Bound and Broken: Dark M/M Box Set

by Loki Renard

  It had been a year since Angelo Vitali had pulled his wounded body off a hotel floor, saved his life and then destroyed it. Back then he had been an FBI rookie, and he’d looked and dressed like one.

  A year had changed him. He was broader and stronger. Being a wanted man had given him incentive to stay in peak physical condition. He had been in great shape when he was a rookie. Now he was in phenomenal form. The changes weren’t just physical. They were mental too. Where he had been an anxious mess, perpetually uncertain, there was no longer even a faint look of confusion in his eyes. His blue gaze was piercing and direct, his stance dominant even in this moment of tension.

  Mark had always been a good looking guy, but he had been a slave to military fashion, which was to say, a total lack of fashion and grooming. Angelo had not tolerated that whatsoever. His hard face and bright blue eyes were framed with well-shaped brows and a cut which let his hair hang in a stylish sweep above his eyes. He wore a trimmed, short beard. With his shirt off, he looked rough as hell. Fully clad in a bespoke blue suit, the beard gave him a veneer of respectability. His newfound confidence brought out his naturally latent dominance.

  There was impatience in his every motion, and those ice blue eyes shot toward the door several times over. He was waiting for the other piece of the Vitali puzzle. The most troublesome piece which never seemed to quite fit, and yet without which the whole thing fell apart.

  Half an hour after being summoned urgently, Bobby Vitali sauntered in, hands in his pockets, his dark hair slightly falling into his eyes. He tossed it back and put his ever-present vape to his lips. “Sup?”

  Bobby, full name, Robert Vitali, was a handsome young man. He had very pale skin from his Polish ancestry, and the sort of lithe yet stocky build which would have suited a peasant, but with a few finer elements about his head and hands which indicated better breeding. To Mark’s eyes, he was the adorable if ever petulant twink whose ass he never got tired of reaming - in all senses of the word.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Mark sounded a bit like Bobby’s father, not that he was old enough to have that role. He was only five years older than the youngest Vitali, but he made those years count. His twenty-nine to Bobby’s twenty-four. Bobby had practically been a baby when Angelo took him - just twenty-two years old. Even back then he’d been a vicious little thing with a talent for leadership and a cruel streak which made the old school New York operators quake. Angelo hadn’t blinked though. Angelo had taken Bobby in and made him a Vitali. He’d done the same to Mark, though under vastly different circumstances.

  Mark had been an FBI agent sent to take Angelo down. The only one who ended up going down was Mark. Now he was one of the most wanted men in the continental United States. He and Bobby both had their reasons to hate Angelo. The man had taken what lives they had and utterly destroyed them for his own purposes - but he’d also replaced them with something greater.

  Mark, Bobby and Angelo were a family. Not a normal family, but a family none the less.

  As Mark glared at Bobby, the younger man shrugged. “Doing stuff. Why?”

  “Someone has Angelo.”

  Bobby let out a long stream of vape smoke. “What?”

  “He calls me every day after court. Updates me on what happened, lets me know what needs to be done. But he didn’t call today.”

  “Okay, so?” Bobby shrugged. “Angelo does what he wants. If he doesn’t need anything from you, he won’t call.”

  That wasn’t true. Or at least, Mark didn’t want it to be true. Being separated from Angelo had made life very strange over the last few weeks. Angelo had been a constant presence in both Mark and Bobby’s lives for as long as they’d been in his world, without him in the house, there was something of a power vacuum. Mark had stepped into it, but Bobby was stepping out of line every damn chance he got.

  “He had a car waiting, but he never made it to the car. He disappeared from the courthouse, and he’s not answering his phone.”

  Bobby shrugged again, and took another hissing drag of the vape.

  “You think they arrested him? The FBI are pretty pissed. Maybe they just took him off the street.”

  “No,” Mark said. “If that were the case, his lawyer would have called. I think it’s underworld related.”

  “Underworld,” Bobby snorted. “Nobody would dare touch Angelo.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s Angelo,” Bobby said, his tone dropping to indicate Mark might be a bit simple.

