Dominic (The Family Book 2)

by Angelique Jones

  Fuck, even I hadn’t known that and it must have showed in my face.

  “Oh, and the contact is also for anyone harboring her.”

  My face turned to granite, letting nothing show. Lucca had every right to want me dead but hearing that he would let a stranger do it was a blow. “So tell me why I shouldn’t just kill you now and be done with it, since our families are at war.”

  “Enough, Nero,” Tori said, before I could open my mouth. I had never seen her so angry. “They didn’t start the war. Our family did.” She held her hand up before he could start the denials. “Caterina murdered two of the Salvatici men, kidnapped Maria Salvatici and almost murdered Angelica Salvatici and her unborn child. We got word that the baby made it, but they’re still not sure if Angelica will. She also tried to kill Dominic and me.”

  At her words Nero’s whole demeanor changed. He said two words: “Tell Me.”

  And she did. She told him about the videos but not what they really held. She told him about her finding Enzo’s victims and trying to help them. She told him about her friendship with Maria as a way to meet Angie. Then finally she told him about the other night and the murder and about us figuring out Caterina’s plan, about the hospital, about us saving her. She told him everything except what I had done to her that night. An hour had passed by the time she finished, and her voice was hoarse from the telling.

  During it all Nero moved not a muscle. He was like a frozen statue, except for his eyes. His eyes held death. He stood up and looked at me. “You and your men are coming with us until we can find your sister and make your brother listen.”

  “If Angie dies it won’t matter. No force on this earth will make Lucca stop and listen,” I told him.

  “I know, but your sister has suffered enough at the hands of my family.”

  I nodded in agreement and took Tori’s hand. Nero said nothing but there was disapproval in his eyes. I motioned for the guys and gave them a hard look, letting them know without words that this was our only play. We were being hunted not just by Caterina, but by Lucca as well.

  As we followed Nero the absurdity of the situation hit me. I desired the woman I had been sent to kill. I was being protected by the brother of the woman out to destroy my family. The brother of the man that had arranged my sister’s rape and murder was helping me save her, and my own brother wanted me dead. I now stood against my family in a war orchestrated by the insanity of one woman.

  ….

  I sat in the car, waiting for Nero to join me. He was beyond angry with me and while I knew that he wouldn’t raise his hand to me, words could be as stinging as any blow. He had separated me from Dom, placing him in another car, which almost caused the two of them to come to blows. Neither trusted the other, so I had to step between them. Telling Dom that I needed to speak to my brother calmed him down enough to grudgingly agree. While I told Nero to let Dom and his guys keep their guns so they wouldn’t think that it was a setup. Once I was sure that the two of them wouldn’t kill each other for the moment I took my place in Nero’s car and prayed that I’d survive the interrogation that was coming.

  As soon as Nero got in to the car it began to go. For a long moment we sat in silence before he finally spoke. “Do you know how worried we’ve been?” He said it so softly I thought I had imagined it until his next words. “What the hell were you thinking? You leave a note telling us not to worry and you just disappear. Just fucking disappear. We thought you were dead, you selfish brat.” He slammed his fist into the window. “What the fuck possessed you to want to Meet Angelica Salvatici? I saw those fucking tapes, too. I know what Enzo did to her.”

  I stared at him open-mouthed, shocked at what he had just said. He’d seen the tapes. Caterina had sent him the tapes.

  “That woman would have killed you, so why the fuck did you seek her out?” he demanded.

  I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t tell him what I didn’t really know myself. Why had I sought her out? What insanity had possessed me to want to meet her? I pleaded for him to understand something that I didn’t understand myself. “I don’t know, Nero. I’m so sorry. I just don’t know,” I whispered brokenly, melting into him like a child as he took me in his arms. Rocking me back and forth he told me that it would be OK but I knew he was wrong. Nothing would ever be OK. It hadn’t been OK in so long I don’t think I even remembered what OK was anymore.

