He still looked confused. I looked at Marcelo.
“Bro, I don't think he gets it yet. Want to explain it to him? Guess he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”
Marcelo laughed as he walked over. With every injury he said, he pointed to the appropriate weapon. “Now granted, our fists are part of the entertainment, since the bruises on her body told us you used yours on her. Ok, so aside from that, we have this for her bruises, and this for her broken arm.” He looked at me holding up the weapon. “This was for her broken leg, right?”
I nodded and he looked at Valenti again.
“Yea. And this is to mimic the fall you made her have when you shot her. This gun will definitely take a good shot into your tibia.”
Valenti swallowed.
“Why the extra tools?”
Marcelo and I looked at one another.
“He really is an idiot,” Marcelo chuckled.
I moved towards the remaining tools.
“This is a bonus. It was my idea. See, I don't like rapists and I sure as fuck don't like pedophiles.”
Lifting up the hedge shears, I opened and closed them, looking at him.
“It breaks a bro code, you know…” I pursed my lips indicating his dick. “But, rapists and pedophiles deserve to have their dicks cut off.”
He began moving backwards.
“What the fuck! I didn't rape her when I took her.”
I looked at Marcelo and sighed. “Fuck. Your family really wanted an alliance with this guy and his famiglia? Shit, if he's this dull his family can't be too bright either.”
Marcelo shrugged. “I know, man. I told my dad, but you know how it is.”
I nodded. “Yea. I do know.” My focus returned to Valenti.
“We’re going backwa
rds, remember. First the kidnap, and then the rape. These shears would be for the night you raped her.”
His gaze traveled to the table. “What's with the long knife then?”
I replaced the shears back in line and leaned against the metal table again, crossing my arms.
“That's also for the rape. You see, Valenti, Marcelo over there is going to make you bend over and feel first hand what a virgin must feel when she's taken by force and raped.” I paused. “You know what I’m talking about. It’s what you did to Izabella.”
Valenti paled.
Looking over at Marcelo, I picked up a metal pipe.
“Ready?”
He nodded.
“Let's get this started.”
Chapter 51
Roman
Three days later
Train, Calling All Angels
I was getting frantic with worry. Shouldn't she have woken up by now? I was driving myself nuts. I just wanted to see her beautiful green eyes, and hear her soft, soothing voice.
Flipping through the channels on television, I heard a tiny noise and stopped. When I heard it again, I looked at Izzy and saw her eyes slowly opening.
“Baby.”
Despite me talking to her, she didn't acknowledge me. I was warned this may happen as her senses were regained.
I grabbed her hand and moved next to her.
Her eyes shut as if the light from the lamp nearby bothered her. I rushed to shut it off. Izzy began moving her left arm and tug at her cords.
“No baby.” Gently, I stayed her hand. “Let me call a nurse, bella.”
Within minutes, the nurse and doctor were in. Her doctor was a friend from medical school. They examined Izzy and when they were finishing up, Cari came in.
“They called me. She woke up?”
My smile was large as I turned to her. “Yes.”
She hugged me tightly and I returned it. God, it was like a heavy weight was lifting off me.
“Good signs,” her doc said. He explained what to expect from her over the course of the next several days.
“No paralysis. Her feet continue to respond to stimuli.”
I wiped a hand down my face.
“She needs time to recover and regain her cognition.” He smiled as he said this. “I believe strongly that she will make a full recovery but we have to wait and see.”
Cari and I hugged each other like fucking crazy ass people, but I didn't give a fuck. My Izzy was awake and everything else didn't matter.
Nothing mattered but Izzy.
It would be five more days before she was discharged. By then, my little spitfire was earning her nickname.
“I just want to be home with you and Dezi.”
I kissed her hand and rubbed my thumb down one cheek. Smiling at her, I said, “Baby, we’re following their advice. I'm not putting your life in jeopardy because you're too impatient and stubborn.”
She groaned and rolled her eyes, and it made me laugh.
“You're alive, Izzy. Nothing else matters. Nothing. If they need you to be here another week, then we’ll do that.” My eyes wouldn't let go of the hold they had on hers. “I'm just grateful, baby. You're still here with me.”
She reached out and patted my beard.
“Like it?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Kinda.”
“I'm sexy as fuck with a goatee, too.”
She blew a raspberry. “Your ego, Roman!”
I smirked. “Yea. And you love it, baby.”
We'd thought it was the bullet that had broken her leg, but it wasn't. Actually, the bullet went through cleanly. The way she landed on her fall had broken her right arm and leg. She would need some physical therapy, but Izzy was resilient. She would make a complete recovery.
I was pushing a disgruntled Izzy, who insisted that she wanted to walk despite knowing she couldn't and that it was hospital policy to be discharged in a wheelchair, out of the hospital and towards my car I parked curbside. Before we reached the glass sliding doors to the outside, someone yelled out her name.
“Stop.”
I looked down at her and then to where she was staring. A man walked over to her. He was taller than Izzy, but much shorter than me. His build was also slight.
