Giovanni

by Natasha Knight

  A calloused hand appears from the blackness inside and closes around my wrist. Alessandro steps into what dim light the streetlamp offers and, for the first time in four years, I see him. I see my twin brother. And I don’t recognize him.

  He’s wearing a deep red T-shirt. The name of the band featured on it is so faded I can’t make it out. His hair is shaggy, and his beard is overgrown. I can see bits of food in it. He gives me a one-sided grin and cocks his head, making a point of looking me over from head to toe and back.

  “Well, well, sister. Fucking the enemy seems to agree with you.”

  With that, he tugs me inside. I let out a small scream as the door slams shut behind me. Despite the weight he’s lost, he’s still so strong. He always was.

  “Where’s daddy?”

  “Aww, how cute. You still call him daddy,” he mocks, not releasing me as he pulls me toward the door that leads downstairs. Down to that basement. He opens it.

  I dig my heels in. I’m looking around, straining my ears to hear any sound, but there’s nothing.

  “Where is he?” He’s not here. I don’t see his bed. I don’t hear machines.

  And I realize something.

  He isn’t here.

  He was never here.

  Alessandro watches me with a grin on his face as I put the pieces together and understand.

  “If I tell you he’s downstairs, will you head down on your own? Cause that’s where you and me are going.”

  “Get off me. Let me go!”

  He chuckles and drags me forward. “Or I can just hurl you down if you want.”

  I have no doubt he would.

  He flips the switch, and the lights blink on downstairs. He pulls me onto the stairs, then turns to lock the door and pockets the key. He heads down with me in tow, and I remember the familiar creak of the step that’s third from the bottom. Remember how it used to wake me up. Alert me to their return. I slept easily then too. Seemed to constantly sleep.

  Only once we’re down the stairs does he release me.

  “You are so stupid, Sis. I mean, think.”

  I back away, looking around, remembering everything. Everything exactly as it had been. They haven’t even cleaned the dried blood on the floor and the whip he used, it’s hanging on the wall as if ready and waiting to do its job again.

  My eyes are locked on that when he backs me into a corner and pokes his finger into my forehead.

  “Really, use your fucking brain. You have one, right? Isn’t that why daddy spent all that money on tutors for you? Or was it because you’re slow? I mean, the old man is on fucking machines. How in hell would I have moved him without unplugging him? You always were so damn stupid.”

  “You don’t have him. You never did. What about Nan?”

  “Never say never, you know better. She taught us that, didn’t she? Yeah, I think it was Nan.”

  “Where is she?”

  He shrugs a shoulder. “Morgue? No, too soon for that. Lying in her blood on the kitchen floor?”

  I step toward him. “If you hurt her—”

  He pushes me backward. “What? If I hurt her, what?”

  “Just tell me she’s okay! You have me here, what more do you want?”

  “First of all, if I told you she was okay, that would be a lie, and I don’t want to lie. You know I don’t like it. Second, what more do I want? Are you really asking that?”

  “They’re coming for you. Giovanni’s coming.”

  “Really?” He stops and pretends he’s listening at the window, the one I crept out of four years ago. It’s been repaired. Sort of. It’s boarded up. I know that won’t be my exit tonight. “I don’t hear him.”

  “If you hurt me, he’ll kill you.”

  “He’ll kill me either way. Why not take you with me? No reason not to. Misery loves company and all that.”

  He stops, leans forward, and sniffs me.

  “You stink of sex, you know that? No amount of soap can cover that up, Sis. Never could get enough, could you? My sister, the whore.”

  He puts his hands on me, tears the blouse I’m wearing down the middle.

  “Stop! Alessandro. You’re my brother.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not planning on fucking you. That’s sick. Not that I remember you being very picky. It’s disgusting to watch your sister come with some filthy dick in her filthy cunt, you know that?”

  I feel myself cave in a little. Shrink away a little.

  “Touchy still? Aww. Poor baby.” He tugs on my shirt again, tearing it from me this time and, gripping my arm, he pulls me roughly to the center of the room where the cuffs still hang from the chain.

