“What the fuck are you doing, Luca?” Ciro asked again. “What the fuck is she doing here?”
“Trust me,” I told him.
His brows shot up in shock. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He glanced behind me at Remy. “Luca, she can’t be here. Robbie will kick my ass if I-”
“Calm down,” I said, interrupting the fear of his wife. “You’re not going to be doing anything.” His eyes closed in regret and resignation when he realized what I was about.
When he opened them again, he said, “Luca, don’t do this. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
I couldn’t give him details because I didn’t want to embarrass Remy by airing our dirty laundry, but I needed Ciro to trust me. “It’s the only way,” I replied. “Just…trust me.” Ciro just shook his head and went to go stand outside the splash zone.
I turned towards Remy. “I need you to take a seat over there,” I instructed and nodded towards the chairs aligned near the Iron Maiden.
Remy’s eyes were glued on the man hanging from the suspension chains, beaten and bloody. “What is this?” she asked again. “Who is he? What…why I am here? Luca?”
I didn’t bother with an apron. I walked over to Ciro’s tray of instruments and grabbed the razor sheers and pliers. Twirling them in my hand, I walked over to the guy who, by one way or another, crossed paths with The Son, and pinched his tongue with the pliers and cut it out with the sheers. It was my go-to move because I hated hearing their pleas. I liked silence when I worked on someone.
Remy’s screams shook the entire room, while Ciro cursed a blue streak. However, he didn’t walk over to comfort her. He stayed rooted where he was the entire time I maimed, tortured, and finally killed the asshole who, I’m sure, deserved it.
The entire time, Remy’s screams, sobs, and hysterics were like a symphony playing in the background. Her screams of pleading and begging had been so loud, her voice ended up cracking. At one point, she even tried to break the door down to escape.
When I was done, I walked to her and stood before her a bloody, disgusting mess. My suit was covered with blood, brain matter, and small pieces of flesh. She looked up at me from her position on the floor where she had curled up and cried in agony once she realized there was no escape and Ciro wasn’t going to help her.
She looked broken.
I dropped on my haunches and grabbed her chin with my blood-soaked hand. “Now that you have seen what it is that I am truly capable of, if I were you, I’d think really, really hard about whether it’s worth making an enemy out of me, Remy.” Fresh tears coursed down her face and her lips were trembling. “If you want to leave, then you are free to go, but understand this. Right here. Right now. This will be the only time you are ever offered this opportunity. If you don’t leave me tonight, you will never leave me.” Her shoulders crashed and she started crying in earnest. “If you ever try, what you saw tonight will be child’s play compared to the hell I’ll unleash.” I squeezed her chin in between my fingers. “Never forget who I am again.”
I stood up and headed towards the locker room to shower and change. As the water cleanse me from the filth, I couldn’t regret bringing Remy here. I’d been taking it easy on her and I realized that she really didn’t have any idea of what we were. She needed to see who and what she was dealing with when she went up against me. But what she really needed to see was what could happen to her if any of my enemies were to ever get a hold of her. She needed to know that this wasn’t a game.
When I walked out of the locker room, fresh and clean, Remy was still curled up on the floor where I had left her. Ciro was cleaning the implements, cursing all of Heaven and Hell, but once I tell him why I brought her here, he’ll calm down.
I bent to gather Remy in my arms, and I closed my eyes in prayer as she wrapped her arms around my neck and held on, even though something told me she was still going to leave me.