  Chapter 17

  We were in Nero’s world now. He had us on a jet and at his home before night fell, wasting no time after he found us. Heading down the stairs Chris, Marcus, and I went toward the library we had been shown when we first arrived before being shown to our rooms. Tori had barely said two words to me after her ride with Nero, and I was sick of it. Either she’d tell me what was said or he would. I wasn’t going to let her hide from me. I didn’t give a shit what our last names were. As far as I was concerned she belonged to me, now, so she and her family had better accept it.

  When we walked into the library I knew something was wrong. It was in the air. You could taste the bitterness of what was going to be said. Tori and an older woman I assumed was her grandmother were seated on a sofa near Nero, while others were spread around the room. No one except Nero met my eyes. It had to be bad. A million things raced through my mind but I could never have imagined what I was about to be told. Pointing to a chair across from him, Nero motioned for me to sit. I took the seat and Chris and Marcus stood behind me. I just wished the fucker would spit out whatever he was about to say.

  Hard eyes looked at me. “Caterina has gone underground. We’re searching, but my sister’s good at disappearing when there’s trouble. We believe we have found your sister, Maria, if the info is good,” he said, but there was no relief in his words.

  “Where is she? Is she alive?” I asked, hating saying the words, but knowing that it was always a possibility that the only way we’d find Maria was as a lifeless body.

  “She’s been sold south across the border as a sex slave to a cartel run club. We’re not sure which one. They own several.” Nero told me in the same voice I imagined he talked about the weather.

  “I’ll need everything you have on the cartel and the clubs,” I said, already thinking ahead on how to get her out. Those fuckers across the border were animals and even with the money my family would be willing to pay to get Maria back, who knew if they’d sell. It might be better to take her than to ask for her and be told no.

  Nero shook his head as if he knew what I was thinking. “I’ve already made inquiries, and they won’t sell her. It seems that the people Caterina got to buy your sister have a grudge against your family. She did her homework to make sure you wouldn’t be able to get her back.”

  Fuck that. There was no way my sister was staying with those animals. If half the shit said about those clubs down there were true, she’d be nothing but a shell by the time they were finished with her. She couldn’t survive going through that again. She was barely healed from her last rape. This would destroy her.

  “We’ll leave within an hour. The plane’s being prepared.” Nero said, shocking me. Why the fuck would he risk his life and the lives of his men for my sister? I was ready to ask him when he just said, “Be ready.” He got up and walked out of the room.

  I stood up and went to follow him out when Tori spoke. “Because she’s my friend. Because we owe her this. Because I asked.”

  I stepped toward her but was stopped when her grandmother sadly shook her head at me. I gave the older woman a hard look and pulled Tori up from the couch and kissed her in a brand of ownership. “This isn’t over,” I said, before turning around and going out of the library. As much as I wanted my talk with Tori, Maria was more important now. Until she was safe and back home nothing else could matter.

  ….

  I had now seen hell and the depravity of men’s souls. We had been in this shit hole for four days. Four days in which the feelers we sent out had been unable to locate Maria. We had to move carefully to make sure that
no one knew why we were really here. Using assumed names we’d made our way into the most luxurious and depraved clubs I had ever seen. Women, men, and children were chained and caged, beaten within an inch of their lives for the sadistic pleasure of the highest bidder. Bloody bodies were carried through the hall regularly to be disposed of in shallow, unmarked graves. If Maria was even still alive, what the hell would I find? That thought alone kept sleep from me since the first club we had entered.

  Going mad as these thoughts danced in my head I didn’t hear Nero calling my name for the longest time. We had spent the last day hidden in our rooms as we waited for an invitation to a club that required a half a million up front to enter and make use of its amenities. If Maria wasn’t at this club then it meant that she was at the lower end clubs that were even worse, if that was possible. I rubbed a weary hand over my face and mumbled, “What.” Just to shut him up.

  “We’re in.”

  I looked up to see if my sleep-deprived mind had heard Nero right.

  “We leave in twenty minutes.”

  I walked to my room and mechanically dressed. I followed Nero to the waiting car. Each time we entered one of these clubs the car would be ready for a quick getaway and the plane ready to have us in the air at a moment’s notice.

