KINGDOM FALL

by A. Zavarelli

  Or ever, I still have to tell her. At least until Nino comes around to her, if he ever comes around, that is. It’s an issue that still needs to be addressed. Right now doesn’t seem like the appropriate time to do it, but there’s never going to be a time when she handles this news well.

  “And why not?” she challenges. “You’ll be at the gala. You won’t even be here. I can take him Saturday and spend the day with him, and on Sunday, we will go see Enzo together.”

  “He won’t be able to visit with Enzo this weekend either.” I click through the series of footage from the week, deleting the unnecessary.

  “What do you mean he won’t be visiting Enzo?” Gwen’s voice rises. “Does Enzo know that?”

  “Not yet, no.” I accidentally delete a subfolder in my haste, becoming irritated by this conversation.

  “Enzo will not be happy about this,” Gwen says. “Are you trying to keep him from us?”

  “That is not my intention,” I answer dryly, minimizing my folder to open the trash. I’m scrolling through it when I notice there are still folders in there from when the cameras were reset. The footage I thought was deleted. I move them back to the desktop, curious to see what I may have missed.

  “It’s because of that fucking nanny, isn’t it? I know it is. She’s getting in your head. Poisoning you against us. Can’t you see—”

  “Enough,” I clip out. “I’m done having this argument with you. This has nothing to do with Natalia. It’s Nino who doesn’t want to see you.”

  Immediately, I regret the delivery of my message when her face falls in disbelief, but it had to be done. I clear my throat and try for a measured voice, though I can already see Gwen is starting to become hysterical.

  “What I meant was Nino prefers it if you visit him here. He feels most comfortable at home.”

  “Because of her.” She stabs a finger at the ceiling to indicate Natalia. “It’s because she’s fucking poisoning him against me!”

  “This has nothing to do with her.” I release a ragged breath as my blood pressure rises. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you.”

  “It does!” she screeches. “You are too blind. Led by your goddamned dick. A weak man just like your father—”

  Heat flushes my skin as I rise abruptly, slicing my hand through the air as I gesture to the door.

  “Get. Out!” I roar.

  Her eyes widen at the vitriol I can no longer contain. It only gets worse the longer she stands there, staring at me innocently as if she doesn’t know what she just said to provoke me.

  “Get. The. Fuck. Out!” I repeat. “Get out of my house, or so help me, God, I will have Manuel drag you out on your ass.”

  “Alessio.” Her lip trembles. “Please. I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t mean it.”

  “But you did, Gwen. You always fucking mean what you say.” I slam the computer shut and stalk around the desk. “I’m not your goddamned punching bag. I have always treated you with respect, but what you just said to me is unforgivable. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to speak to you. I need you to go home and leave me the fuck alone until I decide otherwise. Is that clear enough for you?”

  Tears stream down her face, but my sympathy has run dry. I leave her there to pick up the broken pieces by herself this time.

  Her words play on repeat in my head as I punish myself in the gym to the point of exhaustion. I brutalize my body until my muscles give out, and I collapse onto the floor, head between my knees as I try to hold back the urge to retch.

  I’m not like my fucking father, and I never will be. That’s the mantra I’ve lived by. Over and over, I have tried to convince myself of that. But the truth is, I don’t know. I have lived with this uncertainty inside of me. This pervasive fear that I will be weak like him. It’s why I have avoided relationships. I decided long ago I would never marry. I would never have a family. The undiluted anguish and betrayal on my mother’s face before she died was enough to cure me of those notions forever. If that was what a marriage became, I didn’t want to be part of it. I wanted to believe I was better for those choices. I would never hurt anyone the way he had, and yet I am.

  Every time I’m too weak to resist Natalia, I can see the hurt on her face when I leave. She wants more from me. She probably wants things I’ll never be able to give her. She deserves someone who can, but I’m too selfish to let her have that either. I’d kill him. I’d fucking murder anyone who thought they could take her from me, but, inevitably, I know it can’t last. She won’t remain in this purgatory I’ve trapped her in. She will decide I’m not worth the pain, and she will leave, sentencing me to a life of emptiness. It’s the only thing that was meant to be mine.