  “Stop, Alessandro, stop.”

  I fight but he is so much stronger than he should be. I think that’s what happens when you know this is it.

  He raises one of my arms over my head and clicks the cuff into place around my wrist. I grip the chain and try to hit him with my free hand but only manage to scratch his face, which pisses him off. He stops and steps back.

  I stop too, and look at the four streaks of blood on his cheek. His breathing becomes tighter. I can see his anger burning, growing, bubbling over, and before I can think, he slaps me so hard that I see stars. My cheek throbs with pain. I feel him take my left arm, which is now hanging limp at my side, and drag it up until he snaps the other cuff around it.

  “You’re such a cunt,” he mutters. He’s moving away, but I hear him.

  I blink, force my eyes to open. I’m just hanging now, my weight suspended. He’s torn away my shirt so I’m in a bra and jeans. My shoes have slipped off somewhere. I turn to look for them, I don’t know why, but then I hear a familiar sound. A terrifying one.

  “I’m going to whip you raw front and back,” he says. “Then I’m going to peel away your skin before I put you out of your misery.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Alessandro. You don’t.”

  “I know I don’t,” he says, walking around me, coming behind me so close that I feel his hot breath on the side of my face. He pushes my hair over my shoulder to expose my back, touches it, traces a scar. “But I want to.”

  And before I can open my mouth to get another word out, the first lash falls across my back.

  23

  Giovanni

  “It’s a fucking setup. We’ve been played.”

  I walk around that fucking apartment for the twentieth time, looking for any clue he might have left, cursing at the men on duty, fucking sleeping on the job to have let him through.

  The camera shows Alessandro Estrella, thinner than I remember, bearded, his hair looking like he needed it cut half a year ago, taking his time as he walks around Emilia’s home. He drinks her whiskey before pouring the remainder of its contents all over her carpet, her furniture. He eats her food, leaving packages lying around as he does. Opens drawers, moves things, even goes through her bedroom, her underwear drawer. It’s sick, actually. This is her brother, and he’s making my stomach turn.

  I sent a man back to the house as soon as I realized what was going on. And when it rains, it fucking pours. I just got a call telling me her father went into cardiac arrest.

  I’m heading out the front door of her building when Vincent’s phone rings. He stops and turns to me.

  “She’s not there. She’s not at the house, and there’s a taxi driver demanding payment.”

  “What?” I take the phone. “This is Giovanni. What the hell is happening?”

  “The garage door was half up when I got here, so I searched the house, but I barely got through the second floor when a taxi driver shows up, saying he gave the woman who lives here a ride. She didn’t have her wallet and sent him back here to find you. Asked for you by name.”

  “Where did he take her?”

  He’s talking to the driver as Vincent and I get into the car.

  “Let me talk to him myself!” I bark.

  A moment later the driver is on the line. “She was real upset. I’ll be honest, I didn’t w
ant to leave here there alone.”

  “But you fucking did. Address. I need the fucking address.”

  “Am I getting paid?”

  “You’re going to get a bullet in your head if I don’t get the fucking address.”

  He spells it out, and I’m already driving. I know the neighborhood, and she doesn’t belong anywhere near it.

  “He fucking played us. We should have known.”

  Vincent is making calls, getting men out to the house. I’ve got the pedal to the floor, but we’re not going to make it in time. She’s been there alone too long. He’s had her too long.

  “Fuck!”

  “We’ve got an army coming for him. We’ll get him.”

  It’s not getting him I’m concerned with. It’s the damage he’ll do in the meantime.

  “She can’t fucking stay put. Not fucking once.”

  A mixture of rage and fury drive me on. Somehow we make it to the neighborhood, to that house, without incident. Several cars screech to a stop behind us. I pull my weapon, ready it. Vincent sends men around the back of the house, and he’s flanking me.

  It’s quiet, too quiet. I try the door but it’s locked. Of course it’s fucking locked. The house looks empty. Abandoned.

