Page 1 of Hunted to the Altar
PROLOGUE
One Year Prior
Samuel Caputo
Caputo Villa, Italy
The Caputo Villastood like a sentinel of vengeance on the edge of the Tuscan hills, its shadow stretching over the countryside as the sun dipped below the horizon. Beneath its sprawling beauty, the villa’s secrets festered. Deep in the bowels of the earth, through tunnels steeped in damp rot and decay, was the underground prison—a pit for the damned.
Darrius Williams had been there for nearly a year.
He was the kind of man who would’ve been a danger to what was mine. A woman like Nina Torres, Dr. Mya’s friend, for example, was the perfect prey for him, and he couldn’t breathe in the same world as her.
They had dragged him here like the wretch he was, stripping him of his arrogance and his pretensions of power. Now, the man who once carried himself with bravado was nothing but skin and bone, his body a withered husk barely clinging to life.His descent into madness had started long before tonight. Isolation, starvation, and the gnawing knowledge of what awaited him had broken him down day by day, leaving him raw and empty.
And still, it wasn’t enough. Not for what he’d done.
The door to the chamber groaned open, its hinges screaming in protest as I stepped inside. The torchlight flickered, casting jagged shadows against the stone walls. The stench hit me immediately—sour sweat, unwashed filth, and the faint, metallic tang of blood.
Darrius was curled in the far corner of the pit, his body pressed against the damp stone as though he could meld into it and disappear. His skin, sallow and stretched tight over his bones, was marred with sores and bruises. His hair hung in greasy clumps, matted to his skull. He looked more corpse than man.
“Get up,” I snarled, my voice low and cold.
He didn’t move.
“Samuel.” Sebastian’s voice cut through the air behind me. He stood in the doorway, his tall frame silhouetted against the flickering light. There was no trace of warmth in his expression, no hint of mercy. Riccardo, Don Sebastian's alter ego’s edge was there, coiling beneath the surface, waiting to lash out. “He can’t hear you. He’s too far gone.”
“Not far enough,” I replied.
I descended the steps into the pit, the slick stones making each step deliberate. The closer I got, the stronger the stench became. Darrius flinched as my boots splashed through the shallow muck, his gaunt face tilting up just enough for me to see the whites of his eyes. They were wide with terror, darting from me to the darkened corners of the chamber as though something worse might emerge.
“You’re still alive.” My words were more statement thanquestion, my tone laced with a disdain that mirrored the disgust curling in my gut. “Pity.”
I crouched in front of him, close enough to see the dried blood caking his cracked lips and the yellowed scabs dotting his arms. He smelled of decay, like something rotting from the inside out.
“Do you know why you’re here?” I asked, tilting my head.
Darrius whimpered, the sound thin and reedy. His mouth opened, his cracked tongue darting out to wet his lips, but no words came.
“I said, do you know why you’re here?” My voice was sharper this time, echoing off the walls like the crack of a whip.
He nodded frantically, his body trembling with the effort.
I sneered. Of course, he wouldn’t say what he’d done aloud. A serial killer who not only kidnapped and raped women, but also killed young girls. His surviving niece was more traumatized than I’d ever seen. But I let him off the hook.
“Good,” I said, standing. “Because tonight will be your last night breathing the same air as us.”
Two guards entered, their heavy boots thudding against the stone as they moved to grab him. Darrius shrieked at their touch, his voice ragged and desperate. His body convulsed, his skeletal frame buckling under the slightest pressure.
“Please,” he croaked, the word barely audible. “Please…mercy…”
But the guards have no mercy for an abuser like him. They yanked him to his feet, his bare toes scraping against the stone as they dragged him out of the pit. His legs buckled to the floor uselessly beneath him, the muscles too atrophied to hold his weight.
Torches lined the walls, their flickering flames illuminating the instruments of pain arranged meticulously on a long table. A rack stood at the center of the room, its wooden frame worn smooth by years of use.
At the far end of the chamber, seated on a high-backed chair carved from dark mahogany, was Don Sebastian Caputo. He sat like a king presiding over his court, his expression unreadable, his hands resting lightly on the arms of the chair.
“Bring him forward,” Silas, Don Caputo’s brother commanded, his voice smooth and authoritative.
