Page 114 of Her Dark Salvation

The footsteps stopped, replaced by a familiar accented voice that echoed through the silence. “You’re awake.”

The statement held neither consternation nor applause, and I lifted my chin off my chest, swallowing through the dryness to make a smart remark, but no words escaped. At least, none I was willing to exchange for more torture.

“Not surprising given you haven’t fed in…” Vinnie Valenzano looked at his watch like it counted weeks instead of hours. “Well, doesn’t matter. Our kind wasn’t meant to go without blood for this long, especially considering the number of times you had to heal.”

I’d lost count of the beatings and maiming after the third or fourth session. He’d brought in a Source after the first one, allowed me to feed long enough to heal the worst of the damage. Damage that would have killed a human. Since then, he’d let me starve, my immortal body consuming itself to heal. The process took longer and longer with each session, drawing out my torment and emaciating my body. I couldn’t endure any more. I needed to feed.

“I think you’ve learned your lesson, judging by your lack of commentary this time. Take him down.”

The man at the table rose. Muted footsteps approached from behind. Something creaked. A short, muscled man wrapped his arms around my legs just above my knees and lifted me to slacken the rope. Hot, searing pain shot up my legs from my knees and ripped a scream from my lungs. The guard behind me unfastened the rope from whatever it was attached to, and my arms fell like overcooked noodles, limp, useless pieces of flesh hanging from shoulders on fire.

I collapsed onto the man holding my legs, and despite my height, he caught me and lowered me to the ground. I shivered, the hard surface cold and unyielding against my starved, naked body.

“Your knees are broken, so I wouldn’t try to stand. And your right eye is missing.”

The punishment came back to me in an avalanche of pain, violent struggles, and tortured screams, and I dry-heaved, reliving the excruciating horror.

“I’ll bring in a Source shortly, after we discuss what’s going to happen. Capisce?”

The man who’d caught me bent over my prone, broken body and slipped a knife through the ropes around my wrists. I opened my mouth to say yes, but all that came out was a grunt.

“Get him some water.”

Muted footfalls retreated. I pressed my shaking hands into the concrete and tried to prop myself up, but I collapsed under my own weight, my body too weak to even raise itself off the ground.

Vinnie crouched next to me, resting his forearms on his knees, and lowered his head to stare into my remaining eye. “What am I going to do with you, Luca? Hm?” He shook his head. “So much potential, but so consumed by vendetta.” He frowned. “It’s made you sloppy,” he said with disgust.

He leaned closer and grabbed my swollen cheeks, squeezing my jaw between thick fingers. I winced and tears spilled down my face, my eye watering from the entirety of my pain.

“You broke two of our most sacred laws. You attacked a made man without provocation and without sanction.” He tightened his grip on my face. My breath quickened and made sickening sounds through the squeezed opening he made of my bloody mouth. “You attacked his girlfriend. What are you? Stunad? Anna Barone almost died because of you. And if Ciarán Shaughnessy’s cousin hadn’t been there with her, you’d have a fucking turf war on your head. Let me be clear, Luca. If Gina DeVita hadn’t intervened on your behalf, if you weren’t a blood demon, you’d be dead.”

He released my chin and pushed me away as he stood. Bloody drool leaked out of the corner of my mouth and onto the floor.

The squat guard returned and shoved a glass of water at me. I struggled to raise my arm.

“Help him,” Vinnie barked.

The guard lifted my head and poured water between my cracked, swollen lips. I drank as much as I could, nearly choking in my efforts to swallow. I coughed, sputtered, and turned my head away, but those few mouthfuls cleared the fog.

Ciarán Shaughnessy’s cousin? With Anna?

“Lucky for you, I agreed to spare your life knowing I could bring you to death’s door. Again, and again.” He crouched to look me in the eye. “Your blood debt to Cosa Nostra is paid in full, Luca Moretti. Do you hear me? But if youevahpull a stunt like that again, if youevahbreak one of our laws again, there will be no mercy, no matter how much Gina begs. Capisce?”

“Capisce,” I croaked.

“You can’t go back to work for the DeVitas. Marco is done. But I don’t think you want that, do you? I don’t think you ever really wanted that. You always had a foot in the Valenzano door. You’ve certainly done your damnedest to lie, cheat, and steal your way into my organization, even if your efforts were ill-advised.”

The click of heels echoed across the room, closing in on our location.

Anna was at Vesuvio last night. Did you know that? So was Siobhán.

Marco’s voice echoed through my skull, and the connection snapped into place. I cried out from a new source of pain—the shattered remains of what was left of my heart crumbling into dust. My stomach lurched, and I vomited the water I’d just drank.

“Ah. Your Source. Pull him up.”

The squat guard hoisted me up by my armpits. At that angle, all I could see were a pair of heels and stockinged legs. I slowly lifted my head off my chest and found Vinnie standing before me in a navy pin-stripe suit, the quintessential image of an Italian gangster.

He adjusted his cufflinks and stared down at me. “You work for me now, and unlike Marco, I didn’t promise Tony shit. Pull yourself together and follow the rules, or I’ll put a bullet through your head just like Paddy Shaughnessy did to your father.”

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