  The first thing I noticed were the fences. Large fences laced with barbed wire surrounded the club grounds. There were inside and outside sports so they wanted to make sure that there product couldn’t escape. We stopped at the gate, and the guards checked our credentials before they allowed us to enter. I didn’t think an embassy had as much security as this place. We pulled up to the front and a young boy no more than ten stepped forward to open our door. Careful to keep my face blank, I stepped out and joined Nero walking into hell. Nero had been beyond explicit, drumming it into me on what we would see and how I must act if we were to have any chance of saving Maria and surviving. I had to maintain a bored yet amused expression at all times. I must never reveal my disgust or anger, because whether I saw it or not, someone was always watching. Especially watching the new guests.

  The place at first glance was beautiful. Everything glittered and sparkled like the highest priced ballroom, but as you wandered and explored you saw what the beauty hid. Large gathering rooms of every sick pleasure filled this place and we were forced by necessity to visit each one. There were rooms that held live sex shows where dead-eyed men and women performed depraved acts for the pleasure of the guests. On and on the depravities went, but one room hit me hard. It hit me hard because I had seen it before in the video I had watched that day at Tori’s. Just as I had seen Angie, these women were hung from the ceiling by hooks and chains, dangling there, unable to defend themselves. And whips were the kindest things I saw these monsters use on them. The whole thing had me seeing red; distracting me enough that I hadn’t realized Nero had left me. Fuck. As I looked around the room I forced a smile onto my face, so it appeared that I was enjoying the show instead of searching for someone.

  It was by pure chance that I saw him. Moving toward me, he stopped every few bodies to admire someone’s handiwork before moving on. Anyone who didn’t know him would think he was enjoying himself, but absolute rage filled his eyes. He stopped next to me and gave me an evil, sadistic smile. “Come on,” he said, slapping me on the back. “I’ve gotten us a toy for the night.”

  I followed him and a housemother that was leading us to a private room. I couldn’t ask him anything, especially with this cunt here, so I followed along silently, trying to remain calm. We were taken away from the noise of the main rooms toward the back of the club. The silence was suddenly so pronounced that you could hear the click of our shoes against the marble floors. In a heavily accented voice the woman told us, “All rooms in this wing are sound-proofed so that each customer can have his own experience and not be disturbed.” The girl would be ours for as long as we wanted her, and if we wanted more or a different one, just press 143 on the phone and she would come to take care of our request.” She opened the door for us and stepped back to allow us to enter before closing it and sealing us in.

  The room we entered was divided into four parts. One side appeared to be a normal luxurious bedroom while the other three were different types of torture dungeons. At first I didn’t see the girl that Nero had bought, and when I did, disappointment soared through me. It wasn’t Maria. The girl lying on the bed naked was practically a skeleton, a beaten wretch. She looked like death. Why the fuck had Nero gotten her? As I turned to ask him, I watched him take off his coat and walk purposely toward the bed.

  I moved closer as he was wrapping her in it, and I almost retched. Jesus Christ, it was Maria. Instead of fighting Nero her hands dove for his pants. What the fuck had they done to her? Shocked, I watched as Nero told her, “No.” She froze like a statue. Like I was a having an out-of-body experience I watched Nero unhook the manacles from each of Maria’s feet that had her chained to the bed with her legs spread.

  “Dom.”

  I turned my gaze to Nero when he called my name. I couldn’t help but notice that Maria hadn’t reacted at all to the sound.

  “Listen to me. I’m going to call that woman back,” he said finally, getting a reaction from Maria. She whimpered in fear. “We need her to bring us the suitcase in the trunk of my car.” What the fuck did we need a suitcase for? We weren’t moving in. “It’s large enough that we can fit her into it.”

  “What if the guards check it?” I asked, finally finding my voice.

  “They will check it but they’ll only find bondage shit and toys. I had it built so we could put her in it and cover her like a trap door in case we couldn’t walk her out. They probably won’t check it that thoroughly since we’re leaving, but if they do we’ll be at the door instead of trying to fight our way through the whole house.”

