Page 28 of Sinister Savior

“This little feud of ours has to end. I know the girl is here. Give her to me and we’ll move on as if nothing happened. You can go back to playing the religious zealot, and I will keep my eyes blind to your betrayal.” Paolo draws a gun from behind his back and turns off the safety, pointing it at my chest. He’s thirty paces away, near the back doors of the sanctuary. He can shoot and run and never get caught. This place has no security cameras.

“Alice is mine, Brother. And she doesn’t have what you’re looking for. You murdered the man who took your money before retrieving it. You can’t blame her for that.” I take a step forward.

While I don’t want to die, I’m prepared for it. The longer I keep Paolo here, the more chance Thomas has of ensuring Alice’s survival. If I fail, she dies. I can’t fail. And I can’t give up. My plan may be ruined, but she can still make it out.

“Oh, how sweet. Little brother has a pet now. You got sick of choir boys?” He chuckles, and I could slit his throat. His vile mind would think something so evil…

“What is it you want, Paolo? Is it the power you crave? You just want to punish me because Father isn’t here to take your anger out on now? You noticed that I got involved and now you’re in this until you feel better?” I’m calm and collected, but Paolo is getting enraged by the second. His mommy issues are so easy to spot, I could point them out from a mile away.

“Fuck you, Mario. You know what? You are nothing to me.”

“I am your blood, Paolo. Go ahead and cut me open. I will bleed into the earth and remind every ancestor who has gone before us that you are coming one day. They will be waiting to avenge me and Father.” I spread my hands, exposing my chest to his aim. “Are you afraid to do it? Do you believe God is watching?” My eyes trace upward to the ceiling, and I see how the stained glass dome above me is beginning to glow, the first traces of dawn illuminating the church’s roof. I close my eyes, preparing, but nothing can prepare me for the jolt of pain.

The gun goes off, deafening me and making my ears ring, and simultaneously, I feel the ton of weight hit my chest. Searing heat burns through my stomach and chest. I stumble backward a few steps and lower my gaze to meet his. The gun is still aimed at me, and his eyes are aglow with fire. The rage of a thousand men burns there in his gaze as he lowers his weapon and shoves it into his pants.

I drop to my knees, gasping for air as I press my hands against my stomach. He would’ve shot my chest, killed me on the spot, but he chose to wound me badly instead. All so he can walk away with Alice and hurt me worse. He’ll come back to finish me off later, but the torment is his aim now.

“You should have just let her confess her sin and walk away, Mario.” He walks over to me as I slump to the ground, lying on my side,looking up at him. He nudges me with his boot, and I roll to my back, feeling the warmth of my blood soaking my clothing and pooling beneath me. “You should have left well enough alone.”

“I’m coming for you…” I choke out, and the taste of metal on my tongue is the last thing I remember.

21

ALICE

Aloud bang wakes me, and I sit straight up. I don’t know if it was a door slamming or if Father Thomas dropped something in the next room, but I’m wide awake and I’ll never get back to sleep. I glance at the nightstand where my phone lies, plugged in. Mario is gone. He told me to rest and he’d come back, but I don’t even know how long he’s been gone. Judging by the light streaming into the windows, not long. It’s barely dawn, almost no sunlight in the room yet.

I start to lie back down and reach for my phone, but someone bursts through the door, launching in my direction faster than I can think. I scream and lash out with my feet, but they’re too fast, too strong.

“No! What are you doing? Who are you?” I thrash and claw as the man, dressed in black with a dark hat pulled down low over his eyes, pulls me out of bed by an arm. Another man rushes into the room to help and take my other hand. “Stop it! Let go of me!” I continue to scream and kick until I get my feet under me and attempt to push backward, fighting them.

“Just pick her up,” the one guy says to the other, but I don’t recognize his voice at all, or his face. I know they’re Paolo’s men, though. No one else would come after me like this. Where is Mario? Why isn’t he stopping them? What about his friend who was watching the block?

The first man spins me around effortlessly and hoists me up to his shoulder where I hang. His thick bicep curls around my bare thighs, and my ass is in the air as I bang on his lower back with my fists. I’m only wearing Mario’s T-shirt and my panties, but they don’t seem to care at all as they march me right through the rectory and out the door. As they pass across the threshold, I see Father Thomas sprawled on the ground outside the home, face down in the dirt.

“My God! Oh, my God!” I whimper and whine, still pounding at the man’s back. It’s useless. He’s not going to let me go for a second, not even when I tear his shirt up and begin digging my fingernails into his skin and drawing blood. All that does is anger him, and he swats my ass so hard it stings. But I don’t give up. I keep clawing at him and screaming. “Let me go! Help! Someone!”

There’s no one around to hear me. It’s just before dawn in a commercial district where nothing is open until eight a.m. I’m wearing my voice out for no reason, making my throat hoarse. I try to calm myself, but my heart is pounding, my mind racing.

Pushing up on the man’s lower back, I raise my head enough to look around. They’re taking me to a white panel van, parked near the curb and still running. There are two more men in the front seat. My God, this is really happening.

“Please, I don’t know where his money is. Please let me go.” I’m begging now, pleading for my life because I’ve seen what these men do to people they don’t believe or like. They didn’t give Tom a chance, and he was the one who actually knew where the money was. What more will they do to me? “Please. I swear I don’t have the money. I don’t know where it is.”

It seems like the more I fight, the less these men listen. They throw me into the van and climb in after me, and when I scramble for the door, they shove me hard against the wall and I smack my head. I’m dazed, lying on the filthy metal floor as a fifth man climbs in, this one in a suit and tie. It’s Paolo Gatti, and he’s got a gun.

“Nice to finally meet you, Alice. I think we have some talking to do.” He chuckles at me and then uses the butt of his gun to knock me in the head so hard I collapse and everything goes dark.

My head is throbbing, pain shooting down into my right shoulder. I’m cold and shivering, and I’m lying on a concrete floor somewhere—I don’t know where. It’s dim in here, but there’s enough light to see that I’m in a cage of some sort. Chain-link fencing rises on all four sides of me, about a four-foot by four-foot area. There are no blankets, no bedding. Just me in my T-shirt and panties.

Blinking a few times, I try to make my eyes start working better. I look up above me where the same chain-link fencing closes in the top of this cage. Wherever I am in the city, it’s some sort of abandoned building. I see industrial air vents and old lighting fixtures overhead, though most of the lights aren’t working or on.

My whole body hurts, as if I were beaten around and then run over. When I strain to sit up, I realize my head is throbbing too—like, the worst headache I’ve ever had. And I’m dizzy. Maybe I have a concussion from that knock to the head with Paolo’s weapon. I press my eyes closed and wait for the dizziness to pass, and I hear someone whispering.

“Who is she?”

“Fresh meat, that’s all I know.”

“She’s pretty.”

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