  “That’s the best reason to take him. The man makes enemies like most people draw breath,” Mark said, putting his hands in his pockets to still them.

  Bobby still didn’t look convinced. The little shit had red eyes and Mark was fairly certain he’d been smoking something else before he broke out the vape. Angelo didn’t approve of weed. He said it dulled the senses, but Bobby liked to sneak around and do it anyway, probably just because Angelo didn’t like it. Brutal psychopath or not, underneath it all Bobby was a boy who liked to disobey his daddy.

  “Well,” Bobby puffed away. “I guess we gotta go get him.”

  “Do we?” Mark raised a brow. “If Angelo doesn’t come back, then…”

  “Then all this is ours,” Bobby said with a smirk. “I’ll shiv you for it.”

  Mark made an impatient sound under his breath. “You would too, you little shit. Angelo might find your constant attempts to kill him funny, but try that shit with me and I’ll flay your ass.”

  He bent down to growl directly into Bobby’s face, lecturing the younger man with real intensity. Bobby was the sort of guy who had to be told explicitly that there would be consequences if he tried to kill you, otherwise he’d murder you for the fun of it. Bobby had less of a genuine quarrel with Angelo than Mark did. At least Bobby had already been in real trouble when they’d met. Mark, on the other hand, had been establishing himself as a rookie agent when Angelo took it upon himself to destroy his world. It had been just over a year since Mark became a Vitali, and he was in no way settled to accepting his fate.

  He should be pleased right now. He should be thrilled that karma was finally coming for Angelo. Instead, he was just kind of pissed off. Mark had never wanted the Vitali name, but he had been forced to embrace it. The disrespect shown in messing with Angelo could not be forgiven, and if there was someone out there coming for the house of Vitali, he wanted to know who, and he wanted to know why.

  “Maybe nobody took him,” Bobby said. “Maybe he’s just doing something he hasn’t told us about. Maybe he’s fucking someone.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Of course you don’t, new boy,” Bobby sneered mockingly.

  “I’m not that new,” Mark reminded him. Bobby liked to lord the fact that he had been with Angelo for twelve months before Mark came into the picture as if it gave him some kind of authority. Truth be told, he had no authority at all. Being older, ex-military and damn near twice his size, Mark held all the power between them.

  “Reach out to your contacts,” Mark told Bobby. “See if there’s some chatter we missed.”

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to not kick your ass,” Mark growled. “Get to it. Now.”

  Bobby gave him a resentful look, but went to do as he was told. As much as Bobby hated being told what to do, he thrived when he was being dominated. He was reckless, vicious, and incredibly dangerous, but once you got him on a leash he knew how to be a good boy.

  Mark resumed his pacing. He had a few irons in the fire, but thanks to his hardy legal status in the outside world, he couldn’t just go running into the city. For all he knew, this was a trap to catch him.

  Betraying the FBI hadn’t been his choice, but it had been his mistake - and it was a mistake he was probably going to have to pay for, for the rest of his life.

  4

  Angelo was a fascinating man. It was truly a pity that Damien would inevitably have to kill him. That was the job - and he always did his jo
b. It has been a few hours since taking Angelo and he’d yet to make a real impact, but that was alright. He had time. Nobody knew where Angelo was, and the men paying Damien had made it clear that the longer all this took, the better.

  Angelo was watching him just as carefully as he was watching Angelo. They were locked in a mental tie - one which could be broken at any moment with a dose of lead. But that wasn’t Damien’s job. Damien’s job was to break Angelo, and right now, he didn’t feel like he was any closer to doing that than he had been in the court house.

  “You’re not afraid of me hurting you.” It was a statement of fact, a fact that puzzled Damien deeply. He’d served with some psychos in his time, but most of them were just big bullies who broke the moment any real pressure was put on them. Angelo was the opposite. He was more composed now than ever.