Puny man.
Who the fuck was this guy?
“I heard from Eddie you were here. Glad you're recovering. Doing better?”
Her face was unreadable but her voice was cordial.
“Doing well, Elias. Grateful to be alive and to finally leave the hospital.”
When she looked up at me, a smile spread on her face. The feeling that action gave me, that just by looking at me I was able to make my girl smile, was fucking amazing.
“This is Roman Zambrano, my boyfriend.”
Elias’ eyes widened.
Boyfriend? That fucking sounded so weak and lame, because in my heart, we were so much more, so much closer to one another than a mere “boyfriend” status would communicate.
She was my soulmate.
Fuck. Did she reciprocate that feeling?
Elias reached his hand out but I stared at it and just nodded my head. I didn't want to shake this prick’s fucking hand.
“How's Hannah?”
Prick shrugged. “Good, I guess. Last I heard, she's in Milwaukee. Haven't spoken to her in two years.”
Inwardly I laughed. He messed up with Izzy and that mistake was the best thing to happen to me, because it set her free for me to catch.
He broke up with the best thing to happen to him for some equally unfaithful ass that lasted all of one year.
“Nice to see you, Bella.”
He looked at Izzy expectantly.
“Bye, Elias.”
Not letting her remain one moment longer around that ass, I ignored his goodbye to me, and pushed her towards the doors.
“Huhh. Now I see.”
She looked up at me. “See what?”
“Why you hate the nickname Bella. And seriously, Izzy, what the fuck did you see in him?”
She laughed. “What do you mean?”
When we were at the car, I lifted her and gently set her inside. I squatted down next to her.
“I mean how could you date him? I couldn't be more different than him.”
“How so?”
My laugh was mocking and cheeky. “Seriously, Iz. A mild wind could knock him over. What can he bench-press? A bottle of wine.”
She laughed, and I leaned over and kissed her.
“I don't know what I saw in him either. I guess, like Cari said, I was starved for love and took it where I could get it despite its source.”
“He didn't deserve you.”
Her eyes studied mine. “No, he didn't.”
“I don't deserve you, either, but I have you and I'm never letting you go, Izabella Laurenti.”
Her smile parted the clouds as she rested her palm on my cheek and leaned in for a kiss.
***
Finally, a short time later, I'd settled her back home. The building was back to normal, with reinforced doors and security.
I'd hired Shadow to update everything, specifically the security. I didn't want Izzy living here anymore, though. I wanted us to move in together. We'd basically lived together before the kidnapping, but not in the technical sense. I'd stayed over more days than not, was all.
Izzy needed to use crutches and had a few more weeks before the cast came off. Going up and down those stairs was not an option, and I'd convinced her to get a doctor to sub for her at the clinic so she can have some time off to recover.
We hadn't made love, and truthfully, I was scared to touch her. She's so petite, and when you factored in the injuries, I was afraid of breaking her.
Marcelo had been riding my ass. He wanted to see his sister. I don't blame him. God fucking knew that if Daniela were discovered somewhere, I'd want to see her. I would freaking pound the asshole keeping her from me into the ground.
But I didn't want Izzy upset. I wanted her reco
very to be easy.
After two weeks of resting at home, I decided it was time. Marcelo and I had come to the agreement that I would approach her about him. I would not let her be ambushed by the appearance of a brother after fifteen years. My saving grace was that she already knew he was in town and that I'd already met him. She didn’t know that he knew she was here.
“Hey, baby. Can we talk?”
She was fiddling around with her Kindle when she looked up.
“Everything ok?”
Her memory of the actual kidnapping itself was somewhat fuzzy, although her recall of the events when she woke up in the warehouse was remarkable in light of her head injury. She asked what had happened to Valenti, and I told her that he would never bother her again and that karma had taken care of him.
She didn't need to know that karma had been helped by me and Marcelo.
“I betrayed your confidence.”
She looked taken aback. She set her Kindle down and sat up straighter.
“What happened?”
“Marcelo.”
Her eyebrows furled. “What about him?”
“I needed his help with finding you. I had to go to him. He was the one who told me about Valenti’s warehouse where we found you.”
She sighed and brought her hand up to her brow.
“So he knows I'm here.”
Sitting down next to her, I grabbed her hands. “He saw you at the warehouse, baby. He wants to see you now. I told him about the rape. He needed to know your history with Valenti.”
She gripped my hands tightly. I brought them to my lips and kissed them, then began massaging them.
“Baby, he wants to see you and talk to you. Listen to what he has to say.”
“You're friends now?”
I smirked and I saw a smile play on her lips. “You can say that. He's the brother of the woman I love. He helped me get rid of a threat to her. He loves his sister and would do, and has done, anything for her.”
Her eyes were wide.
“Besides, I got a good impression of him the night I met him.”
She was lost in thought.
“Just think about it, baby. No pressure. I don't want you worrying.”
“I'll see him.”