  I drag myself up from the floor and head for the shower. It’s late, and she’s probably already asleep, but I want to go to her now. I want to tell her I’m done. For every truth in my mind, I will tell her a lie. Instead of confessing that she occupies my thoughts day and night, I will tell her I never think of her. I could tell her that she was a mistake. I could tell her the thing that I know would wound the deepest. She isn’t what I want or need.

  A sick feeling churns my gut as I consider that this is what I have to do. When it comes to her, I am too weak. The only solution is to make her hate me now before she allows me to destroy her life.

  I focus on the mechanics of my actions as I wash, dry off, and dress in a fresh shirt and trousers. My mind is clear, determination heavy on my shoulders as I carry myself up the stairs to the second floor. Her door is cracked for my arrival, a welcome I don’t deserve.

  When I push it open, my chest tightens at the sight of her propped up against the headboard, staring at me. She’s been waiting. I swallow, prepared to make my speech without delay before I can regret it. Before I can reconsider it. But Natalia beats me to it, reaching for her phone, playing the message she’s already written.

  Don’t come in if you aren’t going to stay the night with me.

  Those words rattle around inside my head. She wants me to stay the night with her. When my eyes move over her face, I can see she already knows I can’t. She’s shut down. Empty, just like me.

  “Natalia,” I choke out her name, trying to find the words I’d rehearsed so many times on the way up here. But they don’t come. “Goodnight.”

  “You’re not going to like this part much.” I drag the sorry son of a bitch I’ve been torturing for the better part of the morning from the ice bath. He flops onto the floor like a fish, staring up at the ceiling, mouth gaping. His face is a bloody fucking mess, and he’s managed to get it all over me. It makes me more irritable than I already am, though I have to give the asshole credit. He’s held out longer than most, but he’s about to break. I can sense it. I always do.

  I grab him by the arms and drag him across the concrete floor to the large masonry oven I converted myself. As soon as he sees it, he starts kicking and clawing in resistance, but there’s not much fight left in him.

  “Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.” I grab him by the jaw and stare into his beady eyes. “If you want to take it to your grave, what do I fucking care? Most men only last ten minutes at three hundred and fifty degrees. It will all be over soon enough.”

  “Fuck you, you goddamned psychopath,” he wheezes. “There’s something wrong with you. You’re not right in the fucking head.”

  “You think I don’t already know that?” Sarcasm tinges my voice as I roll him onto the platform that doubles as a door and shove him inside.

  He clings to the frame, his bloody fingers slipping over the stone. “Come on, man. We can work something out. You want money? Is that it?”

  I stare at him with a bored expression. “Money? I’ve got more money than God, asshole. There’s only one thing I want from you, which I made clear from the beginning. If I don’t get it in the next ten minutes, you’ll be dead, and I’ll be on my way out to lunch for a burger.”

  I yank the door up, slamming it against hi
s fingers, and he releases a violent yelp before removing the broken appendages. With his hands out of the way, I shut the door again, securing it with the external locking mechanism before turning the crank.

  “Have fun.” I lean down and tap on the glass.

  He attempts to maneuver around and kick his way out of the box, but he’s not going anywhere. With time to kill, I rejoin Angelo at the abandoned bar where he’s been watching the show, grabbing a drink of water for myself.

  “I can see you haven’t lost your touch,” he muses.

  I shrug, suspecting he has more to say. Angelo is my cousin and another Sovereign Son within The Society. He’s spent the last six years in the Tribunal prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Now that he’s free, he’s on the warpath, and I have been busier than usual helping him extract information from anyone who participated in setting him up.

  “Are you really going to roast him in there for ten minutes?” he asks.

  “It’s only one hundred and ninety in there,” I tell him. “Basically, a very hot sauna. The point is, he thinks it’s hotter than that. He’ll cave. If he doesn’t, I’ll do this one for free.”