  “All right.”

  “Listen, Dom. I know that you want to kill that cunt, but don’t do it yet.”

  I nodded that I understood, and I did. He said that I couldn’t kill her yet, not that I couldn’t kill her at all.

  I moved closer to Maria and sat down on the bed. Gently taking her face into my hands I turned her toward me. “Maria, it’s me, Dom, your brother. We’re going to get you out of here. Maria, do you understand me? I’m here to take you home.” I whispered softly, trying to hide my gut-burning rage at the blank look that stared back at me. When her hands moved I thought maybe I had gotten through to her until they went for my pants. I jumped back in horror and watched as she turned her attention to Nero.

  “Dom, she’s drugged. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.” I nodded sharply that I understood. “Dom, I’ll need to be in bed with her when that bitch comes in or she’ll know something’s up.

  I was going to puke. “I can’t get into bed with my sister,” I spat in horror.

  “Fuck no. You’ll be in the chair there in the shadows, pretending to watch. Let me do the talking. Don’t even look at the bitch when she enters.” He gripped my shoulder. “This is our only chance to get us all out of here alive, but if something goes wrong I need to know what you want to do.”

  I knew exactly what he was asking, and I didn’t hesitate. “Put a bullet right between her eyes.” The real Maria would rather be dead than be alive for one more second like this. Hating the understanding in his eyes, I went to the chair in the corner. I closed my eyes. There was no way I could watch him undress and crawl into bed with my sister. I kept my eyes closed until I heard the doorknob turn. I opened them and glued them high to the wall above the bed before I did something to get us all killed.

  Quick words in Spanish were exchanged before the bitch left. Closing my eyes again, I blocked out the little moans Maria was making, and the constant “No’s” coming out of Nero’s mouth. I was in fucking hell. The deepest, darkest pits of hell. And the devil himself laughed at my pain. When the door opened the next time, my eyes opened and zoomed to the cunt wheeling in the bag. Naked, Nero got out of the bed. I walked behind
the bitch and closed the door, sealing her in the room with us. Panic showed in her eyes, and she reached for her pocket, but before she could touch the alarm in it Nero grabbed her tit, making the bitch think we wanted to play with her. Lust now blazed in her eyes, as she looked Nero up and down. He grabbed her hands and pressed them into his chest as I quickly moved behind her and snapped her neck. It was a better death than the bitch deserved, but I couldn’t take the time to satisfy my own need for vengeance.

  Grabbing the case I dropped it to the floor, quickly opened and emptied it while Nero dressed. When I looked up I saw Nero gently pick up a naked Maria in his arms. I turned away. I couldn’t watch this. “What do we do now?” I asked, ready to leave this nightmare.

  “Help me strip this bitch and get her in the bed. We’ll need to call a bellhop to take the bag down and there has to be a body in the bed.” Quickly I helped him get her set, then watched in confusion as he slammed his fist into her face, breaking bones. He took out a knife and cut the bitch until the bed looked like a horror movie. Seeing my look, he said, “They won’t check the body if she’s like this. They’ll just dump her. Hopefully they’ll think the house mother is entertaining in one of the rooms.”

  It was a good plan. Helping him hide the bitch’s clothes and the shit we couldn’t get back into the bag, we both stood calmly by the bag when a boy joined us to take it down.

  With no more than a cursory glance at the bed, telling me that there was nothing unusual about seeing a mangled body at checkout, the kid rolled our bag to the elevator. Getting in with him we stayed quiet as we were brought to the main door. No one commented on the blood that covered Nero. The guards nodded their heads at us and sent us through. Frank, Nero’s driver, got out of the car, took the bag from the kid, and put it into the trunk. The window was down between the sections, so as soon as Frank cleared the gates, Nero told him to get us the fuck out of there. As soon as the bag had been sent in, Frank had made calls to Nero’s men, so a mile up the road black SUV’s came out of the dark and fell in behind us.