by Bella J.
You took something that doesn’t belong to you.
Are you able to pay the price?
“Sweet Jesus.” I looked back up at Dante. “Who sent this?”
“I have no idea. It was delivered via courier about half an hour ago. One of the housekeepers signed for it.”
“Who was it addressed to?”
Dante stared at me. “It was addressed to you.”
If my heart was a jackhammer, my chest would have been nothing but broken pieces of bone.
“Thanks, idiots.” Lorik grabbed the note from my grasp. “Now you have both your goddamn fingerprints over the only piece of evidence we got.” He glared my way. “What did you say about your tiny little Italian brain?”
Lucio plucked the letter from Lorik’s hands. “I believe a riddle comes to mind.”
And then I lost it.
“Would you two just fucking stop!” My voice echoed down the hall in angry waves, slamming against the walls. “If you can’t take any of this seriously, then you should both fuck off right now because I am no longer putting up with your shit. Our family is a fucking target.” I yanked the letter from Lucio. “This shitty piece of fucking paper is one giant threat, and I will not let you two assholes make light of any of this.”
Lucio held up his hands. “Yo, cous. Relax, okay? We know this is serious.”
“Well, it sure as fuck doesn’t look like you know. So stop fucking around.”
Three pairs of eyes stared at me, and I was pretty sure I heard crickets in the background…along with my rapid breathing.
Lorik moved forward, his eyes never leaving mine, and cautiously took the piece of paper from me. He gave a step back and eased past me, heading in the other direction while holding the paper up in his hand. “I’ll just go get our little nobody’s fingerprints, then see if I can find any fingerprints on this piece of paper that doesn’t belong to a fucking Valenti.” And then he rushed into the room.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My heart felt like it had the strength to claw up my throat.
“Antonio,” Dante placed a hand on my shoulder, “we’ll figure this out. We always do.”
I opened my eyes and looked right at him. “What if we don’t? This isn’t cocaine or heroin. This isn’t illegal weapons, Dante. This is a living, breathing person. And looking at the condition she’s in, I’m pretty sure we just opened up a box of fucked-up shit. And now this letter. What does it even fucking mean? What did we take? Her?” I pointed down the hall to the room where we had Nessuno. “And what price? We would be all kinds of stupid if we didn’t take this seriously.”
“I know that. But something tells me we should just give it time. We have no leads except our Jane Doe and this creepy as fuck letter. So, let’s all breathe, take a step back, and let it unfold. That’s our only option right now.”
Deep down, I knew my younger brother was right. There really wasn’t much we could do with the amount of knowledge we had—which was near to fucking zero. But I hated it. It felt like it was eating away at me, all the uncertainty. How were we supposed to strategize and fight back, eliminate the threat, when we didn’t even know who or what the threat was? I was the goddamn boss, the one responsible for our family, and my hands were tied.
Fuck!
“I need a drink.”
Dante let out a breath. “You and me both.”
Lorik came out of the room again, pale as a ghost. “We might have a problem.”
“Jesus,” I sighed. “What now?”
Lorik leaned back against the wall. “It seems our little Jane Doe doesn’t have fingerprints.”
I balked. “What? How is that possible?”
My future brother-in-law looked straight at me. “Her fingerprints, it’s nothing but scar tissue, man.”
“Say that again.”
Lorik pushed himself off the wall. “I saw this kind of thing a few times down at the precinct.”
“What thing?”
“They mutilate their own fingertips to ruin the prints. That way, there’s no way we can run them through the system to check out their profile.”
“Mutilate?” I turned and started pacing. “Jesus fucking Christ. Are you telling me someone mutilated her fingertips?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“How?”
Lorik shrugged. “Usually it’s deep burns, cuts,” he glanced my way, “acid.”
My heart stopped. It literally fucking stopped, and I forgot how to goddamn breathe. Acid? Mutilated fingertips? What was this? Some kind of fucking Stephen King novel? Jesus.
With both hands, I pulled my fingers through my hair, tugging hard at the strands. “I’m going to get that fucking drink now.”
While I followed the sound of the bottle of bourbon calling my name, my thoughts reeled in a hundred different directions. But each line of thought came together at the same exact spot. Nessuno.
I had no idea who she was. I had no clue what she had been through. And I sure as hell didn’t know why the fuck she suddenly dropped into our lives. But one thing was for sure. I would figure it out…even if it was the last thing I did.
Chapter 5
Nessuno
I hadn’t always been this obedient, timid, fragile little slave. There was a time when I fought, when I struggled against the claws of this wretched world, trying to keep it from sinking into my soul. But the harder I fought, the tighter the evil wrapped its tentacles around my humanity. Squeezing it. Smothering it. Until finally…killing it.
Now, all that was left was this empty shell. A vessel of nothingness. A nobody. Nessuno.
He had chosen the perfect name for me. He was my savior. My angel. At least that was what I thought when I had the innocent mind of a ten-year-old girl who had just witnessed her mother die. Of course, that was what I thought when he was the man who saved me, carrying me out of a war zone unscathed and still breathing. It was the one day of my childhood which I remembered clearly. I remember his face as if I had only seen it yesterday. It was the tattoo of a cross I saw on his neck behind his ear which made me think he was an angel sent from Heaven to save me.
