Merciless Union by Faith Summers

45

Aria

The man I thought was my father watches me with cold, calculative eyes as he hangs up the phone.

The old rickety wooden chair I’m sitting on creaks when I shuffle against the big burly guard holding his gun at my throat. His disgusting free hand that smells like shit is over my mouth. He placed it there to stop me from telling Lucca this is all one big trap. The smell makes me feel like vomiting, as does the putrid odor of his frowzy body.

When I try to move out of his grasp again, he releases me. But I am by no means free. My hands are bound behind me in thick rope, and my feet might as well be shackled because the first thing Dad told me when I arrived was he was going to kill me.

Dad laughs again like someone on drugs who’s had a little too much. He’s really loving this.

Why wouldn’t he? He won, and I lost.

I’m going to lose everything.

My husband will be the first to go, then when my father kills me, my baby and I will die.

The precious life inside me will never even have a chance. They’ll never know they had parents who loved them.

“This is classic. It really is,” Dad says.

“You bastard, I hope you meet your end,” I spit.

“Not before you, my darling daughter.”

“You are not my father. Do not call me your daughter ever again, Raphael.”

“Your words mean nothing to me.” He shakes his head. “You were simply a means to an end. I had to play the dutiful father to get what I always wanted, and I have to do the same thing again. But this time, I’ll finally get what I worked so hard for. Nobody will stop me this time, and there isn’t a damn thing that can stand in my way. I’ve always been one step ahead of the game even when they thought they knocked me down.”

“I wish my mother never married you.”

“That would have never happened. Your grandfather was too traditional. He wanted a powerful man to lead the family, and while he loved your mother, he didn’t think she was capable of the job. Of everyone at Cervantes, your mother was the only one who knew what she was doing and knew her job inside out.”

There’s something I want to know. It’s the last thing that didn’t make sense to me. “Why did you get Damien to kill her? Why when you could have shot her yourself.”

He releases a haggard sigh and raises his shoulders into a shrug. “I couldn’t kill her because I loved her. Once she knew the secret, she had to die. That’s why I got Pasha’s lapdog to do my dirty work.”

“You really have some screwed up misconceptions about love, don’t you?”

“Like I said. It doesn’t matter. It’s done, and now I’m about to tie up the last loose end, which is you, my darling daughter. I’ve just signed the contract with Tobias for your organs. He has a buyer ready and waiting. I just haven’t decided how I’m going to kill you yet. Fast or slow. I stand to make an easy two million for the sale of your body parts, all in a day’s work.” His smile widens, reminding me of a psychopath. “Boris, take her to the chamber while we wait for the guest of honor to arrive. Let Pasha know where she is once he gets here. He’ll want to play with her.”

Fuck, no. Not that again. I was wondering where Pasha was.

I’ll see him soon enough for another session of torture.

Boris yanks me up and keeps hold of my arm as he ushers me away from my father. My God, this is it.

This will be the end.

We walk out of the office-style room and back out to the platform where I first came in.

I worked out we must be in an old factory, but the guards who took me drove down a ramp that went underground.

We’re near the docks, but not anywhere I know. I no longer have my memories to blame for that. I just know I wouldn’t have come down here because the area looked like it was designed for trouble.

On the way here, I saw all the stereotypical types of bad guys who looked like either mafia men or henchmen.

Boris takes me to another office-type room, but this one has no furniture. It’s just a barren room, and there are no windows. He shoves me inside, and I fall to my knees, hurting them so badly my entire body jerks.

“You can wait here,” he huffs out and slams the iron door shut.

I crawl over to the corner of the room and try as best as possible to hold it together. Although, I don’t know why I’m bothering.

How could Lucca or I make it back from this? What would we do?

I heard what’s going to happen for myself.

Dad wants Lucca to bring the paperwork for the company and the legal guardianship, and Pasha wants Lucca dead.

It really is over. My birthday really did signify the end of the countdown, just as I feared.

I shuffle against the rope binding me and realize with a start that my hands don’t feel as tightly bound together anymore. I check to be sure and see it’s true. The rope isn’t as tight as it previously was. The fall must have loosened the grip somewhat.

Could I get free?

If I do, could I escape?

How would I do it?

There were enough guards around to stop me, and I’m sure they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me now that I no longer have to be kept alive.

I could be discreet and try to get my hands free. It’s worth a chance, though, if I have one.

But… what if there are cameras in the room? My heart leaps at the thought of being watched.

I look around the gray ceiling and don’t see anything that looks like it could be a camera. There’s nothing on the door either. The only place left to look is the floor.

I’m inclined to think there might not be any cameras in here, but I’ve seen movies where there were hidden cameras in the walls.

There’s no way I’m not taking this opportunity.

I position myself and keep my shoulders as still as possible, so I can rub my hands against the rope without being seen.

