We almost never got along. Even as children, we were always at odds. My older brothers did whatever my father asked of them. They were the good sons. Obedience was key in my family. Marco and Pete knew their place, played their part. I knew the way out of my family all too well. My death and the blood of others would pave the way.
Gia would never truly walk away from this lifestyle, no matter what I did to stop her from getting in too deep. She was part of it already. There were dozens of reasons for someone to take her from me. The prime suspect was Enzo. I killed his son. Blood demanded blood, and I had to pay for my sins.
We sat in silence for the remainder of the drive to Cedar Grove. Marco pulled onto a street with nothing but split-level homes, in a suburban neighborhood which was far too quiet for comfort. Pete was right about being smart. We couldn’t go into the safe house and start shooting whoever was inside. One pop of our guns would draw the police here within minutes. But we had to be prepared.
Following Pete’s lead, we exited the car and walked toward the house in the middle of the deserted block. With our guns in hand, checking our surroundings, we crept along the left side of the house. A few houses down, the neighbors had on their outdoor lights, the soft glow casting its shadow on the pavement. Pete went straight for the basement door with Marco behind him and Sonny on my rear.
We had no idea how many men were taking cover here. For all we knew, we were walking into a trap. My life was worth nothing compared to Gia’s. She was all that mattered to me. With each day that had passed, I was becoming more desperate to find her.
That’s why I had to listen to Pete. He was the voice of reason when I had none. I couldn’t be trusted in my condition, which was why Pete never let me out of his sight. At least my brothers were willing to help me find Gia. After all the years we were at odds, we were finally coming together—like a real family.
Pete turned the rusted handle on the basement door, and it surprisingly opened on the first turn. He glanced over his shoulder at us and shook his head. Something was off about this situation. With his gun pointed into the dark space, Pete pushed open the door far enough for us to see inside.
“I don’t like this,” Pete whispered to Marco who agreed.
Nothing about this scenario was right. The place sent chills up my arms. A safe house would have been heavily guarded, not left wide open for us to roam. Every lead we had on Enzo and his crew was drying up. I was starting to lose hope we would find Gia alive. She’d been gone for over a week without any contact from the men who took her.
Marco removed the cell phone from his pocket and used the light to shine it on the vacant cellar. It was an unfinished basement with exposed beams in the ceiling, dirt walls, and windows that were painted and sealed shut. I turned to look at Sonny and pointed at the windows.
He nodded, his teeth ground together in anger. “This is the place.”
We stepped inside, taking our time. I noticed the old radiator in the far corner of the room. It had a pair of handcuffs shackled to the pipe that went into the floor. Just like Sonny said, it was leaking. An old, dirty plastic bowl was on the floor next to the door near the radiator along with a half-full water bottle. This was where Sonny had been held for almost a week. He hadn’t been lying about being kidnapped.
Pete took out his cell phone and ordered us to do the same, so we had enough light to navigate through the dank space. When we reached the metal door on the opposite side of the basement, Pete yanked on the knob, and it gave without any issue. No one was in sight. Not a sound. A sickness rose up from my stomach, the bile choking me. I was terrified Gia was here. What worried me the most was the condition in which we would find her.
If a ransom was the angle of her kidnappers, they would have called by now. They would have stated their demands. Whoever took her wanted me to suffer. I’d hurt so many people while working for my father. Enzo Mancuso was the only person who had a legitimate reason to want me dead. I killed his son. He wanted the blood of the only woman I had ever loved as payment. It was that simple. Gia was paying the price for my sins, as I had paid for my father’s sins.
We moved through the dark hallway and up a flight of steps without spotting anything out of place. Mattresses and sleeping bags were scattered on the living room and dining room floors. The kitchen still smelled of spices, as if someone had cooked in the past few hours. Plates of spaghetti were on the table along with baskets of sliced bread, salad, other pasta dishes, and decanters of wine. A crew of men had been living in the house where they’d tortured Sonny.