  But what if this isn’t right? What if she isn’t here?

  Aiming my weapon, I shoot out the lock. If she is here, we’ve just lost the element of surprise. We charge inside, my men fanning out through the house. The door at the far end catches my eye. It’s got a lock on it, a very heavy lock meant for outdoor use. I go to it, and that’s when I hear it. Hear the crack of a whip. Hear her scream.

  I don’t think then. All I hear is that scream. I shoot through the lock and charge down the stairs and I see her. I see her in the center of the room, strung up like she must have been years before. There’s a bruise on her cheekbone and a cut on her lip. Her face is wet with tears. The whip is on the floor, but I can’t see the damage he’s done because he’s got her back to his front, a knife at her throat, and every time he moves, I see her fist her hands and hear her pain.

  “You’re a dead man, Estrella.” There are three pistols pointed at him, but my men know not to fire until I give the word. And this prick is using her as a shield. “Let her go, and I’ll make it quick.”

  “I’d rather you watch her bleed out. That’ll be worth whatever you do to me. Or I walk out of here, and you get her in roughly the same condition she was in when she got here.”

  No way he’s walking out of here tonight.

  I meet her desperate eyes, take a step toward the pair.

  “Stay back. I mean it. I’ll kill her.”

  “I don’t think you will,” I say, taking another step. He touches the tip of his blade to her throat, and a droplet of blood slides down it. She squeezes her eyes shut, squeezes out more tears. I’m going to extract double what she cried. I’m going to make it so slow, he’ll be begging me to kill him before I’m through.

  “Oh, I mean it,” he says as I take another step. He tries to take one back, but he can’t because of her bonds.

  “Don’t you find it a little pathetic you come after your sister, again, all because daddy loved her more than you?” I step closer yet, see Vincent getting into position from the corner of my eye. “I mean, a true betrayal, that I understand. But what did she do to you really?”

  He just keeps his eyes locked on mine but he’s jittery, anxious. Even if he got a gun and made a dash for the stairs, even if he managed to hit one of us, the others would take him out. He has to know this.

  “Move away from her. I’m not going to say it again.”

  “I’ll drive the blade into her throat if you come closer.”

  I give a shake of my head, and there’ a crash at the far end of the basement. Vincent just turned a table over, and that’s the instant of distraction I need to lunge at him. I grab his wrist and tug it away from her throat, then shove him back. He’s stronger than I expect, given his size, but he’s no match for me. For my rage.

  I don’t release his wrist when his back hits the wall. Instead, I twist it, turning the blade toward his throat, slicing it just a little, shallow enough not to kill him, but I do draw blood. He lets out a whimper. Like the coward he is.

  Relieving him of the blade, I lean in close. Hold my nose against the stench of him. “Don’t be a fucking pussy.” Taking his arm, I shove him toward Vincent, who holds him.

  I turn to look at Emilia. She’s shaking. I go to her and reach up for the bonds. I glance at her back before I release her. It’s bloody, but it’s not twenty-one. He managed three lashes. Three angry lashes.

  She falls into me when I release her, and I hold her, careful for her back. I want to lift her up in my arms, but it’ll hurt her if I do.

  “String him up,” I say, moving her toward the stairs. “You’re going to be okay,” I tell her. It’s not a question. She will be okay. She has to be. “You’re safe now.”

  “Nan and my dad?”

  Fuck.

  She draws back when I don’t answer. “Did he get to them?” she asks, her face crumpling again. “He said he got to them.”

  I shake my head. “No, he didn’t. It’s not that.”

  “What then?”

  “Your father went into cardiac arrest a little while ago.”

  She shakes her head no, more tears coming. I push the hair from her face. It’s stuck to it with blood and sweat. I inadvertently touch the bruise, making her flinch. “Shh. I’ll get you cleaned up, and we’ll go to them. Can you walk?”

  She nods.

