Page 22 of Red Retaliation
“You have a lot of questions for someone who’s owed fuck all,” Oscar growls.
“Red isn’t here,” Liam adds. “But as this concerns you, we reckon you should deal with it.”
Perspiration builds, the skirt clinging to my skin.Something is not right. “Red would have said if he wanted me to d...”
I smack into Liam’s back as he abruptly stops in front of a large door. Swinging around, he slams me into the frame; the doorjamb cutting into my left shoulder blade. I try not to cry out as he forces my head up at an angle.
“Why are you so concerned about Red?” Liam’s feral features are close. All three brothers have similar traits and looks, but this brother hates me more than all of them. Not for the first time, fear blooms in the pit of my belly.
“You clearly have no morals to cut your husband’s cock off, so it won’t hurt you to be friendlier to the rest of us...”
I freeze as Liam runs his other hand between my breasts, down towards my navel.
“Fucking leave it!” Oscar growls. “We need to get on with things.”
Pulling his hand away, Liam glares at me, his eyes dripping with venom. He takes grip of my arm once again and jerks me to one side. Scarcely able to hear myself think from the crashing of my heart in my ears, the door is tugged open to reveal a dark flight of stone stairs.
“Come on,” he snarls, dragging me into the darkness.
Oh shit! A cellar? It must be with steps like this. Are they locking me down there instead of in that bedroom? “Wait! I...”
“Shut the fuck up!” a voice hisses as I skitter down the steps into the darkness. If I fall, I’ll break my neck or, at the very least, be knocked unconscious. I wish for the second time since these two appeared, that Red was here. For all his faults and roughly barked orders, he’s shown a modicum of concern towards me, so surely he wouldn’t sanction this? Or was I right, and it was to trick me? Was it planned all along to lock me in a cellar to die slowly and alone? The ultimate payback for being a Galvatore and bringing trouble to his door.
Not expecting the steps to suddenly end, my feet jar against the stone floor, a wave of pain ricocheting through my ankles. With my senses on overdrive, I regulate my rapid breathing and blink, acclimatizing my eyesto the dim light of the cellar corridor. The only illumination is from a bulb hanging from a dusty flex in the center of the low ceiling.
“It’s over here.” Oscar pulls me towards the door.
What is?I’m not sure whether I voice that or if it’s in my head, but either way it’s ignored.
I’m led into a smaller room with another singular bulb, slightly brighter than the one outside. My eyes dart around the small, empty room, seeing nothing apart from damp walls, a vaulted ceiling, a couple of boxes on the floor and... something on the floor...
My breathing quickens. It looks like a mound of rags... It looks like...
“Come on then, Galvatore slut!” Liam drags me towards the pile of material. “Being as you had the brainwave to make it obvious who did this shit and leave a trail straight to our door, you can be the one to fucking fix it!”
My hands fly to my mouth as bile rushes forward, now knowingexactlywhat is on the floor even before the cover is removed.
Liam tugs the cloth hard, and the body rolls a few turns before coming to a stop face down on the brick floor. A strangled sound comes from my mouth as my swimming vision focuses on Roberto’s corpse.
I freeze, truly believing I will be sick, a small part of me terrified he’ll come back to life.
Using his foot, Liam turns the body of what was my husband over in its rigid pose to lie face up. The dull thunk as the skull hits the brick pushes vomit higher up my throat.
“Get a move on then, bitch,” Oscar snarls. “We ain’t sticking our fingers in that bastard to retrieve your fucking jewelry. You did it, so you fetch it!”
Liam pushes me forward so sharply that I stumble over the hem of my long skirt. I land on my knees, half on Roberto’s legs and half on the floor. My stomach roils. “I can’t do this! I...”
“Youwilldo it,” Liam growls. “And you’ll do it now.” He chucks a penknife in my direction. “Cut the stitches and shove your fingers in. Onlyyouknow exactly where you put the rings, so fucking crack on!”
“I’m not sure whether you should give this psycho a knife. The result of what she does with them is right there!” Oscar laughs, but I ignore him and with shaking hands, force myself to look at the gray, still body of my husband.
Being in the same vicinity - even though Roberto is dead, fills me with the same gut-wrenching fear and panic that I felt every second he wasalive. But I’ve no choice but to do this. Robotically, I slit the stitches in the cold flesh of his throat, gagging as I do so. There’s a weird ringing in my ears as I imagine myself from a third-person perspective sawing away at the dry skin.
I’ve hurt no one before, let alonekilledthem. And now I’m sawing at a corpse?
“Does this turn you on, whore?”
I ignore the question. I also ignore the hands pulling at my skirt. I hear little and feel less, apart from the ringing in my head. As I gingerly touch the wound I fashioned across Roberto’s throat, I pretend it’s cobwebs rather than dead flesh.
