by April Lust
I stayed in the basement, and I suffered.
But I didn’t drink the bottle.
# # #
In his office, Fists released a cloud of smoke over his shoulder. I realized I’d been touching my wrist as I remembered the ordeal in the basement. All that remained on my skin was a tiny, dimpled scar, just a half-inch stretch of white tissue to commemorate the day and night I’d spent writhing and moaning in that chair, thinking the pain would never end, that I would feel this way forever.
Eventually, it did end. Fists had come back down and found me still conscious in the chair. The straps had ground down on my arms and legs enough to scrape the skin completely raw. I’d broken three teeth and bit off the tip of my tongue from clenching my jaw so hard.
But I made it. I survived, and I became a Punisher.
“Why did you decide to come to us that day?” Fists asked.
“You know why,” I answered.
“I want to hear you say it.”
I took a deep breath. “Because I wanted to kill them.”
“You wanted to kill who?”
“C’mon, Fists, stop fucking with me.”
“Say it.”
“I wanted to kill the Espositos,” I said finally. “I wanted to murder every last fucking one of them.”
Fists nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “That’s why you’re here.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that driving isn’t going to do that for you. It ain’t gonna get you there.”
“Then what’s the plan?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“I’m done playing games. Tell me what your plan is.”
Fists shrugged, finished his cigarette, and stubbed it out alongside the others. He tented his fingers in front of him and looked at me coolly. “Peace.”
My mouth opened, then shut again. “Peace? Peace? You want to make peace with them?”
He nodded. “I’m calling off every contract and operation that might infringe on Esposito territory. We’re going to offer to squash everything, forgive all blood debts, and give peace a chance. We’ve been fighting them for a long time, Nico. It’s time to try something new.”
“There’s no fucking way Marco Esposito is going to just forgive everything that’s happened over the last decade,” I growled.
“It doesn’t matter what Marco thinks,” Fists answered.
“Why the hell not?” I demanded, gripping the edge of the desk between my hands.
“Because Marco’s dead.”
Chapter 10
Natalia
I’m on a motorcycle, riding behind some man I don’t recognize. His dark hair is messy, windswept. I can feel the engine humming between my legs, sending vibrations up my thighs to my center. They’re coming in distracting waves, overpowering my control.
The road ahead is empty, no one else to be seen for miles. I swear the blacktop stretches on forever. Through my peripherals, I can see how open everything else is. There are grass plains everywhere, so different from the city I’ve never left. The open space is overwhelming, calming. With a deep breath, I take in the air, the unbroken horizon.
I calmly wonder who this man in front of me is. His back is broad and strong. I notice with satisfaction that, beneath my fingertips where they are hugged around him to hold myself to the machine, his abs ripple with muscle. He smells like leather, like engine oil, like everything masculine and raw and dangerous all at once. It’s intoxicating.
There’s a grassy hill rising up to our right. The man steers the bike off the road and towards it. We slow down as we cross from asphalt to the packed earth. The groan of the engine simmers to a low rumble.
He stops at the foot of the hill and switches off the ignition, lowering the kickstand of the bike down to nestle amongst the grass roots. He doesn’t move from the bike, though, nor does he turn around to face me. I pause, unsure of who he is or where we are. I don’t even know what’s happening. How did I get here?
Just as abruptly, the scene shifts. It’s like a section of film reel was cut out, or a couple minutes were wiped clean from my memory. Now, without any recollection of how I ended up in this position, I’m on my back at the top of the hill, looking up at the sky. Clouds drift by lazily. The breeze stirs the grass and plays with my bangs. I hardly notice any of this, though. I’m too distracted by the tongue delving between my legs.
I look down and realize with a start that my dress is pushed up above my waist. I’m not wearing any underwear. There’s nothing at all to separate me from the shirtless bulk of the biker where he is crouched between my spread thighs, licking and nipping delicately at the tender flesh there. I gasp as he makes contact with my clit. He uses the tip of his tongue to jab and retreat, then slowly slink back and wind gentle circles around it.
I reach down and push my fingers through his hair, grabbing thick fistfuls in either hand. I need something to hold onto for support, because just as I settle onto the back of his head, he sucks my clit softly between his lips and begins bathing it in big, broad sweeps of his tongue.
I grip even harder on the sides of his skull. His back is a tapestry of muscle, knotting and coiling with the intensity of his motion. He holds tight onto my hips with both of his scarred hands. I’m pinned to the ground. I wouldn’t be able to move even if I wanted to, which, given the layers of sensation bubbling up from somewhere deep between my legs, I have not even the slightest interest in doing.
The whole scene is strange, surreal. The air is summer warm, free of insects and pollen, and the grass is like a pillow below my head. I can’t see a living soul no matter where I look. I close my eyes and sink into the feeling.