  “Every night you sleep and you dream,” Angelo said softly. “You could dream of anything. You could dream of power, riches, women, men. You could construct a persistent fantasy where you have everything you desire. And instead, what do you dream about? Nightmares about being naked in public places, having your teeth fall out. You are tormented by the petty and the mundane. When your mind puts itself to creative use, it creatures torturous fantasies for itself. You are being chased. You are in danger. Death is near. Social ostracism, the loss of loved ones. That is where the mind goes when it is unchained. I know what makes a man work, beneath his veneer. I know what he truly wants. And it isn’t money, or power, or sex, or riches.”

  “What is it?”

  Angelo looked him dead in the eye. “Pain.”

  Damien shook his head with a little smirk. “That doesn’t sound right.”

  “Of course it doesn’t. Because we’re all told that we avoid pain and seek pleasure. But people seek pain constantly, in a myriad of ways. You sought pain when you came after me.”

  “No. I wanted money. There’s a three-million dollar price tag on your head.”

  “And yet I breathe,” Angelo smirked. “You should have shot me the moment you laid eyes on me. You should have claimed your prize and flown off to some desert island where desperate but beautiful woman would have spread their thighs for you day and night. Instead you stay here with me, in this depressing warehouse which is too cold for your comfort or mine, and you attempt to torment me in the most half-hearted of ways. We both know a hundred ways to hurt a man. You have barely bothered with any of them. And I know why.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re waiting for me to get free.”

  “I am?” Damien laughed.

  “Yes. Because, you know when I am free, I will hurt you.” Angelo’s eyes gleamed darkly. “I can taste your anticipation, Damien. Don’t worry, my boy. I will hurt you over and over and you will scream my name.”

  “That’s enough!” Damien barked, his ire rising as a flush of unwanted humiliation began to rise over his skin. “None of that is true. I’m keeping you alive because my orders were for you to die slowly.”

  “Well I am dying at about the same rate I was before I met you, so, mission accomplished on that count,” Angelo smiled gently.

  Damien raised his hand and bought it down in a hard backhanded slap, his knuckles slamming into Angelo’s cheek. It was a hard blow and he was instantly ashamed of it, not because he’d hurt Angelo, but because he knew damn well he’d been baited into doing it.

  “Kitten mittens,” Angelo mused, spitting blood onto the floor. “You barely touch me, boy. Why bother with those slaps, when you could pick up that lead pipe and do the job properly?”

  Damien knew damn well his bare fists hurt plenty. The reddening of Angelo’s skin, instantly swelling under his eye, not to mention the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth made it utterly obvious that his blow had made an impact. Angelo was right though, it wasn’t as hard as Damien could have hit him, even bare handed.

  He was taunting Damien, pushing for a vicious and violent end. This wasn’t usually how interrogations went. Most men begged for leniency and mercy. But Angelo Vitali wasn’t most men.

  “You really want me to hurt you?”

  “I just gave you a very long-winded lecture on the fact that all men desire pain,” Angelo said, sounding a little terse. “It’s as if you don’t listen at all, boy.”

  “I’m not a boy. I’m thirty-two years old. I’m as much of a man as I’ll ever be.”

  “Oh no,” Angelo smiled. “When I’m done with you, you’ll be twice the man you are now.”

  “Why do you keep saying that? You’re never going to touch me. You’re not doing anything to me. I’m doing things to you.”

  “Playing pattycake, for the most part,” Angelo smirked. “Come on, Damien. Do something that really makes your blood rush.”

  Damien was a mercenary, and mercenaries killed for money. He had a body count in the double digits. But most of the time, his targets never knew he was coming. That was part of the prestige of his skill. He could end people without them ever knowing the end was near.

  When he’d taken this job, he’d figured he could break a man easily. Cruelty wasn’t hard. He could shoot him in non-essential places. He could burn him. He could lop bits off with shears.

  But he didn’t want to. And Angelo knew it.

  Right now, Damien knew he should be throwing in the towel and calling in a real sadist. There were men out there who could make Angelo scream until he couldn’t scream anymore. There were horrors which could be unleashed on a man that Damien couldn’t even begin to think about. Not because he was queasy, or weak, but because there were things you just couldn’t do unless your soul had shattered, and his was still firmly intact.

