by Bella J
Slowly I pushed myself up, my back scuffing against the wall. This was one of those situations where you could only take one step at a time, afraid that the earth beneath your feet might evaporate at any moment sending you plummeting to a big, black hole of nothing but darkness.
While putting one foot in front of the other, my heartbeat echoed inside my ears as fear spread through every bone of my body. I swear to God, I have never trembled this much in my life.
I lifted my feet, trying to stretch myself a little higher to see if I could just catch a glimpse of what I really didn’t want to see lying on the other side of that bed. I’m not sure my stomach would be able to handle a full front row view of a human fucking finger!
A few more steps and I stopped at the side of the bed, still not able to see it. I gently placed my hands on the mattress and eased my legs on as I climbed up, stretching my neck until finally I saw it. A finger.
A fucking finger! Oh God…
My stomach twisted, pushing bile up my throat as I stared at it. But it wasn’t so much the fact that it was a cleanly cut off finger that made me feel violently ill, but rather the object on the finger—a ring, and not just any ring. I recognized that platinum ring with the silver L in the middle of a black square. It was the same ring my father and brother always wore, the same ring every man in the Linscott family wore.
“No.” I shook my head and pinched my eyes closed. “No. Please God, no,” I cried as I pushed my face into the scratchy fabric of the sheets.
Is that…could that be my…
“Recognize the ring?” a low voice boomed through the room.
I jerked up and looked at the part of the wall where I knew the door was, but there was no one there.
“Does it look familiar?”
I recognized that voice.
“What the hell is going on?” My voice sounded shaky between my tears as I searched around the room.
“I bet that tiny little mind of yours is spinning out of control right now trying to figure out whose finger is laying on the floor.”
I got off the bed and walked backward toward the wall, still searching around the room.
“You recognize the ring, don’t you?”
I glanced up at the roof. “What kind of twisted fucking game are you people playing?”
“It’s a game called cat and mouse.”
“And you think I’m the mouse?”
“By the way your body is shivering against that wall, your fear vibrating through every bone…I’d say yes, you are.”
I closed my eyes and turned my head to the side, cursing my own damn weakness. Nothing was as insulting as being seen and insinuated as weak. For most of my life everyone thought and saw me as weak because of what I did.
“So tell me, little mouse, do you recognize the ring?”
Gathering all my courage I pushed off the wall and glanced from corner to corner of the room, knowing that I’m being watched. “Yes I recognize the ring, you fucking psycho!”
“Good.”
And then the loud sound of air escaping a tube resonated from the wall, and I immediately lurched back pushing myself against the cold concrete. Suddenly I regretted insulting that familiar voice.
The door finally opened and revealed the same man I met earlier. The sight of him made my heart ache, and my body tremble at the same damn time. It’s because he looked so much like him, reminding me of what I’ve lost, making me long for that someone I’m now led to believe was dead. Carlo…
Castello stepped in looking both bold and debonair in his black suit. His midnight hair was perfectly styled just like before, his chiseled jaw painted with a short, well-groomed beard. Everything about him screamed sophistication, power, and with his dark eyes etched on me…hate. I couldn’t miss the darkness that lay hidden behind that perfect face…a face I knew so well, yet didn’t.
He straightened his shirt sleeves beneath his jacket. “Did you like my gift, Miss Linscott?”
“Is that what you call it?”
He smirked. “What would you call it?”
“I don’t know. A token, a memento of torture, or murder.” The words left a bitter taste in my mouth, and the way his smirk remained on his face, he wasn’t fazed one little bit by the fact that I just insinuated he was a murderer…because he probably was a murderer.
He stepped closer, and I tried to move back but my body was already flush against the wall.
“I’m afraid that our conversation earlier didn’t go quite as I had planned. So let’s try again, shall we?” He stopped about two feet away, and his scent instantly enveloped me. For some reason I expected him to have the same black pepper, spicy scent Carlo used to have, the same smell that used to linger on my sheets after he left in the morning—which was probably why I was caught off guard when I caught a whiff of Castello’s unfamiliar scent. It smelled like a mix of amber, peppermint, and some earthy smell, like cedar wood. The scent would have been good, even alluring if it weren’t so tainted with the evil reeking from his pores.
Not once did I take my eyes off him, mostly because I couldn’t. The resemblance between him and Carlo was astonishing. It was like he was there, Carlo, standing two feet away and staring at me with his dark eyes. The only difference, there was a hatred in Castello’s eyes as he stared at me, a red hot rage burning like a threat behind those dark irises. It sent a chill straight to my core.
I swallowed hard. “What exactly about our conversation didn’t go as you had planned?”
He tilted his head to the side, his scrutinizing gaze pinning me harder against the wall. “I didn’t expect lies to spurt out of your mouth so easily.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What lies?”
“The lies about not knowing that Carlo had a brother…me.”
“I didn’t know.”
He stepped closer, his tall frame casting a shadow over me. “And the lie about him supposedly pretending not to be a Fattore.”