The biker slides a finger into my moist opening. I groan; it’s almost painful for a moment before I relax into it. He twists his palm to face upwards and beckons towards the sky, grinding delicately on my g-spot while his tongue keeps swirling around my engorged clit.
I can’t help but let my hips squirm against him. My body wants more and faster. He complies, reading me before I even know what it is I’m asking for. He releases my clit from his mouth and starts to lick up and down, then side to side, in ever faster motions. Short, fast whips of his tongue across everywhere that’s sensitive and desperate.
He pistons his finger in and out, then adds another. Again, there is a quick flash of pain followed by a soft, pressing wave of powerful satisfaction flowing from beneath his touch. I start to let loose tiny moans from my parted lips.
“Oh, oh, don’t stop,” I whimper. I’m barely aware of what I’m saying. The sky is serene, but beneath it, I’m a rolling storm of bucking hips, panting, and supplicating to the touch of this mysterious man.
He sucks my clit in once more and I burst over the edge, coming furiously and soundlessly.
# # #
I woke up with a start. My chest was heaving like I’d just run a marathon. I was wide awake instantly, in time to catch the last of the fading tingle as it retreated back into my core. What the hell was that? I’d never had such a sexual dream before. Everything about this one had seemed so vivid and real, down to the follicles of the man’s hair and the roots of the grass on either side of my head. I closed my eyes and I could still see it exactly as it had been when I was asleep.
I shuddered and forced myself to stand up quickly. If I lingered in bed, I was bound to end up recreating the feelings that the man’s tongue had imparted. There was too much to do today to let that happen.
Alessandra had come home in a fury yesterday. The second she burst in the door, she started sniffing around, looking for things to criticize and new chores to stack onto the already mountainous pile of items I had on my plate.
“What the fuck is this?” she’d shrieked, holding up a dust bunny that most people would have required a microscope to discover.
I kept my head down and my eyes on the ground. “I’m sorry. I must have missed it.”
“Do this room again,” she commanded, sweeping her arm around th
e gigantic living room. “All of it.”
I gaped at her. “All of it? But I did the whole thing yesterday!” I protested.
She was in my face in a moment, a tiny blonde blur quivering with menace. “Are you seriously trying to argue with me?” she hissed. “We own you.”
I opened my mouth to apologize again, but a voice from the doorway interrupted me. “What’s going on?” Cosimo had said. He stepped the rest of the way into the room.
Alessandra whirled her head around to look at him. “This wench of yours has done a horrific job with her simple tasks, yet again,” she informed him.
He turned his eyes to me. I didn’t look up. “Natalia?” he said, tilting his head to the side. “Is this true?”
“Of course it’s true,” Alessandra snapped, but Cosimo did not look away from me.
Instead, he took a step closer. Putting two fingers under my chin, he forced my eyes to meet his.
Like I always did when I looked at Cosimo, I shivered at first sight. An icy chill ran down the nape of my neck and spine. He had those pale predator’s eyes, shining with an animal craftiness that made me wary every time I saw him. I shifted uncomfortably back on forth on my feet.
I opened my mouth once more to apologize, but for a half second, I froze. I remembered what Marco had told me earlier that morning, the same piece of advice that a random street urchin had offered when I was hardly a teenager. Stand up for yourself.
What would that even mean in a context like this? I had no freedom. Nowhere to go and no way to get there even if I did. I was trapped by a family who would kill me the moment I stepped a foot out of line. Even the nicest man among them, the only one who ever treated me well, was a cold-blooded murderer. Would I spit in Cosimo’s face? Tell Alessandra no? Of course not. Standing up meant death, or something worse. I’d heard the stories about the Espositos. They knew about things worse than death. Standing up to them was simply not an option.
This, then, was what my world had been boiled down to: offering apologies to the man who’d murdered my daddy and made me into his family’s slave.
“I’m sorry,” I’d told him. “I’ll clean it again.”
I’d spent the rest of the afternoon on my hands and knees, scrubbing invisible particles of dust from every crevice in the floorboards and the crown molding that ran along the lower part of the wall in the living room. I’d swept the fireplace clean, waxed the floors, and buffed every picture frame into a brilliant shine. Only after it had passed a second scrutiny from Alessandra was I allowed to start my other chores.
Those had taken me until late in the night, and even then, there were a few things I’d left for first thing this morning. I dressed hurriedly in my dark room, throwing on a simple dress and flats, then hustled towards the kitchen.
I whipped together Marco’s morning tea and counted out his pills onto the silver tray. As fast as I could manage to go without spilling, I burst out of the kitchen and down the hall towards his bedroom.
The second I turned the corner, I froze in place.