  There was nothing wrong with being a mercenary in his book. Death came to everyone anyway. It was just a matter of changing the schedule around a bit. It would have been easy to kill Angelo. Finding a way to truly hurt him… that was a more complex and perhaps impossible task.

  But he looked at Angelo, at those refined, handsome features, at those dark eyes that held so much evil and no small amount of mischief, and he felt a rush of conflicting emotions which did not naturally lead to sending the man to suffer at another’s hands. This was Damien’s job, and he was going to do it.

  “Pick up that electrode.”

  “What?”

  Angelo glanced at the probe which was hooked up to a small battery generator. “Pick it up.”

  Damien wasn’t sure what Angelo had in mind, but he was curious, so be picked it up.

  “You want to hurt me, don’t you, boy.”

  “Uhm.”

  “Use it on me,” Angelo prompted. “Open my shirt and use it on my body.”

  Damien raised a brow, but did as he had been told. He reached over to Angelo’s shirt and ripped it open, sending buttons popping across the room. For an older man, Angelo Vitali was in very good shape. No extra fat on him, he was all lean, toned flesh.

  “Dramatic,” Angelo intoned, his lips quirking with amusement.

  The probe worked a bit like a cattle prod. All he had to do was push the end to skin and pull the trigger. Damien looked Angelo dead in the eye, pushed the probe against his right nipple and zapped him. Angelo jolted in the chair, a hiss escaping his clenched lips.

  “Satisfied?”

  “Lower.”

  “Excuse me, Mr Vitali?”

  “Do it lower.”

  Angelo’s eyes were dark and hooded, his voice was thick, perhaps with pain, or perhaps something else. Damien shrugged and lowered the probe a couple inches lower and whacked him with another dose of electricity.

  There was a curse, and another one of those hissing sounds. Angelo was squirming in the chair now, unable to stay still.

  “Again! And lower!”

  His demands were strident, but the prod seemed to be having an effect. Damien lowered the probe to just below Angelo’s belly button and pulled the trigger again. Angelo’s body convulsed, his knees trying to come up to his chest but stopped by the cable ties. At eac
h site, the skin where the probe had been applied was reddened, but other than that there were no marks. A pretty neat interrogation method really, very plausibly deniable. Angelo had chosen well.

  Damien didn’t need prompting again. He lowered the probe to just above Angelo’s belt and gave him a good solid whack. The lower he went, the more Angelo hissed and growled and the more his body jolted in the chair. He seemed to be increasingly losing control of his responses, which pleased Damien greatly. Finally, he was making an impression on Vitali.

  “How does that feel?”

  “Good,” Angelo hissed. “It hurts. Do it again."

  “You’re not supposed to be coaching me.”

  “But you need training, boy, and in good time you’ll get your own taste of these things. Remember, whatever you do to me, I will do to you double.”

  Damien hesitated. This was wrong. Not just wrong in the sense of it being wrong to hurt people, but wrong in the sense that Angelo had far too much control over this situation. Even bound to a chair, he was calling the shots.

  But maybe this was how it had to be. Damien smiled and pressed the electrode back to Angelo’s flesh, watched the man arch in pain. Yes. Maybe it was best that Angelo did feel he was in control of this. In the end, he’d be shown just how devastatingly wrong he was.

  “You’re getting a taste for this,” Angelo said, panting slightly. “I can see it in your face. You’re learning the pleasure of inflicting pain.”

  It was an absolute pleasure hurting Vitali, but Damien had to be careful not to lose himself in it. There was a point to this exercise.

  “Are you learning the joy of experiencing pain, Mr Vitali?”

  “I’ve known that joy for a long time.”

  “But it doesn’t happen very often now, does it? You stay hidden away in your secret houses, with the men you’ve kidnapped and subdued. They don’t dare hurt you. You must be so pleased I’ve come along.”

  “I am pleased,” Angelo said, his dark eyes gleaming. “You have no idea how pleased I am with you, Damien.”