Deal • REWRITE • BOOK 1

26; Take It out on Me

"Salvatore gave me explicit orders to keep Aria away from any harm, he didn't specify if that included him."

L U C I E N

"I never knew you to be a man who liked to drag out death."

With narrowed eyes I glared at Alex as he entered the large shipping container I was in with his phone twirling between his hands, his eyes meeting my harsh stare in a happy squint before he motioned towards what was behind me.

Easily, I turned my head and stared at Diego who was sitting lifelessly to the chair I'd tied him to. He was barely recognisable with the damage that I'd inflicted, the sight of his bloody face and cut open arm being enough to warm my blood as the buzz of adrenaline seeped through my veins and made me swallow.

"I thought you were more of a shoot and end it kind of guy," Alex muttered, kneeling in front of Diego and inspected the wounds that had been a result of trespassing Salvatore.

"I am," I spoke bluntly, cleaning the knife in my hand with a handkerchief as I felt the heat of my anger suddenly push into my blood just like it had nearly six hours ago. "...but Salvatore wanted me to give him a slow death..."

"Well Salvatore definitely got what he wanted..." Alex spoke quietly, poking the side of his phone against Diego's cut arm and watching as a broken groan strung out from his bloodied mouth.

"Salvatore always gets what he wants..." I mumbled under my breath, feeling my anger increase tenfold when I mentally recited that he was the reason I was stuck in a fücking shipping container, babysitting what was left of the man I'd tortured at five in the fücking morning instead of being between my girlfriend's legs.

Fücking idiot.

Just the reminder of hearing the ring of my business phone mesh in with Aria breathlessly saying my name was enough to lose all sight of rationality, the thought pressing deep into my mind when I recalled the way Salvatore had demanded me to find the rat that was fücking around with his drug shipments.

With ease I'd only abided to my Don's demands despite the fact I knew he didn't trust me, but it didn't stop me from realising what he was doing when I pieced together his motive to keep me away from Aria today out of all days.

Her mother's death anniversary.

The sudden visual of her was something that I thought would be more than enough to extinguish the fire inside of me when I thought about her father and all the things he'd done to her, yet I still found myself starting to burn from the inside out when I looked at the time of six in the morning and realised I'd been away from Aria since midnight.

"Figlio di puttana," I gritted my teeth and swallowed harshly whilst opening up my message thread with her on my phone, my fingers quick to type out what I wanted to say before I pressed send and watched within seconds to see it being read.

Simultaneously I waited for her response to my question whilst looking towards Alex who was still poking and prodding Diego, the sight of him and the happy smile that soon adorned his face leaving me with irrational thoughts that I knew shouldn't have passed through my mind.

Fück.

I hated to say that I was envious of the fact that my older brother clearly didn't have any priorities and problems to deal with, but I was.

He looked care free, poking at Diego once again. It made my fücking blood boil considering that it seemed that the man in the sky had something against me with the things that were testing me lately, the monster within me awakening with every second that passed with me realising that Alex didn't have any place to be or person to be with.