The Italian Dom by N.J. Adel
CHAPTER 42
Nicky
Leo. That was Leo fucking Bellomo. I recognized him despite the blood and contusions covering his face and half naked body. The psycho fuck who tried to kill my sister. Shackled in a cage like the fucking animal he was. Helpless. At Dom’s mercy. At my mercy.
My throat bobbed with a gulp as I took in the torture room. It was so much like the blue room, filled with shelves and cupboards and tables that held knives, hardware tools, chains and torturing devices. Except this one had a cage, and it was much smaller, all gray and smelled like shit. “How the fuck did you get in here? And where is Dom?”
“Taking a leak or a smoke break before he smashes what’s left of my teeth…or just fucking left, done for the day. He doesn’t exactly announce when he’s coming or leaving.”
“Why did you escape? Why did you come here? To my house? After us?”
“Escaped? Came after you? What the fuck are you talking about?”
I took an angry step forward, waving the shovel. “There’s no point in lying, you son of a bitch. You’re a dead man anyway, so just tell me the truth.”
“I don’t know what the fuck they told you, but you’re right about one thing. I am a dead man. I don’t know why I was brought and have been kept alive here all this time.”
“Brought here? All this time?” I scoffed. “You’ve been in exile, at a rich loony bin in Filicudi, until you fucking escaped on Christmas.”
He laughed tiredly, blood splattering from his mouth. “That’s a good one.”
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“That I’d have loved it if that had been true. Filicudi is fucking awesome. It sure beats this shithole.”
A heaviness pressed my skull, and my ear rang, as if I’d just lost all air pressure. Could this be true? Leo was never admitted to the mental health facility in Filicudi, and Dom had held him captive all along, torturing him for a whole year?
Why? Why would he go behind Tino’s back, behind Enzio’s back and do something that…treacherous?
Was that why he wasn’t mad at Tino for spilling the beans on the Berry name? Part of me never revealed it wasn’t Tino who had told me because I hoped one day Dom would hate him as much as I did. Then, as time had passed, as I thought I was finally fucking happy with Dom, I didn’t care anymore. I’d always thought Dom let it go, too, because it’d brought us closer, but now… Dom must not have been mad at Tino because he’d screwed him first.
No way. Dom was high on loyalty. He’d have never betrayed his family unless…
Unless he was following Capo’s orders.
Was Enzio behind this? Would he lie to his best friend and hold his son to torture for so long? Or was Leo Bellomo like his fucking father messing with my head to play only the Devil knew what game? “You’re unbelievable. Fuck you, Leo Bellomo.”
“Why would I lie to you? Whatever they made you believe is bullshit. I’ve been here the whole fucking time. This’s my prison. Check the bruises on my face and the buckets of piss and shit and see how old they are. They take them out every five days. It’s part of the punishment.”
I checked his face and his body that was now too skinny. This couldn’t have been the result of one day or even one month. Then I moved to the side and checked the buckets. The unbearable smell confirmed the timeline.
My head swam, and my feet faltered, barely holding me up. I remembered all the times Dom was so sure Leo wouldn’t come near me or Lina. Why wouldn’t he be when he’d been holding Leo captive here all this time?
When we were told Leo had escaped, it was a lie. One Dom fed Tino. I remembered that day. It was after Christmas, when I’d decided to go back to my place… Fuck. He must have known Tino wouldn’t have let me leave when there had been a threat that big. He did it so I’d stay, so he’d have more time with me to set his traps and fuck with my head. Just like he leaked that lie about Leo leaving Italy. It was all to get me here, alone with him, where I’d have no chance to fight or resist.
To think that I’d felt guilty for trying to use him back then, when he’d been manipulating me all along…
What else had he been lying about? What else had he been cooking with Enzio to get back at Tino?
Is this some sort of payback? Leo and Claudia. Now, you send your cousin to do the same to my sister.
Tino’s words stabbed at me. When Dom had denied it, could he have been lying about it, too?
That fucking traitor was engaged to my cousin! Only a piece of shit like him would take a woman when he was promised to another. He had no honor to protect.
If that score was settled, why was Dom so angry when he’d mentioned the engagement, and why was Leo here in a cage, booked for a long red trip?