“That’s not a lie either. He didn’t supposedly pretend, he did pretend. He told me his name was Carlo Mancini.”
Another step, his gaze grazing across my face. “You’re a liar.”
“I have no reason to lie.”
“Oh, I beg to differ.”
“Tell me what it is I have to gain by lying? You drugged me, kidnapped me, robbed me of my clothes, and left me a goddamn finger in a fucking box!”
I didn’t realize I was shouting until the last word left my mouth. Immediately I bit my lower lip, and all he did was stare at me, completely unfazed by my outburst. For a moment I wasn’t sure if I should fear the absolute coolness he was presenting, especially after the anger he showed earlier. Then he gave another step, coming so close that I could feel his breath on my cheeks.
“It would be wise of you to speak to me with respect, little mouse.” He placed his hand against the wall right above my shoulder, leaning closer. “Like you said, I kidnapped you and left you a finger in a box, so what else do you think I’m capable of?”
Shivers ran down my spine, and I closed my eyes desperate to push back the tears.
He placed his other hand next to my head, casing me in between him and the wall, leaving me with nowhere to go.
“Do not underestimate me during our time together, Miss Linscott. It would only make this experience so much harder for you, and the only thing you will accomplish by underestimating me with your lies is to piss me off. You don’t want that, Miss Linscott.”
I opened my eyes, staring into the black depths of his, the scar above his right eye clearly visible this close up.
“You already seem pissed off to me.” I didn’t mean to whisper. Those words were meant to sound strong, bold, determined, yet they sounded anything but.
He continued to stare down at me, the corners of his lips curling up in a wicked smirk. “Believe me, Miss Linscott, you haven’t seen me pissed off…yet.”
He pushed his hands off the wall and gave a step back, allowing me to take a breath. It’s like his pr
esence sucked all the oxygen out of the room, making it impossible to breathe right.
I leaned my head against the wall. “Why did you put that finger in a box for me to see?”
“It’s a warning.”
“A warning for what?”
“The better question is a warning to whom.”
I studied his face without saying a word. I wouldn’t fall in his trap by letting him coax me into playing his little game.
One of his dark eyebrows slanted upward when he realized I wasn’t going to ask.
“That ring, Miss Linscott, belonged to the man your father hired to kill my brother.”
I couldn’t stop the soft gasp from coming out of my mouth, and he smiled with pure amusement. “You seem surprised.”
“My father didn’t hire anyone.”
“Are you sure about that, Miss Linscott? How much do you actually know about your father’s business? About how he runs his empire?”
The way he cocked his head to the side, the smug grin on his face, he knew that when it came to my father and his business I knew nothing. I chose to know nothing. All I wanted was my drawings, my art, getting lost in my own world of colors, contours, and my vivid imagination. My father never understood my love for drawing, always trying to sway me to go to college so that I could end up working for him like my brother. But when an internship at a huge art studio in New York came my way, there was no way I could say no. So to answer his question, I didn’t know anything about my father and Linscott Resources other than the company made my family millions.
He smiled. “As I suspected. You don’t know a fucking thing. Let me enlighten you then.” He started pacing leisurely up and down in front of me, rubbing his chin with his fingers. “Your father has an entire legion of men working for him. So while he sits there on his Linscott throne, he hires the more inferior men to do his dirty work for him.” He stopped and turned to look at me. “And in this case the dirty work was killing my brother. In turn the hired murderer got a hefty paycheck, and a very snazzy ring—as you could see.” He glanced down at the finger before looking back at me.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would my father want Carlo dead in the first place?”
“That, little mouse, is something I was hoping you could answer.”
“There’s just no motive,” I muttered, more to myself than to him.
His dark eyes moved, his gaze slowly going down my body. “I see plenty of motive right here in front of me.”
“My dad never even met Carlo. So why would he want him dead?”
Castello’s gaze was pinned on mine, and he stared at me unblinking, like whatever I said made absolutely no sense to him. Well the feeling was mutual since none of this was making any damn sense to me either.
He tilted his head to the side. “You really don’t know why, do you?”
I pulled my hands through my greasy hair, biting back more threatening tears. “I swear to God, I really have no idea. You have it all wrong, Castello. My father didn’t have Carlo killed, there’s just no motive for him to want to do that.”
“That you know of.”
Silence enveloped us, our gazes locked on one another. It was the heaviest, loudest silence I ever had to endure, the only sound that of my rapidly beating heart.
“You said the finger was a warning for someone, I take it that someone is me?” I asked softly.
“Oh no, Miss Linscott. Having you trapped in this little room against your will is warning enough for now, don’t you think?”
My heart skipped a beat. “For now?”
All he did was smile, the darkness in his eyes speaking volumes.
“The warning is for your father, Tatum.”
“Then why give it to me?”
He stepped closer—much, much closer, his scent bombarding my senses again. “Who do you think will receive the rest of that hand?”
My stomach fell to the ground, my spine feeling like it was about to fail me, sending me plummeting to the floor.
