Page 46 of Pain and Pleasure

"It was. I had it cocked and ready at his head as soon as Benjamin showed up," I say proudly, and he smiles a big, smug smile.

"My sweet, brave Emmie," he says, picking me up and carrying me to my bedroom.

He sets me down on my bed and stares at me, pondering a thought from what I can see. I raise my eyebrow in question and his eyes darken.

"I have something for you," he says, his voice low and almost scary sounding.

"This doesn't sound like a fun surprise," I say, and he shakes his head.

"What is it?" I ask and he pauses, pulling me up by my hands and leading me to my door.

"Vengeance," is all he says before he walks me out and down the stairs, towards the direction of his quarters.

As soon as we walk through the library, he stops me at the stairway that leads to the cellar. An eerie feeling seeps through my veins and I look up at him in question.

"Do you seek vengeance tonight, mi ciela? After what that's bastard done to you, do you seek relief for the trouble he's caused you?" he asks me, the questions full and long, making me think in silence.

I think about how he's been watching me, tracking me for several weeks. How he's invaded my privacy and plotted an attack against me with every move I made. I think about his chapped and sweaty hand gripping my mouth, about the gun pointed at my best friend’s head.

I think about everything for a few minutes, before I nod my response to Dante. He touches my cheek and gives me a chaste kiss to my lips before walking me down the winding staircase of the cellar. We pass by the spot that I stumbled across a few weeks ago, the place that once held a chained man. I notice how the chains are still on the brick wall, hanging and dangling against the stone as we pass.

We walk down a long hallway before stopping outside of what appears to be a cell. Dante unlocks the barred door before leading me into it. The room is dimly lit, but I notice a guard standing to the left and right of me. Sergio is standing in the middle of the room, right beside the man who just tried to kill me. His hands are tied behind his back and a gag is back on his mouth, but I can still see the angry red and purple bruises swelling around his face. The guards really did a number on him, but they left him alive for some reason.

"For you," Dante says behind me, as if reading my thoughts.

"For your vengeance," he says, coming up behind me and kissing my shoulder, right before he hands me a gun.

I immediately get the point and instead of protesting, a feel a thrill rush through me. Dante approaches the man and lands a blow to his face, and I hear him groan behind the gag as Dante crouches in front of him.

"You left a mark on my woman's face tonight. You touched what belongs to me," he says.

I should be scared in this moment, but I feel powerful. I feel cared for, in this weird, fucked up way.

"If it were up to me, I'd rip your intestines out and feed them to you by hand. But alas, ladies first," he says, standing back and gesturing to me.

"It's loaded and ready when you are," he says to me, waving towards the gun. "For your vengeance, pequeña," he murmurs.

I look away from him and towards the bleeding man knelt before me, his face almost unrecognizable. If I think too hard, I'll chicken out, but I can't help but think about how I am about to kill a man. A man that had no problem with killing me. A man that was just another threat to my existence.

I stand there quietly, my hand gripping the gun as it stays pointed to his head. Just a month ago, I was just a waitress and a college student. Today I am the daughter of a drug lord, a lover of another one, and a target of a murderer. Today, I am pointing a gun at a man that tried to kill me, my finger resting on the trigger.

I changed way before today. I changed the minute I was dragged into this house. The minute that Dante's skin touched mine. I'll never be the same after this anyway, so I may as well seek my own vengeance, find my own peace in all the wreckage.

I aim the gun to his head and pull the trigger before I can think anymore, the shot ringing out and going through his skull. His body thumps to the floor and I see blood pooling immediately. I drop the gun to the floor and turn to Dante, feeling numb.

"Get rid of him. Preferably, packaged up and sent by express delivery to his boss. Tonight," he orders Sergio and his men and they immediately pick the dead man up and wrap him in a sheet, carrying him away and out of the cell.

21

Esmeralda

A guard stays behindto clean up the mess of the dead man in the cell. I watch him grab a mop just as Dante grabs my hand and pulls me away, walking me out of the cell and down the stone hallway.

We're nearing the spot that had shackles on the wall and Dante stops. I see candles lit against the stone and my eyes travel the length of the chains, fascinated. Dante watches me from the corner of his eye, but we stay silent.

"The way I yelled at you when you got home earlier...I'm sorry for that," he says suddenly.

"I acted out of line tonight and I realize that," he says quietly.

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