Who tipped them off? Someone had to have known we were coming? The only people who knew we were on our way to North Jersey were standing in the living room with us.
Sonny was still not the same. Being kept in a dirty basement and fed broth between beatings had left him more on edge than usual. He wasn’t the same as before. I wasn’t the same person either. Living each day in fear that it was Gia’s last, turned me into a maniac. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.
Pete stopped dead in his tracks in the center of the living room, his eyes fixed on the dead body on the couch in front of us. I held my phone up higher to get a better look. Michael “Fig” Figone wore a black suit with rips at the seams and buttons dangling off the strings. His chest was sliced up, small serrated slices that reminded me of Pete’s signature method of torture. The closer I moved to his body I could smell the turpentine Pete would use as an antiseptic to close the wound enough to reopen it. Each cut of his blade was meant to hurt more than the last.
Dom had to be behind Fig’s death. Only members of Pete’s crew knew his preferred method of torture. The men he repeated the same procedure on never lived long enough to talk about it. Judging by the blood under Fig’s fingers and the marks on his skin, he put up a fight. What struck me as odd wasn’t how Dom killed one of his own men. It was the masking tape over his mouth, stuffing something thick inside.
Pete motioned with his gun for Marco to remove the tape from Fig’s lips. He ripped it off in one swift motion and narrowed his eyes at Pete. “What the fuck?”
“What is it?” Pete squinted to get a better look at the black device jammed inside Fig’s mouth. “Give it here.”
Marco tugged on the end of the narrow black case and placed the recording device in Pete’s hand. Covered in blood and saliva, it was hard to see the strip of white tape that said ‘Play’ on it. Pete sucked in a deep breath and glanced over at me. Without hesitation, he hit the play button.
My blood ran cold at the shrill sound of Gia yelling for help. She was shouting at a man with a thick New York accent who told her he liked it when she screamed. Sonny clamped a hand on my shoulder, offering me support. I needed someone to keep me from falling apart. Blinking away the red-hot bloodlust from my eyes, I balled my hands into fists at my sides, my jaw clenched in anger.
“She’s alive,” Sonny said close to my ear. “We’ll get her back.”
“The boss will like you,” the man said to Gia.
“Pete,” I choked out. “I know what you said…”
Pete held out his hand to silence me. “No retaliation. Not until we know who we’re dealing with.”
“It’s obviously another family,” Marco added. “My guess would be Basile. We’re in his territory. He’s been backing Enzo from the beginning.”
“Tell me something we don’t already know,” Pete spat. “But we can’t go pointing fingers without proof.”
John “Big John” Basile was the head of the Basile crime family in North New Jersey. He’d been a boss for almost as long as my dad and close in age to him. My father was never on good terms with Big John, but they had an understanding. Neither man was to take sides when it came to turf wars between the families. We always had small beefs with New York and on occasion the DiSalvos in Atlantic City, but nothing which had ever amounted to more than working out our differences the old-fashioned way.
The old man believed Big John had broken their agreement and was help
ing out Enzo from the start, though we could never prove it. We had no clue what Big John could possibly want from Enzo that he couldn’t get from us. We were getting closer to uncovering the answers we needed to find Gia. But at the same time, we were so far away.
I took the recorder from Pete’s hand and hit play again. My jaw clenched in anger, the pain of losing Gia almost unbearable. I fought the tears, kept them at bay. I wouldn’t allow them to win. I couldn’t give Pete the satisfaction of watching me break.
The man who was hurting her would pay. He taunted me, tormented me with the essence of my girl. I could hear her voice and forced myself to listen to her screams. It made me feel closer to her. There had to be a clue. Why else would Dom leave the tape behind for us? He wanted me to hear the pain in Gia’s voice.
Maybe it was Enzo. I killed his son, even though I did the junkie a favor. But I doubt Enzo saw the blood on my hands that way. He wanted me to pay for shooting Antonio up with heroin until he seized and foamed at the mouth. Pete made me do it. I never wanted to kill Antonio. He was an innocent in all of this. Just like Gia.