“My father,” I whispered. That meant that my family did know I had been kidnapped, that my dad knows about all this. Besides the fact that this entire situation turned from scary to insanely twisted, there was a glimmer of hope burning deep inside my mind.
My family knows…which means they will come for me…soon.
Castello started laughing. Right in my face, he started laughing like a goddamn maniac.
“You think he’s going to come for you now, don’t you? You think your father knows I have you, and that he will come to rescue his little princess any second?” He lifted his hand and traced a finger across my jaw. “You see, Tatum. I wanted to make sure I had enough time with you before shit got crazy, which is why that hand won’t be sent for another seventy-two hours.”
My heart stopped beating, my lungs no longer retracting, inhaling air. My skin, my bones, everything went cold, shivers running rampant through my body.
He leaned closer, his warm breath coating my ice cold skin. “What do you think I’m capable of doing with you in seventy-two hours, Tatum?”
It wasn’t a question. The promise, the threat, the satisfaction was hidden behind every softly spoken word. I felt it spread through every bone of my body, my soul trembling as my mind refused to even think about what he was going to do to me.
Abruptly he stepped back. “Now,” he started, and walked to the other side of the room. “Let’s start with a few basic rules. This”—he waved around the room—“is your new home. Live it, breathe it, get used to it. The sooner the better.”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest, like I was trying to protect myself. “How long do you plan on keeping me here?”
A wicked grin crossed his face. “Oh, Miss Linscott, I can assure you that you’ll be staying here until they carry you out…in a body bag.”
5
CASTELLO
Watching the fear spread across her face, her eyes widening as she tried to process what I just revealed was one of those moments I would wrap with a bow of gold and safely place it in a drawer at the back of my mind, cherishing it forever. This would be one of many moments still to come that I would remember in ten or twenty, or thirty years’ time, thinking of how fucking great it felt to exact my revenge. People say that revenge didn’t cure, that justice wasn’t able to heal, but I beg to differ. It’s only been a day and I can already feel my blackened soul starting to rise out of the ashes as I witness the dread of the unknown wrack through Tatum Linscott’s body.
Donna diavolo.
The devil woman who stood before me now will burn in hell once I’m done with her—that’s if there would be anything left to burn. She and every goddamn Linscott would suffer my wrath, and none of them will come out of this unharmed or unscathed. They will all pay. They killed—no, murdered my brother in cold blood because they thought they were better than us, that their little innocent princess needed a better man to warm her bed and spread her legs. She might not have pulled the trigger, but by inviting my brother to her bed, she lured him to his death.
I stepped back and leaned against the wall across from her. “What’s wrong, little mouse, cat caught your tongue?”
Bittersweet tears rolled down her cheeks—bitter for her, but so goddamn sweet for me.
“Why are you doing this?” Her voice trembled, and the sound made my soul come alive.
I shrugged. “I told you, you killed my brother.”
“I didn’t kill him!” She shouted between sobs, before wiping the tears harshly off her face with the back of her hand. “I told you I didn’t kill him. I didn’t even fucking know he was dead. I thought he left me. All this time I truly believed that he left me.”
“Let me warn you again, Miss Linscott, your lies will only make this harder.”
“I’m not lying!” She fell to her knees, wailing like a banshee about to meet her own death. It was fucking music to my ears. “I’m not lying, you have to believe me.”
I crossed my arms in fro
nt of my chest, completely unaffected by her display of despair.
“Now, now, Miss Linscott. Don’t waste your energy on trying to put up this charade. You’re going to need that energy for what I have in store for you.”
“You got it all wrong,” she continued as she started to rock back and forth, clutching her stomach with her arms. “I loved him, and—”
“Shut the fuck up!” I pushed off the wall and stormed toward her. She scurried back on her hands and knees until her back hit the wall. Hearing her say she actually loved my brother fed the monster inside me, letting it growl and claw and slam against the gates I so desperately tried to keep it caged behind.
I glared at her. “You Linscotts know nothing of love, of loyalty. All you know is how to steal and lie, and take what doesn’t belong to you.”
“That’s not true,” she hissed.
“You think daddy dearest makes his millions trading oil in the legitimate way? Think again, naïve little girl. No one gets the amount of power and wealth your dad has by following the rules.”
“You would know I suppose.”
“Watch your mouth, little mouse. Or it might be your finger I’ll be sending to your dad next.”
Straightening the lapels of my suit jacket I pinioned her with my stare. “If you would like to survive for as long as possible I suggest you never say those words again.”
Tatum lifted her chin, focusing her gaze on me. “What words? That I loved your brother?”
I stiffened, my blood scalding the inside of my veins. I was too busy trying to get my anger under control for me to even think about what to say to her, because if I let go, if I let my rage free, she wouldn’t live to see another day.
She got up from the floor, her eyes no longer sad as she looked back at me. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you cannot stop me from saying that I cared for your brother…because it’s the truth.”
“The truth?” I stepped closer, and noticed that she didn’t step back like before. “Tell me, Miss Linscott, if you’re so convinced about what the truth is, why do you think my brother would have lied to you about who he was?”