Vendetta (The DeLuca Family #2)

by K. A. Ware

  “Are you sure that’s something Eddie would’ve known? You guys weren’t close for the past few years,” Mia asked.

  “Yeah, it is. I’ve been sending her the same flowers since I shipped off to boot camp when I was eighteen.”

  “So that means…” Mia trailed off.

  “He’s the one that killed those girls. He must’ve killed Josh just to throw us off,” Antonio said, verbalizing my worst fears.

  “I have to find her,” I said, as I continued to pace back and forth.

  “Wait,” Carlo said suddenly. “We never figured out who tipped off the Russians about the meet. It had to be him. He was the only one that knew both sides.”

  “So he had this all planned. Fake his death and then what?” Antonio asked.

  “Get Frankie,” I answered, my stomach churning with the thought of what he could have planned for her.

  “Who else was he close to? Is there anyone that would hide him?” Angelo asked.

  My head jerked up. “His mom, Rosa. But she and my mom live together. If my mother had seen Eddie she would’ve called me right away, and there’s no way Rosa could’ve hid him in the house without my mom finding out.”

  “This guy is clearly unhinged; you should call them and make sure,” Angelo said.

  I nodded my agreement, pulling out my phone and placing the call.

  “Hello?” my mother’s voice came across the line, and I breathed a sigh of relief. She sounded normal.

  “Hey, Mom, how's it going?” I asked, not wanting to alert her to the fact that something was wrong.

  “Good, we're just getting ready for bed. How was the wedding?”

  “It was good, Mom. I was just calling to check in. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Sure honey, love you,” she said and I disconnected the call.

  “He’s not there,” I said looking up to address the group. “Both my mom and Rosa are there, and she sounded normal.”

  “Can you think of anyone else? This can’t be random; he’s put too much thought and time into it. Everything he did while he was stalking Frankie was personal. it wouldn’t fit if he just randomly took her somewhere,” Angelo reasoned.

  “I don’t know!” I shouted. “We didn’t have a lot of family, it was just us four, Frankie and her mom…Claudia!” I quickly found the number to Claudia’s house and dialed. The phone just rang out—no answer.

  I shook my head at their expectant looks. “No answer; it’s as good a shot as any,” I said, reaching into my pocket for my keys as I headed out the door.

  I’d tortured and killed, I’d been shot, stabbed, and blown up. I’d fought for my country and held my fallen brothers as they died. I’d worked for the most notorious crime boss of our generation, and none of it prepared me for how terrifying it was to imagine a life without Frankie.

  “Enzo, you can’t just go in there half-cocked; we need to have a plan,” Antonio argued as he trailed me out the front door and down the driveway.

  “Then come with me, but I’m not sitting around here making a plan of attack while he’s got her,” I said, turning to face the small group of people that had become like family to me.

  Angelo and Antonio shared a look. “All right, let’s go,” Antonio said with a nod.

  I looked back at Mia and Carlo. She was holding onto her swollen belly, worry etched on every surface of her face. Carlo’s head was bent close to hers and it looked as though he was whispering something in her ear.

  “Bring her back,” Mia called out to me, and I nodded.

  I headed for my SUV, Angelo and Antonio a few paces behind me. I clicked the key fob to unlock the doors and suddenly a wall of fire was hurling me backwards through the air. I registered the earsplitting explosion and the surreal feeling that my bones were vibrating in my body before everything went black.

  27

  Frankie

  Present

  Pain. So much pain. Then I felt something hitting my face repeatedly.

  “Wake up,” a voice above me hissed.

  I blinked my eyes open only to see that my nightmare wasn't really a nightmare. Eddie was there, looming over me. Panic seized my heart, and I tried to move to get up only to realize I couldn’t move my arms.

  I felt something hard digging into my wrists. I turned my head to the side to see that both my wrists had been zip tied to the bedframe.

  My bedframe.

  I whipped my head around to take in my surroundings and my vision swam, an excruciating pulse hammering in my skull. When I was finally able to see clearly, I tentatively looked around. What I saw made my stomach flip and my heart skitter to a stop.

  I was in my old bedroom; the one I grew up in. I look down at myself noticing that I couldn't move my legs either. My ankles had been secured to the foot of the bed as well, except with rope instead of zip ties since my feet didn't reach the footboard.

  What disturbed me the most was the fact that I was no longer wearing the dress Mia had picked out for me. In its place was a pristine white nightgown.

  “Where are my clothes?” I croaked out, my throat dry.

  “I couldn't let you wear those,” he sneered. “God, Frankie, when did you become such a whore? I could smell him on you. I had to clean you up; couldn’t have you ruining my fantasy with your filth.”

  My thoughts raced thinking of all the things he could’ve done to me while I was unconscious. Tears formed in my eyes at the possibilities. He brought me here to do what? My old room, my old house.

  My mom.

  “Where’s my mom? What did you do to her?” I demanded, my voice growing shrill.

  He made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “Don’t worry, she won’t be bothering us. Your mother never liked me anyways. But don’t worry; No one will get in the way of us being together, not anymore. I’ve taken care of everything.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Why, why, why?” he asked, mocking me. “You want to know why? Because I. Can't. Get. You. Out. Of. My. Head!” he screamed, punctuating each word with a fist to his temple.