After being saved and pulled from a hell where my mother’s corpse remained, my angel took me to a strange place to meet a strange man. I remembered standing next to my angel, glancing up at him. Tall. Handsome. Powerful. I could still remember how it felt to have him hold my tiny hand, his skin rough, and his grip tight. I felt protected, as if I had nothing to fear as long as he stood beside me, holding my hand. And why wouldn’t I? He saved me. For a little girl who had seen what I had, having that kind of security meant the world. No matter how brief. And it was exactly that. Brief.
When the man in front of me asked who I was, my angel let go of my hand and nudged me forward before answering, “Nessuno.” Nobody.
In an instant, my world crashed down around me, my heart broken. The stranger in front of me grabbed my wrist and yanked me closer while staring down at me with eyes that seemed to mirror the deepest pits of hell. And while I looked into the black orbs of endless darkness, I knew I would never know light again.
It was so many years ago, but I could still remember that day as if it was yesterday. That was one memory I chose not to compartmentalize. I clung to it. Made sure I thought about it a hundred times a day. Not as the moment I vanished into perpetual darkness, but as the only time I had ever felt secure. Protected. It was the best feeling in the world, no matter how brief. And because of that, I relived that moment over and over and over inside my head. It was the last good feeling I experienced. The last moment of sheer hope.
I lay still while the man who claimed to be the doctor moved around the bed, looking at me, inspecting me, touching me. I hated being touched but could do nothing to fight it. All I could do was be the meek slave I had been programmed to be. Submission, obedience, acceptance, it had all been beaten into me. It was solidified into my psyche through cruelty. Years of abuse and pain had shaped and molded me into the well-trained empty v
essel I was today.
To obey was my only talent.
To please was my only purpose.
To exist without living was my only fate.
And even now as I found myself in this unfamiliar place with all these strange people, I didn’t make the foolish mistake of thinking this might finally be my chance to get pulled out of the deep pit I had been in for so, so long. I was in hell, no matter where I went.
“Nessuno,” the doctor stilled beside me, “what happened to you, girl?”
If I was a naïve little girl who believed there was still some good left in this world, I would have mistaken the tone in his voice for concern. As if he actually cared about what I had been through. And I was that naïve little girl once. But that girl died the day he handed me over to the devil himself.
I remained silent, my gaze glued to the wall. Truth was, if I had to answer his question, tell him what had happened to me, it would mean I had to relive it. And all those memories were safely tucked away. Compartmentalized.
He sighed before placing his hand on my shoulder. It wasn’t expected, his touch. My body tensed, and I pinched my eyes closed as every nerve erupted in flames. He felt it. He felt the silent reaction and removed his hand before taking a step back.
“I think, for now, all you need is a good rest. I could give you something so you can get some sleep, if you like.”
Sleep. A wonderful state of escape. The only time I was free of the chains I’ve been bound by in this endless, pitiful existence I called life.
It wasn’t often I was offered something that would help me sleep. They preferred me aware and conscious, screaming and begging. That was what got them off. My pain. My humiliation. Violating me while I was sleeping wouldn’t have been near as fun for them. They liked watching me, my face, my tears. They wanted to see me break…witness my ruin.
“Nessuno, would you like something to help you sleep?”
My only reaction was letting my gaze drop from the wall to the ground. I was confused. I didn’t know what the right answer was. Did I want something to help me sleep? Did I want to sleep in the midst of all these unfamiliar faces?
Did I want to say yes? Did he want me to say yes? Would I be punished if I answered what I wanted to answer? Should I rather keep my silence, let him decide?
Yes. Silence was my friend. It made me Switzerland, choosing neither this nor that. Letting them decide for me had always been the better option. After all, I was nothing, and nothing didn’t have the luxury of making choices.
I stared at the wall once again and heard the man sigh. “I know this might not be easy for you to believe, but we do want to help you, Nessuno. You can trust us.”
His words meant nothing to me. It didn’t even stir the slightest bit of emotion inside the emptiness I carried around.
“Okay. Since you won’t decide, I’ll have to decide for you.”
And there it was. The truth. He never wanted me to decide for myself in the first place.
He moved around the room, and then I heard the creak of the door, another pair of footsteps entering.
I felt him before I saw him. I knew it was him by the way his cold presence crawled across my skin.
“How is she?”
I remained still.
“From her vitals, I’d say she’s doing better than when we found her. But she’s not talking. I can’t help her if she doesn’t tell me what happened.”
“But she spoke earlier. Why won’t she speak now?”
Because you demanded it.
More silence, and then, “Earlier, when she spoke, she spoke to you, Antonio.”
Antonio. His name was Antonio…to others. To me, he would be Master.
“Yeah, so?”
“Maybe you should try talking to her…alone.”
Please, no. I don’t want to be alone with him. I don’t want to talk to him. Please don’t let him make me talk.