  Angelo snorts. “You do them for free regardless.”

  “It breaks up the monotony of my day.”

  “So you say.” He studies me. “But it doesn’t seem to hold the same shine as it once used to.”

  He’s right, but I’m not about to admit that out loud. Something has been different. Off. When I started this work, it felt like a way to right some universal wrongs. The scales of justice aren’t always favorable. Some people, such as myself, prefer more biblical measures. An eye for an eye. Every man I’ve tortured over the years has been different, but in the most important sense, they were all the same. They were all my father.

  In my mind, I’ve killed him a thousand times over. It has been the only way I could avenge the deaths of my mother, sister, and brother. I was only a boy when the Tribunal sentenced him to death, and they looked upon me with pity as they denied my request to kill him myself. In the end, he and his mistress were hanged, as was the man who carried out her orders. There was nobody left for me to destroy, so I learned to channel my rage into something productive. For many years, I found satisfaction in that. Now, the dopamine rush is gone, and in its place is a stagnant feeling I can’t quite identify. Like something needs to change, but I don’t know what.

  “You could do something else,” Angelo says. “It’s never too late. There are many respectable jobs within The Society.”

  “Yes, there are,” I concede. I just don’t know that I’m comfortable leaving the familiar behind.

  The asshole in the oven starts slamming his body against the glass, interrupting us. “Okay, I’ll talk. I’ll fucking talk. Let me out. Let me the fuck out!”

  Angelo glances at me and shakes his head in quiet amusement. “You win, Alessio.”

  This time, he accompanies me, helping me open the oven to retrieve the tomato-faced prick who thought he could withstand anything.

  “Water?” he croaks. “Please—”

  I dump the glass of water in my hand over his head. “Talk.”

  He glances at Angelo, then back to me. “I know who did it,” he says. “I know who set it up, and I know why. I’ll tell you everything if you give me your word he’ll never find out who told you.”

  “You have it,” Angelo snarls at him. “Now tell me.”

  17

  Alessio

  I’m a gruesome sight to behold when I get back to the house. I wasn’t thinking clearly when I left today and forgot my bag with extra clothes, a side effect of the lack of sleep I’ve had.

  I make it to the second level without encountering anyone, but my luck runs out there. Natalia is walking down the hallway when she seems to sense me. She turns around, freezing when she notices my shirt. In a normal world, I’d expect her to faint. Or scream. Perhaps even try to call the police, as I suspected she might’ve the first time she saw me bloodied. Her eyes are absent of the fear one would expect when she looks at me this way. There is only concern in her expression and perhaps curiosity. I want to know why she is the way she is. It’s unsettling to encounter someone so calm in the face of something so out of the ordinary.

  I’m not a fool. Whatever lies she tried to spoon-feed me were a feeble attempt to keep me from a deeper exploration of the real cause of her scars. Scars that were obviously inflicted by a knife. The defensive wounds over her hands and arms most likely saved her life, limiting the number of blows I found on her torso. It’s what’s under her neck scarf that has me most curious. I want to know who. I want to know why. Then I want to torture them until their blood runs dry.

  She turns hesitantly, like she’s trying to decide if I need her help, but I can’t let her near me. If she gets close, I’m going to fuck her again. I’m going to fuck her until my body gives out. Already, I’m having withdrawals, and one second in her presence is too much.

  It takes every ounce of willpower I possess to drag my gaze away from hers and walk up to my room without a glance back. I am equally relieved and annoyed that she doesn’t follow.

  I take a scalding hot shower, scrubbing my skin violently. I consider jacking myself off until my dick is raw, but it no longer appeals to me now that I know the warmth of a woman. I want her, and to my horror, I’m quite certain she’s the only one who will do.

  Twenty minutes later, I’m still feeling restless when I go downstairs to grab something for dinner. I don’t even make it to the kitchen before Manuel approaches me wearing a strained expression.