I inhale deeply, trying to keep focused, but my lungs constrict with a weight that feels like someone placed a grenade inside it with a pin that will slip free at any moment.

Jesus, the ropes are loosening.

It’s actually working but still so tight. It was Boris who put them on me, tying me up like I was an animal he’d just caught.

I try to shuffle against the rope again and fuck; that’s when I hear footsteps outside the door.

Christ, who is that now?

Knowing my luck, there probably is a camera inside here, and it’s right behind me.

When the big iron door swings open, I see something more fitting to my bad luck.

Pasha stands by the door with a shit-eating grin on his face.

I freeze right up as he walks in, and memories I didn’t have on our last meeting come right back to me.

This sick, disgusting, perverted fucktard abused me so much more than I remembered. What I did remember previously were the first few times he did it.

I remember how my body ached after and how he got rid of the evidence of blood on my sheets.

I guess the man I thought was my father took care of that easily.

As I look at him, I wish Mom knew. But she didn’t know half of what I went through. She never saw Dad at his worse when he’d grab me and shake me and slap me.

And because I was being battered by this asshole, I spent my early years thinking I was nothing.

He stopped when I was eight because I got too old. During those years, my only escape was when I saw Lucca, and we escaped to Neverland.

He comes closer, and his smile doesn’t falter one little bit.

“Happy birthday, Kukla. Look at you, back at my feet again.” He smirks.

“Get away from me,” I manage.

“I don’t think so. You were safe until you got yourself pregnant. The only other thing I love to fuck is a pregnant woman.” He laughs and starts undoing his belt.

No, this can’t be happening again.

Please no. I wish they’d just killed me. I can’t do this. I can’t.

“Stay away from me!” I shuffle away when he takes out his cock, but he gets on the floor and grabs my legs.

He tugs so hard I lose my balance and tumble over, knocking my head.

I kick, but he pulls his gun and hits my legs. “Fucking stop it. I won’t hesitate to shoot you right in your stomach, and you can watch yourself bleed out.”

He swoops over me like a bad dream, and he’s on top of me again, tearing away my dress and grabbing at the lace of my panties.

He lifts himself up to tuck his gun back in his pocket, and then he smothers my mouth with his.

I scream, but the sound is muffled with his horrid lips crushing against mine.

Just as he tears my panties off, my hands come free, and it’s like the heavens opened and send a miracle when I needed it the most.

He’s so engrossed with kissing me and feeling my breasts that he doesn’t realize.

I use that to my advantage and reach for his gun.

The asshole must feel it coming free from his pocket, but he’s too late.

The moment he rises, I cock the hammer, and I don’t hesitate even for a nanosecond to pull that trigger and shoot him straight in his chest.

He falls back onto the ground and holds up his chest as blood pours out of the wound. When I see I really have him, I fire again and again in the same spot.

“No, don’t do it,” he splutters in a weak voice. “No more.”

“No more?” I bellow, remembering my five-year-old self begging him to stop hurting me. “No more? I don’t think so. You didn’t stop when I told you no more. Why should I?” I stand feeling liberated and empowered like I just got my one wish of anything on earth I wanted.

This moment is exactly what I would choose.

The very moment when I got my revenge on this monster who put me through hell.

My eyes drop to his disgusting cock hanging from over his pants.

Remembering once more how he hurt me, I aim the gun there and shoot and shoot and shoot.

He’s probably dead now, but I walk up to his mangled, bloodied form with his eyes wide open and shoot him in his head, feeling no remorse whatsoever.

I don’t know what that says about me. I just killed a man, and I don’t feel that sense of humanity that should make me feel something.

Instead, what I feel is a freeing sensation that comes from being the person to defeat my enemy.

The door bursts open at that moment, and Dad looks down at Pasha on the ground.

“You foolish girl, what the fuck did you do?” he shouts. “What have you done?”

I raise the gun and aim it at him. Dad’s eyes go wide because he knows I’ll do it. I have no reason not to, and I just showed I have the guts to kill.

If I kill him now, this will be over. He’s the last monster left in the shadows of this nightmare.

“This is for my mother and every terrible thing you’ve done to me and others.”

I cock the hammer and pull the trigger back, but all I hear is the empty sound of nothingness. There are no bullets left in the Glock.

Fuck.

Dad smiles and lunges for me, clapping a hand around my neck. I drop the gun and gasp for air, reaching for my neck when he squeezes hard.

“You little bitch. You better not have cost me my link to the Camorra. Damn you. Fucking damn you.” Dad shouts in my face. “Boris, get in here.”

Boris comes in and looks shocked as hell to see Pasha on the ground.

“Yes, boss?”

“Tie her up again, properly this time, and put her in the tank.” Dad looks back at me with a sneer on his haggard face. “Drowned victims make better organ donors. The organs stay fresh and hydrated longer.”

Oh, God.

I’m really going to die.