Page 73 of My Solemn Vow (The Mafia Arrangement #1)
ANTONELLA
FACING FEAR AND FOE
I’ve walked past the top of the basement stairs a few times today. Each time it gets easier. Valor, however, hovers like I’m going to shatter. Though a tiny piece, a fragment of brokenness, wants to, I refuse to let stairs, and a room, define who I am.
“I have a second location if you want me to take him somewhere else for you to get your revenge,” he offers. Hell, he offered to build me a whole new house just so I don’t have to stare down these steps. “I mean it. We’ll move tomorrow and go to a hotel tonight if you want us to.”
But this is Kerrianne’s home. It doesn’t feel right upturning her sanctuary because I have an issue to work through.
I draw in a deep inhale and release it slowly. “It’s just a flight of stairs. It’s just a room.”
The first step is the hardest, but once I get myself moving, muscle memory takes over.
Valor comes down the stairs behind me, and it quickens my heart rate. I bite back the panic. Repeating the logic again and again that this is just stairs, it’s just a basement, and I’m not the one who is about to die .
We’re just as strong as he is. My wolf assures me. He couldn’t kill us, not anymore.
I don’t know how much of that is true, but she certainly believes it.
Neil is chained to the wall, dozing, head slumped on his shoulder, when we walk in. He doesn’t look comfortable, but he does look deep asleep. There’s nothing to throw, so instead, as soon as the door closes and I know Kerrianne can’t hear, I scream at the top of my lungs.
Neil jolts awake and looks around, his chest heaving, and he gasps. “I see she survived.”
“She survived,” I echo his mockery. “No thanks to you.”
“And I think you’ll probably be her first kill,” Valor muses.
I can hear his finger tapping against the screens of the tablets. He’s setting the security system and whatever he uses to make sure Kerrianne is safe while we’re down here. Well, in addition to Declan and Jack being stationed in the living room and upstairs hallway.
I hate that Valor is right about killing him. Not because I’m shying away from death, but that this is what it took for me to get angry enough to do it. There are questions I need answered though. Pieces to the puzzle that have been bugging me all afternoon.
“How the fuck did you mess up a drive-by?” I start with the least recent event I haven’t been able to figure out.
“His car was literally still headed toward the school. If you’re looking to take out the heir and his successor, then why wouldn’t you wait until his car was headed in the other direction with his child in tow? ”
I glare at him, guessing I’m out of striking range based on the length of chain holding him to the wall.
“Idiots didn’t know where the school was.” Neil doesn’t even bother lying and saying it wasn’t him.
“Who did you hire?” I clench my fist .
Valor comes up behind me and places one hand on my shoulder and the other on my stomach, holding me back to him.
“Members of my pack.” Neil’s claiming word ‘my’ makes Valor growl.
“Don’t worry. We’ve already started flushing out your little militia.
You’d be surprised how many of them already transferred to different packs or simply disappeared.
For someone who used to own quite a bit of stock in a tech company, you knew nothing about hiding your evidence.
” Valor is cold, the unwavering version of himself.
“It was smart to short the inventory of those custom shells coming in. I never even considered that you would be smart enough to cut a deal for extra ammunition but stupid enough to use something so customized in a drive-by shooting.”
“It was convenient. That I could blame it on your new bride’s family.” Neil taunts, again not distinguishing me as a member of the pack and family, even though it was his actions that made me part of ‘the family secret.’
Valor steps around me and goes to Neil. Wasting energy, Neil tries to fight and attack Valor, but much younger and stronger, Valor moves his restraints and muscles him over into the very chair I suffered in.
Neil struggles, trying to stay out of it.
Was that what I looked like, fighting back? Is that how pathetic and weak I was? I blink and turn away, not wanting to watch this part.
No. My wolf pushes inside me, and I follow her lead, forcing my gaze back to Neil.
Wolf healing, as Valor explained, is why I have just a barely there silver scar from the wound that almost killed me. If it weren’t for the vividness of the memories, I’d say it was nothing more than a dream.
Valor has him completely secured within another minute or so .
“Go to the toy box, darling. Pick out some toys. But remember, we’ve got to get some more answers first.” Valor indicates to his cupboard of implements.
The way he said ‘toy box’ and ‘darling’ sends ridiculous little butterflies to my stomach.
They bring to mind his promises from before the world got fucked up.
That he’s open to using toys. Days and weeks seem to be blending — Christmas is already later this week.
But the night I threatened to get myself off feels so long ago yet also like it was yesterday.
Valor comes up behind me, looking over my shoulder into the toolbox. “Maximum pain and short, or draw it out long and slow?”