Alessandra and Cosimo stood outside the door, along with a few of Marco’s bodyguards and the lead doctor who had been tending to him throughout his bedrest. The doctor looked grave as he conversed with Cosimo in a low tone. They had all looked up at me as soon as I entered the hallway.
“You,” Alessandra snarled when she saw me. “You fucking whore.”
What was going on? I was still confused by my dream and groggy with exhaustion. “Wha…what?” I stammered.
Alessandra marched to me in three quick steps and slapped me across the face. Her ring cut open my cheek. I could feel the warm blood trickle down. “You fucking killed him, didn’t you? You did it!” She seized my upper arm in a tight grip and propelled me towards the group assembled outside Marco’s bedroom.
Killed him? She couldn’t mean that…oh God, no.
“This cunt did it,” Alessandra said in an acid tone. “Gave him the wrong medicine? Wanted him to die? Did you think that would help you?” she spat in my face.
“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please believe me,” I begged, looking around at the others. “Please, I swear.”
“My father is dead, Natalia,” Cosimo said, gazing at me curiously. He licked his lips.
My suspicions confirmed, the blood drained from my face and a sickening chill set in deep within my bones. If Marco was dead, there was no one left in this house who gave even the slightest care about me. To him, I was human, even if I were his property. But to these people, I was less. I was filth.
And apparently, I was a murderer.
“I didn’t do it!” I exclaimed. “Of course I didn’t do it!”
“You gave him the wrong medicine!” Alessandra interjected. She waggled a bottle of pills in front of my face.
I couldn’t form words. I knew for a fact I’d given him exactly what I was supposed to give him. Even when I was as tired as I’d been after re-cleaning the living room from top to bottom, I was always careful to double and triple check the dosages and timing of Marco’s medications. I needed him to live. He was a life raft in this ocean of shit. Without him, I was fast on my way to drowning.
Alessandra turned to Cosimo. “Get rid of her,” she demanded. “Sell her to someone who will treat her like the piece of shit she is.”
I blinked hard. I wondered if I was still asleep, if the dream with the biker had turned into this nightmare. But the tray in my hand was too cold to be imaginary. The expression on Cosimo’s face was too serious. This was real life. I couldn’t wake up from it.
I looked at him. Tears were brimming at the corners of my eyes. I couldn’t even properly mourn Marco. It was all happening too quickly. He was dead, I was being cast adrift, Alessandra was calling for me to be punished, and Cosimo’s pale eyes just kept looking at me, not saying anything, just staring and letting me wonder what he was planning to do next.
One fact was staring me dead in the eye: as bad as things had been, they were about to get even worse.
Chapter 11
Nicholas
I fumbled for a moment before I found my voice again. “Marco’s…dead?”
“Yep,” Fists nodded.
“You’re telling me Marco Esposito is dead. Marco, the boss of the Esposito crime family. Dead?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Damn.” That’s all I could think of to say. Damn. The man had built an empire from nothing. Until The Punishers came along, he ran this city with an iron fist. With the notable exception of the members of this club, everyone who had ever challenged him was either buried in an unmarked grave or sleeping forever at the bottom of the lake. He was a Chicago institution, an immovable object. Marco Esposito was God.
But, apparently, God was dead.
Something occurred to me. Why stop now? Why hold back? “Fists, how the fuck could you be talking about negotiating a peace treaty?” I said hungrily. “Now’s the time to take them down! That rat fuck son of his doesn’t have half the balls his old man did. Let’s strike. Let’s burn that fucking mansion of theirs to the ground.”
“Try not to break my shit, Nico,” Fists said.
I looked down and realized I’d snapped off a piece of the desk in my bare hands. The wooden splinters stuck out. I set the chunk of wood carefully on top and settled back into my seat, folding my hands across my lap and mostly succeeding in keeping my breath calm and even.
“Now is the time, prez,” I repeated. “We won’t get another chance this good.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“You can’t just tell me, ‘No.’”
“I can, I will, and I just did,” he retorted. “I’m your president, and as long as I’m still here, you’re listening to what I say. Got that?”
I exploded. “Fuck that and fuck you. You know why I joined this club. I came because I wanted every Esposito to bleed for what they did to me. If you’re telling me to stand down just because you’re too scared to fight, then
fuck this whole joint. I’m out. I’ll go fight them myself.” I stood and spun angrily on one heel, headed for the exit.
“Sit down, Nico,” he called tiredly just as my hand closed around the doorknob. I paused for a moment, curious what he would say. “There’s more to it.”
I turned back to face him. My eyes were narrowed suspiciously. Fists was a tricky, manipulative motherfucker when he wanted to be. There was a reason he was The Punishers’ president, the same reason he’d survived so long in this bloody turf war. He knew how to play the game.
“Start talking,” I said.
“First, you sit.” He pointed at the empty chair.