There were a few seconds of agonizing silence while I felt his gaze on me, slithering across every inch of my body.
“Leave us.” His voice was low, hard, and I could hear the warning echo off those two simple words.
“Okay. But take these. It will help her sleep, and I think getting some rest is the best medicine for her now.”
I heard the doctor’s footsteps as he left, and the lock of the door. Knowing I was alone with the man who I knew owned me by the fear I felt in every bone, caused my lungs to struggle to take a breath. Lucky for me, it was a feeling I had gotten used to long ago. Experiencing fear every day for years made it easier to deal with. Easier to manage. In fact, my fear was the only indication that I was still alive. Experiencing terror and pain was proof I still existed.
I lay silently on my left side, still staring at the wall, when he moved closer. The closer he came, the harder it was for me to breathe.
“Is he right? Will you only speak to me?”
My lips twitched, the words begging to be spoken. But from the tone in his voice, I wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical or not. Another lesson I’d learned—when unsure, choose silence. Ninety percent of the time, when they wanted you to answer a question, they would ask it again—only the second time there would be a threat laced within their words.
He moved closer. I could see him from the corner of my eye. The dark material of his suit, the white cuffs of his shirt. He was tall, his shoulders broad. For a second, I wanted to move my glance from the wall to his face. But I knew better. I knew never to look unless commanded to do so.
“I know Nessuno is not your real name.”
I swallowed.
“I know you can understand me since you spoke to me earlier.”
Because you demanded it.
“I want to know your story, Nessuno.”
No, you don’t.
“I want to help you.”
Liar.
He stepped out of view, and I could hear his footsteps as he paced around the bed. Seconds turned into minutes, silence filling the space around us. And all he did was pace, walking up and down, not saying a word. Was he wondering what to do with me? How he would use me, utilize me to feed the darkest, most depraved part of him? The longer I lay there, and the more he paced, the faster my heart started to beat as uncertainty began to spread through my thoughts like a dreaded disease.
Uncertainty, doubt, being unsure of what would happen next was the cruelest fate for someone like me. If I knew what lay ahead of me, when something would happen, I would have an idea of when it would be over. I would know how it would end…for me. Whether it be pain, humiliation, violation, or heartache. At least I would have known. Knowing was better than not knowing.
Finally, he stopped, stepping in between me and the wall, my gaze now focused on the black buttons of his suit.
“Look at me.” This time the command was clear. It spoke to the obedient little slave in me, so I did as I was told. I looked up at him.
His face was hard, yet his features young—youthful. I’d been used by young men before, but never owned by one.
It was the young ones who were the cruelest. The most vicious. The most out of control. They hadn’t mastered the art of patience, experienced the absolute euphoria after suffering long moments of anticipation. The older men did. They knew how to extract every last drop of depravity out of each and every moment spent with me. Nobody.
The longer my gaze remained on his face, the more difficult it became to not look away. The five o’clock shadow on his face seemed out of place, along with his disheveled ink black hair—as if his fingers had been pulled through it a hundred times. It was strange since my first impression of him was that he was a perfectionist, a man who obsessed about detail. And by the way his suit fit him like a second skin, obviously tailored especially for him, it was easy to see this man thrived on control. Excellence. Precision. Complete and utter power. That was what made him so dangerous…to me.
The long strands of my raven-colored hair hung down my left shoulder as it always did. Ever si
nce the day I had been mutilated, it had become a nervous habit of mine to pull and drag my hair down my shoulder, hiding the left side of my face as much as possible.
He crossed his arms, the suit jacket taut across his broad shoulders. That was when I caught sight of the tattoo on the top of his hand. A wolf.
I narrowed my eyes. I’d seen that symbol before. But where?
“Let’s start with something simple, then. What is your real name?”
I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth, my thoughts spinning whether or not to answer him truthfully. Every memory associated with that name involved pain. So much pain.
It was so cold. My body trembled, my skin slowly, torturously turning to ice with every passing second. With each breath, the air burned the inside of my nose, all the way down to my lungs. Rubbing my hands up and down my naked arms did nothing to ward off the cold. Not even the promise of a little sunlight which hung at the end of the horizon did anything to warm me.
“What is your name, girl?”
I shivered and pressed my lips tighter together. I will not say it.
I heard the sound of the whip slice through the air before I felt it lash against the skin of my back. The pain that radiated from my flesh, all the way through to every bone in my body, was excruciating. It felt like the whip had cracked me in half. But I was determined to fight. I would not give in. I would not let the demons break me.
I bit into my bottom lip, swallowing the screams which threatened to echo out of my mouth.
“Let me ask you again. What is your name?”
After inhaling deeply, I steeled myself for what I knew was about to come. He wanted me to say it. My new name. But I refused. I refused to give in to his demands.
The demon behind me roared, the crack of his whip resounding all around us. Four consecutive lashes sliced across my back. This time I couldn’t stop the screams. I couldn’t contain the pain anymore. Blood rushed through my veins in agony, fire erupting all over my skin, burning with a fury which sent me to my knees.