My brothers had convinced me Antonio was a rat and his drug habit was interfering with our business. I knew better than to believe Pete’s lie. I murdered Antonio Mancuso because my brother wanted to show Enzo what happens to people who turn their backs on our family. Though he would never admit to it, Pete’s ego was damaged from the betrayal of some of his closest men. He wanted Enzo to feel his pain. Instead, I felt every bit of it. So did Gia.
Pete grabbed the recorder from my hand and hit the Stop button. I missed Gia’s voice the second we were left in silence.
“Time to go,” Pete growled, looking at each of us. He had an authority to his tone that begged each of us to notice. “Let’s see what else we can get out of Sal before we get rid of him.”
For Gia’s sake, I’d hoped Sal had another tip that could point us in the right direction. Whoever was pulling the strings fed us bits of information at a time, none of it useful. We were becoming the pawns in someone else’s game. But it wasn’t until that night even Pete realized someone was playing us.
Chapter Thirteen
Gia
My body was so weak, the illness I’d developed while in the DiSalvo’s possession sucking every ounce of energy I had left. For over a week, I awoke with my mouth watering and my stomach turning. Each day was getting harder than the last. I forced myself to open my eyes and pushed myself up from the mattress in my new bedroom.
Unlike the white room, with its padded walls and lack of windows, this one had a window that sat up about eight feet high and had bars on it. But at least I had natural light, even if the tiny bit of sunshine came through a dirt-covered pane. The sun on my face was the only way I’d known another day had passed. Apart from Lucky’s morning greeting, it was also my wake up call.
As a condition of my new living arrangement, I had to dress in skimpy clothes and prance around Dante DiSalvo’s house as if he were Hugh Hefner and I was one of his bunnies. I was one of the many girls who waited on Dante hand and foot. At least he hadn’t touched me. Not yet, anyway.
Women threw themselves at Dante. He was ridiculously good-looking with a muscular body to match, and surprisingly young for a Mafia boss. Dante was intimidating, but no one scared me more than Angelo Sr. He was the stuff nightmares were made from. I couldn’t comprehend how someone would go against a man as powerful and determined as Don Morelli. Dante was either brave or stupid, maybe a little bit of both.
When the door to my bedroom opened a crack, I knew it was Lucky before she entered. I sat up and pushed the white, silky slip over my bare thighs. We were given clothes, mostly white and lingerie. On occasion, I was allowed to wear a dress or skirt, though it never covered much. Dante liked to see skin from his girls.
“Time to get up, Raven,” Lucky said, throwing her hands onto her narrow hips. “It’s your turn to wake Dante.”
I cringed at the thought. The same waves of nausea which had attacked me from day one hit me all at once. My stomach burned from the bile choking me. Since I’d moved into his house, I somehow managed to avoid delivering Dante’s breakfast in bed. That was how he took it every morning. I was usually the one preparing his eggs or making sure his bacon was crispy enough.
Serving Dante meant being alone with him in the same room. We hadn’t spent a second together without the other girls since he decided to keep me. For however long he planned to do so.
He made it known from the start I would not become a permanent fixture in his home. I would be sold to the highest bidder as soon as he was finished playing with me. Maybe he was fucking with me to get to Angelo. That was my guess.
I bent forward and hugged my stomach, keeping my head between my thighs. But the sickness won out. Moving past Lucky, I bolted into the Jack-and-Jill bathroom that separated my room from Carly, the skinny brunette next door to me. I flipped up the lid on the toilet and hurled the contents of my stomach into the bowl.
“Girl, what is your problem?” Lucky stood behind me, watching me throw up. She didn’t even offer to hold my hair for me. “You’ve been puking a lot lately.”
I glanced up at her and tore a piece of paper from the roll and wiped my mouth with it. “Maybe because I’m being held against my will. Wouldn’t you be sick if you were a prisoner here?”
