Never.
“You’ll be on that plane with Knight, Lastra,” he says confidently.
“What if Aiden refuses, too?”
Retracing his steps, he stops in front of my chair, his huge shadow looming over me. “Oh, he’ll go, Frankie. You’re going to make sure of it. From now on, when he shits, you shit. Someone aims a bullet at him, you take it with a smile. Anything bad happens to him, and Ada O’Sullivan’s quality of life drops a couple of points in the misery scale. You hear me? Her whole existence hinges on your new secret devotion to your adopted brother.”
My revenge is slipping further and further from my reach. All I can think about is my father’s final words to me.
“Be as liberal with your vengeance as you are with your love, figlio mio. Don’t waste it.”
It’s not just the dead I need to consider now. It’s the living, too.
“This is why you kept me alive this whole time? This is why you saved my life that night? For me to be a babysitter?”
Guido smirks.
“Tell me why Aiden means so much to Zaccaria.”
“All in good time.”
“TELL ME!” I yell, the effort from it rattling every broken bone in my body.
“He’s blood. Zaccaria blood. That’s all you need to do. As long as your capo dei capi is still breathing, there’s no way out of the deal, kid… And considering he never leaves his villa in Tuscany, that won’t be anytime soon. Keep your enemies close, but The Family closer.” He starts disappearing up the stairs again. “Give me a call when you’re done with him, O’Sullivan.” His voice floats down to us from the hallway. “And he better still be breathing.”
“He killed one of my best men. I’ll be leaving him on the brink of death!”
Somewhere behind me, a door opens, and a familiar scent coils itself around the basement’s decay.
Ada.
“Eyes forward,” Semenov snarls, as I attempt to turn around.
“Screw you.”
I try again, and there’s a blistering pain across my cheek as his knife slices my skin open.
“Look at my fiancée without my permission, mudak, and I’ll take out your eye.”
“Ada!” I shout, glaring up at him.
“Frankie?” Her whispery response sends shivers into my soul. She sounds scared, and I can’t reach her. I can’t fucking reach her.
“Keep your mouth shut!” Semenov lunges forward and slices open my other cheek, the vicious sting making me slump back into my chair with a groan.
“Ah, there you are, daughter,” says O’Sullivan, my insides twisting as I watch his eyes roving over her in a way that’s nowhere near fatherly. “You’ve caused me so much trouble today. We can’t wait to punish you for it.”
I go to lunge at him, but a savage crack to the back of my head skids my legs out from under me.
“Let him go!” I hear her cry. “Do whatever you want with me, but please just let him go.”
“No!”
The next punch has me crashing sideways into Danny.
“We can’t win this one, Lastra,” I hear him mutter. “But we can make the comeback stronger.”
“I can’t wait that long.”
One of O’Sullivan’s men binds my hands with black duct tape as the Irishman crouches down in front of me, gently tapping the tip of his knife against his chin.
“Did you fuck her?” he asks, his grey eyes gleaming. When I don’t answer, he skims his knife over my crotch. “Think carefully now. One wrong answer, and you won’t be sliding your cock into anymore pussy in your lifetime.”
I don’t want any others. Just hers.
I hold his gaze, never wavering. Giving my answer with the faintest curve of my lips. Like Semenov, he doesn’t deserve my confirmation in words. What Ada and I made together is too valuable to give away.
“Very well.” He rises to his feet and motions impatiently to Ada who’s standing behind me. “Did you know she likes to dance, Lastra?”
I go very still.
“I had a camera installed in her room. Every night she twirls and prances about like a prima ballerina.”
Ada is pushed in front of me. She’s still wearing her dirty white dress, and she’s shaking like a leaf, but there’s a quiet defiance in her eyes that makes her a fucking queen.
“Shall we see her dance now?” O’Sullivan gives her a hard shove, making her stumble. “Come on, entertain us. Entertain your husband-to-be….”
Her eyes dart nervously from him to me as the Russian appears on the other side of her, dangling a metal baseball bat between his fingers.
“You’re keeping us waiting, sweetheart. One last dance for the boys.”
Last?
Why last?
“I told you to fucking DANCE!” he screams suddenly, his mask of calm dropping to reveal the true monster underneath.
Cringing, she starts to sway from foot to foot, her movements forced and clumsy. At the same time, I’m aware of Semenov creeping closer as the worst kind of intuition kicks in.
“Come on, you can do better than that.”
She’s spinning on the spot like a sparrow with a broken wing now, biting her lip so hard there’s a trickle of blood on her chin.
This is how it feels to watch doves fly, knowing the hunter’s rifle is trained on them.
O’Sullivan gives her a slow, sarcastic clap, and I feel the ground start to shift. I know what’s coming, but I can’t tear my eyes away. I can’t fucking help her.
“I think we’ve had enough dancing, don’t you, Semenov? Why don’t you show Ada what happens to little birds who fly their cages too soon?”
“My pleasure.”
It happens so fast, I barely see the swing, but I hear the sickening crunch as the metal bat connects with her legs, shattering both of her kneecaps.
She crumples to the ground so gracefully, her dress spread out all around her as the basement descends into a blur of noise and violence.
I try to reach her, but Semenov turns on me next, driving the baseball bat into my shoulder and sending me reeling. After that, the blows rain down as O’Sullivan’s men take turns to kick the living shit out of me.
I’m anesthetised to it all. The only thing I see is her body lying motionless on the ground a couple of metres away. The only agony I feel is hers.
When O’Sullivan’s men pause to catch their breath, I start crawling toward her, an inch at a time, because my legs don’t seem to work anymore, ignoring the laughing and jeering coming from above me.
She lifts her head as I draw closer. Messy dark hair frames a face that’s white with pain and shock. “It hurts, Frankie,” she whispers, sucking in ragged breaths in between each word. “Oh god, it hurts so much…”
That’s when I know I’ll do whatever it takes to find my way back to her. Whatever Zaccaria demands of me. Because one day, one day, I need to be holding her heart in my hands again and fixing all her shattered parts.
“Ada, listen to me.” I clench my teeth to get a handle on my own pain as I cover her fingers with mine. “I will find you. Whether it takes me one year, or twenty…”
“I can’t dance anymore. I can’t dance—”