I shrug, not even sure what you’d call many of these things.
I pick out a knife, and Valor wraps his hand around mine. He adjusts my grip on it like he did the gun. “You use this with upward force. It sheers off the surface. Going up produces the best impact.”
Well, if there’s a right and a wrong way to torture someone, Valor Cavanagh would know. I try not to laugh at the morbid humor of that.
Valor follows me as I take the knife back to Neil. This time when we approach, his face pales.
“It’s all fun and games until you’re the one in the chair, isn’t it, Neil?” I grit my teeth, trying not to haul off and jab the knife into his head.
But as I get closer with the knife, I freeze. “Why don’t you tell us about the warehouse bombing?”
“Wh-what do you want to know?” Neil is hoarse. He tries to swallow. “You mean the Brass Skull Company shipment? And the idiots I hired to attack us?”
“I didn’t expect him to cooperate so easily,” Valor grumbles like he’s disappointed his own flesh and blood is folding to torture so easily.
Then again, if it were Gregorio and Eduardo... I’d maybe feel the same.
I use the knife as Valor showed me. Flesh moves so easily with it.
“It was too fuckin’ easy,” Neil sputters, his face turning red. “This stupid up-and-coming crew your dad told me to disband. They’d take any job for a fraction of our prices. So stupid they’d even attack us.”
“Let me guess, you’re the one inviting the Yakuza in too. You probably, what? Promised them something for giving information to Eduardo and Gregorio?” I muse, thinking back to what Marc said.
“Enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Neil coughs and swings his unfocused gaze in Valor’s direction.
“You’d been so intent on revenge for Holly for how long?
” Neil draws a short breath. “It was too easy to dangle the carrot over the D’Medicis.
It’s shit you didn’t die when I killed Holly.
But everyone said she wasn’t your fated mate.
I tried anyway. Your loyalty to her...
bred too much hatred. That hate must’ve kept you alive. ”
Neil’s head wobbles like he’s going to pass out. I slap him, the knife still in my hand slicing a gouge across his face.
He yowls as he comes back to with slightly better focus.
Valor stalks forward, but he doesn’t touch Neil. “All of this for what? To take over the pack? What is it that my father did that made you want the pack?”
He levels eyes with Neil.
Curiously, I step around him for a better view and find they both have golden-yellow eyes. Eyes that I now share with them. My lip curls in a snarl as I look between them.
It’s all Neil’s fault. Valor did save me. He fucked up, sure. But we’re both victims of Neil.
Neil shakes his head, coming around, and the blood running down his face drips onto his days-old shirt. “You’re the problem. Not him. You and your ideas for the future. You can’t just leave good enough alone.” Neil gurgles and splutters but gets himself together to lash out his vengeful words.
Valor steps back and looks to me. “I don’t think I have any more questions. Let it out, darling.”
I didn’t need Valor’s permission, but knowing we have all the answers lifts a weight off me. But something else rises in its place.
We’ll kill him for hurting us. My wolf is there. Jaws snapping, snarling, and ready for blood. She’s strength amid the nerves and adrenaline running through my body.
“It’d have all worked out except your bride is weak. Had she just been strong enough to turn the other way when we sent Gregorio’s loyal soldier to fetch Kerrianne.”
Neil’s insult earns him another slap and then another. This time, knowing what the knife can do, I angle it so more deep red gouges join the first one as I whip my hand across his face. But it doesn’t feel like enough. Not enough torture. Not enough pain. Not enough eye for an eye.
My strikes don’t seem to hurt him as much as the pain in my soul hurts me.
“Had she just been docile enough, as well trained as Gregorio said she was, then this wouldn’t have happened. You’d be dead and none of the family or pack would be the wiser. It’s too easy to kill off such a small family line.” Neil spits blood, and it lands in his lap.
My lip curls in disgust as drool dribbles down his lip and chin. Pathetic.
Neil wheezes in a breath. “You know, Gregorio was right about females, not worth the trouble.”
Bile rises in my throat, and a roar bellows from deep inside me as I drive the knife into his stomach. Pulling it out, I slam it into his shoulder.
I give in to the rage, wanting my pound of flesh but also wanting him to shut the fuck up. His voice is grating on my nerves.
Neil screams out again, and I try to find an ounce of humanity to take mercy on him.
But nothing, since the last time I was down here, has given me any desire to show mercy.
I sink my blade into his body two more times, the knife going all the way through and nicking the fucking chair, before he loses consciousness and is sufficiently bleeding out.
I watch and wait, not wanting to miss his death, and within his final exhale, I find freedom.