She sank down to my height and patted me on the head. “You should consider yourself lucky that Dante allows you to live in the main house with us. While you might consider this a punishment, he’s throwing you a bone. Take it and shut up about it, or fight him and see what happens to you. It’s your choice, Raven. Personally, I would like to see you stay. We have a lot in common. I can see us becoming best friends if you would stop fighting and start blending in. This life isn’t as bad as you think. Dante takes good care of us.”
“But he makes you dance for him. You have to fuck him. And the other girls.”
She shrugged. “What’s so bad about that? I would fuck Dante even if he didn’t pay me. That man is like a sex God on crack, and I can never get enough of him. The girls aren’t as bad as you think. You would get used to it.”
“But he’s using you. He’s never going to love you.”
“Love.” She laughed. “That’s just a word, sweetie. To people like me, it means nothing. Dante loves me in his own way. Except, he chooses to show me with his cock and his wallet. Understand?”
“Not really,” I admit. “I don’t get any of this. Why are any of you here?”
“Because we were the forgotten girls no one wanted until Dante saw something in each of us. He sees something in you. Otherwise, he would have thrown you to the wolves the first night. From what I heard, he can get good money for you. But he took pity on you.”
“I don’t want his pity,” I shot back.
“How about his mercy? A man like that shows none, and he did with you. Either get used to your new life as part of this harem, or you will be gone soon enough. Like I said before, you have a choice. Make it for yourself, or Dante will make it for you.”
Lucky helped me up from the floor, closed the lid, and then flushed the toilet. She steered me by the hips to the mirror and stood behind me, smiling at me. I hadn’t smiled since the night I was taken, when Sonny made me laugh in my bedroom and promised to return with popcorn. What I wouldn’t have given to go back to that night.
My heart still hurt for Sonny. He would never commit me to this life of servitude. I had to believe he lived up to his name. Sonny was good. The good son. The good friend. One of the few men I ever trusted. I loved him. He was my best friend, as he was Angelo’s. We never had secrets. Everything was always out on the table when it came to Sonny.
“Do you know how I got here?”
Lucky raked her fingers through my dark curls, attempting to style them. “From what Anthony told me, someone up North gave you to Dante as a present. His thirty-fifth birthday was three weeks ago.”
“Is that how long I’ve been here?”<
br />
“Sounds about right.”
Lucky didn’t look at me when she spoke. She fluffed my curls in her hands as if I was her own personal Barbie doll. I never understood her obsession with me. Lucky paid extra special attention to me that she didn’t give to the other girls.
“So, I’ve been missing for three weeks?”
“I guess so. Maybe more.” Lucky slid her hands from my hair to my breasts and cupped them in her hands. “They look bigger since you moved into the house with us.” I flinched from her touch, and she noticed. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Raven.”
“I’m not. My nipples are sore, and you keep fondling me.”
She laughed. “You can’t be… no, I doubt it. You haven’t even been with Dante.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Can’t be what?”
“It’s nothing. I thought maybe you were pregnant with how sick you’ve been.”
My mouth opened wide in shock. She was right. I was supposed to have my period last month. Instead, all I had were sore breasts, hormones which were kicking my ass, and a stomach that couldn’t handle the smell of most foods. I especially couldn’t stand the smell of the eggs and bacon I’d cooked for Dante since I moved into his house.
“I never finished my pills…”
Saying it aloud made it real. Could I be pregnant? I was always so careful with Angelo, but things had gotten out of control over the last few months. We had sex sometimes three times a day. He was insatiable when we were together, and I could never get enough of him. Before I was taken, my life was a roller coaster of fucked-up shit, one thing after the other. I tried to make up for the pills I’d missed. Tried being the operative word.
“This is not how I wanted my life to turn out,” I confessed to Lucky, covering my face with my hands. “I’m a lawyer. I have a fiancé who’s probably on a killing spree right now, looking to find me. He will kill Dante. How can I convince him into letting me go?”
The Ultimate Sin Page 6