  “Sir, you should know that—”

  “There you are, Alessio!” Gwen appears from the hallway, flitting into the room. She’s dressed in an elaborate ballgown, and to my dismay, Marianna is right behind her, looking just the same. Apparently, I seem to have forgotten all about the fucking gala this evening.

  “Why aren’t you dressed?” Gwen looks me over with concern. She doesn’t acknowledge the scowl on my face or the obvious anger radiating from me. She knows I meant what I told her before, but Gwen can never admit when she’s wrong.

  “Manuel, where is Nino?” I ask, forcing myself to remain calm.

  “He’s in the kitchen with Miss Cabrera.”

  “I think he could use some fresh air,” I say. “Maybe some ice cream.”

  “No problem.” He disappears into the kitchen.

  I stare at Gwen in silence. She stares back at me. Marianna clears her throat. She’s smiling at me like victory is in her grasp. I’m sure she’s waiting for me to flatter her. To tell her how radiant she looks this evening. It’s what she’s used to hearing. She’s a spoiled princess who’s been so sheltered her whole life, she wouldn’t have the first clue about the type of man I am. We don’t have a single thing in common, and I can’t comprehend why Gwen is so fucking insistent on shoving her down my throat at every opportunity. I’ve reached my goddamned limit, and I don’t know that I’ve ever been as angry with her as I am right now.

  Manuel returns with Nino, and Gwen doesn’t say a word or even look in his direction as they walk out the door. Her attention is on Natalia, who has made an appearance in the doorway to the kitchen, concern etched onto her face.

  “Oh, good. You’re here.” Gwen crooks a finger at her. “Nanny, come say hello to Marianna. She’s Alessio’s date for this evening, and who knows, perhaps even the lady of this household someday.”

  Natalia glances at me, and while she is usually composed, it’s obvious Gwen’s jab has wounded her as intended. I catch a glimpse of that hurt in her eyes before she dips her head at Marianna and retreats to the kitchen.

  “Don’t mind her,” Gwen mutters to Marianna. “She doesn’t know how to interact with people. I still haven’t figured out if she’s just mute or slow.”

  “Enough,” I snarl. “I told you not to talk about her that way again. I told you not to fucking come here.”

  Marianna’s eyes widen at my tone, and she shifts uncomfort
ably as Gwen gasps as if I’ve actually wounded her.

  “Alessio, please. We had plans for this evening. Let’s not allow anything to spoil our fun. We can discuss other matters later, but—”

  “Marianna.” I cut my gaze to her so there can be no mistaking my intentions. “You are a respectful Society daughter, and it’s clear to me you are looking for a husband. So, allow me to be clear to you. I apologize for Gwen wasting your time this evening, but I won’t be attending the gala. I am not in the market for a girlfriend or even a wife. Especially not a wife. It’s time for you to set your sights upon someone else. With that said, I hope you have a pleasant evening.”

  “Alessio!” Gwen screeches.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get a drink.” I nod to Marianna and narrow my gaze at Gwen. “I want you gone when I return.”

  Gwen immediately starts to wail, and I can hear Marianna trying to console her as I enter the kitchen, but I don’t stop to listen. I glance around the space, searching for Natalia, but I don’t see her. Upon checking the adjoining dining room, I realize that’s empty too. Curious, I head for the pantry, and when I open it, I’m surprised to find her hiding in there. She’s standing in the corner, her eyes red with emotion she tries to conceal as she dips her head.

  “Natalia, look at me.”

  She doesn’t. I hover in the doorway, torn between maintaining the promise I made to myself and the desire I feel to shatter it right now.

  She gestures at me to go and then turns away, staring at the wall. Her obstinance makes my dick swell, but it’s the overwhelming realization I have that urges me toward her. I approach her slowly, quietly, lingering behind her. Close enough to touch. Close enough to smell. She shivers as I lean into her, my breath whispering over her ear.

  “Are you jealous, Natalia?”

  She glares up at me. My lips curve into a smile that feels foreign as I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her back against me, so she can feel my cock pressing into her spine.