  “Please, Eddie. You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded.

  “Yes, we do!” he screamed. “You live inside my head. No matter what I do, I can’t get you out of my mind. You don’t understand what it’s like living trapped in your own thoughts. All I can think about—all I can see—is you. Don’t you understand? I have to do this for us. Then finally, the noise in my head will stop and we can be together forever.”

  Unbridled fear gripped me as I realized just how delusional he was. How had I not known? Ho had I not realized what he was capable of?

  “This isn’t you. This isn’t the Eddie I know,” I said, hoping to reason with him, or at the very least keep him talking. I had no idea how long I’d been out but someone had to have noticed my absence by now.

  “You never knew the real me,” he sneered. “But you will.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wasn’t always like this; I used to be able to control it. I was good at hiding my thoughts, my fantasies,” he said, his voice shifting from manic to eerily calm and intelligent. The sudden change in demeanor made me break out in goose bumps. Crazy, unstable Eddie was one thing; but calm and cold-blooded was something else entirely.

  “Who would suspect that idiot?” he continued. “The Eddie you knew was just another high school dropout, right? The criminal, the gangbanger who got himself locked up for robbing a liquor store. No, that’s not the real me. It was all part of my plan. I let everybody underestimate me; that way, no one would suspect I could come up with something like this. You see, Frankie, you've always been my goal.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Stop asking that!” he roared, leaning over the bed to get in my face.

  “I-I’m sorry,” I stuttered out.

  “It was all so easy—faking my death, keeping an eye on you. You may be a master with computers, but not everything is digital. Not everything c
an be reached by the stroke of the keyboard or the click of a mouse. I just had to do it the old-fashioned way,” he shrugged.

  “But how did you get into my apartment?” I asked.

  “Please, that was easy. I just made a copy of your key.”

  “How? When?”

  “About three years ago, when you first moved in. You came to dinner at the house, and I left to go get milk for my mom. I just swiped your key on the way out, went to the hardware store, and got a copy made. I put the original back on your keyring before you left and that was that. Not everything is complicated. Sometimes it’s the simplest plans that work the best.”

  “But we changed the locks,” I argued.

  “Yeah, he thought that would deter me, but I've been picking locks since I was twelve. I started out small; first, it was your diary. I wanted to see what you wrote about me. But I barely got a mention. It was all about perfect Enzo, even then. Eventually I got better, until I was able to easily get in and out of your room at night without waking you. I watched you for years, Frankie.”

  “Why did you watch me sleep?” I asked.

  “Because you’re perfect when you sleep. Still and peaceful, exactly as you should always be.”

  I wanted to cry, but there was no one to hear me. I wanted to fight, but it was useless. I didn’t want to hear anymore, but I had to keep him talking to bide myself more time.

  I swallowed through the lump in my throat. “Explain to me how you did it all; it was very clever. I had no idea it was you,” I said, trying to play into his obsession, to earn his trust.

  “Everything was going according to plan until he showed up. You let him in your house! I had to tell you, had to let you know that it wasn’t right. You were never his, you've always been mine. When you left, I went to your apartment and started looking for things he may have left, some sort of sign that you'd been with him, because I just knew. I knew he couldn't fucking keep his hands off what was mine. That’s when I found the box underneath your bed. Those letters he wrote; you kept them all. You know what I didn’t find? A single fucking letter from me. Not one.”

  I kept quiet, because he was right. I didn’t keep his letters. There had only been a couple of them, but they didn’t hold the same sentimental value Enzo’s had. I hadn’t thrown them out intentionally like he thought, but I didn’t make an effort to set them aside either.

  “Then, at the bottom of the box I saw those pictures. Sonogram pictures, Frankie. I checked the dates; they were from when I was still in jail. That motherfucker touched you while I was locked up after he promised he wouldn’t!”

  “Eddie,” I said, “I don't— “

  “You love me!” he interjected, his face so close I could feel his hot breath against my cheek. It smelled of cigarettes, making me queasy.

  “You said you loved me, so why did you try to run us off the road?” I asked. My head was pounding and my eyelids were getting heavy. I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to stay conscious, but I had to keep him talking.

  “I warned you so many times, but you wouldn’t listen. He was keeping us apart. Can't you understand I had to get to you? I had to find a way to get him away from you.”

  “But you took off before you could get to me,” I said.

  “The others were coming. I planned it all out; I knew exactly where all the side roads were. When I saw their headlights, I turned off my lights and took the next back road. They would’ve just complicated things. I’m sorry I didn’t come for you sooner,” he said, stroking my face. I had to fight the urge to recoil from his touch.

  “It’s okay, we’re here now,” I choked out the words.

  “Yes, we are,” he said, his face so close to mine I couldn’t fully see him. “You’re here and everything is perfect, just like I always imagined.”

  My heartbeat picked up at his words; he sounded different again. His eyes had gone vacant and his breathing grew ragged. I kept still, trying not to move a muscle as he pulled a switchblade from behind his back.

  No, this isn’t supposed to be happening. He’s supposed to keep talking until someone finds us.