  “Good.” I turn to Alessandro, who is now bound in the same restraints from which I freed Emilia. “I’ll be back for him,” I say to Vincent but keep my eyes on Alessandro. I won’t be delivering him to my cousin in the condition he wants—alive. Not a fucking chance. “You boys can warm him up.”

  Emilia has her eyes locked on him too.

  “Let’s go,” I say.

  “Wait.”

  She pushes my arm away, goes up to her brother, walks right up to him, and I’m not sure what to expect. I hope she won’t beg for his life because I’m not granting that. But she doesn’t. Instead, she spits in his face.

  “You’re a pathetic, sick coward, and you deserve everything they’re going to do to you.”

  Epilogue 1

  Emilia

  Seven Weeks Later

  Alessandro had lied about Nan and my father. He hadn’t gotten to them. Giovanni has an army surrounding them. Even if he had known where they were, he wouldn’t have gotten through.

  Nan is sitting beside me now as I look at dad. It’s almost like he knew what was happening, what Alessandro was doing to me, because I think his heart stopped at the same time I was in that basement. It’s almost like he was there with me. Already an angel watching over me.

  I wipe my face and squeeze his hand, look at him. Look at the additional machines. He could breathe on his own before. Not anymore.

  Nan is crying too. This whole thing, it’s aged her. And my dad, I wouldn’t recognize him for my father if I didn’t know it was him. He’s a shadow of the man he was in life.

  Life.

  He’s not alive anymore. Not really. He’s not here inside this body anymore. I know that.

  I don’t need to look up to know Giovanni is watching me from across the room. I stand up, lean over my dad, and give him one more kiss on his forehead. Nan does the same. She and I hold hands.

  “You’re doing the right thing, Emilia,” she reassures me.

  “I know. It’s still hard.”

  I take another minute and look up at the doctor, give him a nod. One by one, he switches off the machines. One by one, the noises stop. And as they do, I watch my father’s face. I want to say I see peace on it, even if it’s only my imagination. His chest stops moving as soon as that machine is turned off and a few minutes later, the doctor calls out the time of death.

  It should be easier if you know. It shouldn’t hurt so much if yo
u know. I feel like I’ve done this twice now. Lost him twice.

  Nan rubs my arm, and I steel myself, force myself to stop with the crying. I have to stop sometime. It’s been four long years of it, and I’m so tired of crying all the time. I lean down and give him one final kiss and tell him that I love him. When Giovanni comes to take my hand and lead me away, I go. I don’t wait for them to put the sheet over his face. I don’t want to see that.

  It’s been seven weeks since that terrible night. My back is healed, and now, twenty-four lines mark it. My age. It doesn’t mean anything, though.

  I don’t know what Giovanni did to my brother. I don’t ask, and he doesn’t tell. I don’t know what he did to those other men either, but I know they’re all dead now. The women he released. He kept his promise and didn’t lay a finger on them.

  I look over at him, squeeze his hand. I was wrong when I told him he wasn’t good. He is. In his own way.

  “You did the right thing,” he says to me once we’re in the car.

  “You were right. I just didn’t want to see it.”

  “I have some meetings in Italy next week. I want you to come with me,” he says as we head into the city. “After the funeral. Let’s just get out of here. Take a break.”

  I look over at him. “Like a vacation?” It’s strange. We’re talking like we’re a normal couple or something.

  “Yeah, sort of. I need to meet with some of the local men who worked for my father.”

  “Worked?”

  “They work for me now. There were some mixed loyalties. I want to be sure everyone is on the same page.”

  I know it’s not as civilized as that.

  “Can I ask you what happened with your father?” I’m cautious when I bring it up. All I know is Giovanni paid him a visit a few weeks ago. When he came back, he seemed different. Not as angry or something.

  He studies me. “Let’s leave that between him and me. You don’t need to know that part of my life.”

  “It’s part of my life if I’m with you.”

  He smiles, like he likes what I said. “You’re clean, Emilia. I plan on keeping you that way. You’ll come with me to Calabria.”