  “I’ve dreamed about this moment for years, what it would feel like to finally do all the things I’ve always wanted to do to you,” he said, but more to himself than to me.

  Climbing onto the bed, he straddled my thighs, leaning on one arm so he was hovering above me. He raised the knife. The blade caught the moonlight, causing beams of light to play above us on the ceiling. My eyes were so heavy, I tried to focus on his face, searching for any evidence of the Eddie I used to know. He brought it to my face, gliding the flat blade across the skin of first one cheek, then the other. I watched as his nostrils flared and the vein in his neck pulsed.

  “Do you know how many times I laid awake at night imagining all the things I’d do when I finally got the chance? They scared me at first,” he murmured, leaning down to run his nose through the hair at the crown of my head. I cringed as he inhaled deeply and groaned.

  No! Where are you, Enzo?

  “But then,” he continued, sitting back up, “I finally saw the beauty in it. I came to realize that I had to do this—for us.”

  He positioned the blade under one of the thin straps of my nightgown. In a swift movement, he sliced through the fabric and the strap fell away. I couldn’t help but let out a whimper when I felt the cool metal press against my other shoulder as he repeated the process.

  My breaths were ragged with fear of what was to come next. I tried pulling on my bindings discreetly, but it was no use. I was completely immobile.

  Eddie dipped the point of the knife into the hollow of my neck. He slowly dragged it down my sensitive skin and over my breastbone, causing the silken material of the nightgown to pull away and slide down until it was resting just beneath my bared breasts. His breath hitched at the sight, and the bulge starting to grow behind his zipper didn’t escape my notice.

  “Eddie, why don’t you untie me,” I suggested. It was a long shot but I had to try.

  “No. It’s not part of the plan; in my head, you’re always tied up. Now, be quiet. You’re ruining it!” he growled.

  The fact that each time he opened his mouth I didn’t know which Eddie I was going to get, was the only thing that kept me from screaming out. Instead, I closed my eyes and stayed quiet. Silently praying to every god I’d ever heard of to not let this happen, to save me.

  I cried out at the sharp pain as he sliced a long line into the skin below my collarbone. He didn’t cut more, just one long burning line from the center of my chest, ending just before my shoulder. The distraction of pain was short lived. I couldn’t help but notice his visceral reaction to cutting me; he got off on it.

  His eyes were on fire as he stared at what he’d done. I felt the warm ooze of blood and shuttered at the thought of what those girls had to endure. I was sure that they’d suffered at the hands of my torturer, their deaths being drawn out for his enjoyment.

  Without taking his eyes off the wound he’d created, Eddie bent his head and dipped down. His hot breath hit my skin, followed by his warm, wet tongue as he licked the cut clean.

  “It tastes even sweeter than I thought it would,” he murmured against my chest, nuzzling me there, as if he was cherishing the moment.

  I was quickly reminded how far gone his mind was when I felt the bite of his knife slice along the skin on the other side of my chest. This cut was deeper. I could tell by the sharp tug of my skin as it gave way to his blade. I gritted my teeth, not giving him the satisfaction of my cries this time.

  He sat back up and placed the knife on the pillow next to my head. He ran his fingers across the cuts he'd made—tentatively at first—as if he was testing the feel of my blood on his fingertips. With a hum of pleasure, he dug his fingers into my flesh and roughly spread the quickly cooling blood from my wounds across my chest and over my breasts, coating me.

  Terror gripped me as his hips pitched forward, causing him to rub against me wh
ere he straddled my thighs. He took the bottom edge of the nightgown in his hands and pushed it up my body until the whole thing was bunched up just below my breasts. Before I had time to register what he was doing, he snatched up the knife and quickly made three more cuts across my torso. My stomach tensed and I fought frantically against my restraints, no longer worrying about upsetting him.

  I have to get out of here; he’s going to fucking kill me.

  I bucked my hips but there was no use. I was tied down too tightly, and all it did was bring me closer to his growing erection. I recoiled, pushing myself further into the mattress in an attempt to distance myself from his excitement.

  I watched in horror as he reached down and unfastened his jeans, frantically pulling at the zipper. Bile rose in my throat as he wrapped a hand around his erection and began to stroke himself while staring down at my body. It was as if I could feel his eyes touching every part of me as his nostrils flared, his breathing became faster coming out in short puffs. I squeezed my eyes shut, the sight of him making me nauseous, but I couldn't shut off my ears. My terrified whimpers were mingled with his groans of pleasure.

  28

  Enzo

  Present

  “Enzo!” I heard my name being called through the ringing in my ears. I tried to open my eyes but something wet and sticky covered my right eye, making it nearly impossible to see out of. I tried to lift my arm to wipe away whatever was covering my face, but it didn't move. Instead, it caused a shooting pain to ripple through my shoulder. I groaned loudly at the sensation.

  “Can you hear me?” Mia’s voice called out.

  I blinked my good eye open to see her crouched above me, her white dress streaked with blood and smudges of dirt. I could still feel the heat from the explosion. Letting myself look around, I noticed that I'd been dragged several yards away from my car that was now just a ball of flames.