Convulsions of pain attacked my body. The man I’d trusted with everything had been lying to me right from the start. The man I’d forsaken everything for, stripped bare before, given my darkest secrets along with my heart, had been playing me all along. How could I have been so blind? How could I’ve ever believed anything he’d said?
“Your husband is fond of odor torture…among other things. I’m sure you know it.” Leo nodded at the wall across from him. “I could hear what you two do in there. Very entertaining.”
Fury and confusion washed over me. I followed the path he took with his eyes with mine. “You can hear us from there?”
“He’s been doing all kinds of kinky shit in there, even before you. Congratulations, by the way. You followed your sister’s lead and got yourself a Mob husband, and I thought you were the smart one.”
“Shut the fuck up. You don’t know the first thing about me or Lina or Dom.”
“I know one thing. Something you and I have in common, maybe Lina, too, and I think you know it, too.”
I took another angry step and banged the shovel on the cage metal bars. “You don’t get to say her name on your filthy tongue, and I have nothing in common with you.”
“So we weren’t both tools in Tino Bellomo’s hands? People he lured into his world no matter how hard we rejected and fought it? People he chewed and spat after we became exactly what he wanted?” He let out a tight groan. “Think about it, Nicky. I didn’t want to be a made man. I’d stayed away all my life until I fell in love with your sister so much I gave up my good life for her. I went through with my initiation just so he’d protect her. And he agreed, using my love for her so I’d be his underboss, even though he wanted her for himself all along, even though he had no fucking intention of letting her go.”
“Shut up.”
“And then there’s you. You loved your school and hated the Mob more than anything. How did you end up marrying a sick fuck like Domenico before you even graduated? I take it it wasn’t your choice, and I have a good guess who forced you into it, until you no longer knew yourself, until you’ve been shaped into what he always wanted you to be.”
“I said shut up.”
“After a while, it makes you think the world you’ve long rejected has been what you’ve always wanted right from the start, thinking he was doing you a favor, opening your eyes, forcing you to see what you didn’t want to see for your own good. Sounds familiar? It sounds too fucking familiar to me.”
“Shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP!” I slammed the shovel against the bars and crumbled to my knees.
“I could see it on your face, fucking hear it in your voice, Nicky. How much of a fool you think you are, and how much you fucking hate my father for getting you here, for letting you get used like that. Everything that has happened was because of him. I know how much you want him dead. I know it because I feel it, too. Another thing we have in common. Our hate for Tino fucking Bellomo.”
A strange emotion I’d never felt before took over me, possessed me like a fucking demon as I listened, as I sat, invisible chains shackling me helpless against Leo’s mindfuck.
“I should have never shot at your sister. It was the worst mistake I’ve ever made, and I’m paying for it with my life. But if I got a do over, I’d make it right. I’d kill Tino Bellomo, and I didn’t care if I was shot dead right after it.”
“Shut up, you son of a bitch.” My demand came out as a feeble whisper this time.
“Domenico always comes from this door, the one that opens to your playroom. He never enters the way you came in. That was only for the soldiers who clean up after him. It’s been two days since they changed the buckets, which means they’re not coming today—”
“No.” I jumped to my feet, my eyes darting to that door he spoke of, my mind screaming. “No! I know what you’re doing here, but I’m not falling for this shit. You’re no better than him. You’re no better than either of them. If anything you’re worse. I won’t be used or manipulated again. I’m not falling for this shit!”
“I’m the only one who can take the man we hate the most down, and you know it. I’m your last chance at it, Nicky, so let me do what I was supposed to do a year ago. Let me fix it for the both of us.”
“It’s too late.”
“No, it’s not. If Tino is gone, the Lanzas would no longer care about retaliation on any other Bellomo. You’ll be free. You’ll get your life back.”
“What about my sister?” I couldn’t believe I said it out loud. I couldn’t believe I was even considering helping Leo Bellomo escape.
“I know you can’t trust me, and I’m not stupid to ask you to. But use your head. I have no crew, and he has an army and the Lanzas to take me down. I’d be shot on the spot…but I won’t let them shoot me until I put a bullet in his brain first.” His eyes shone like a rabid animal, flashing with hatred I’d never seen before. Then he glanced at the concealed door. “Domenico hasn’t returned yet, which means he isn’t coming back tonight. He never takes that long of a break. If you hurry and use that shovel, you can break the lock and shackles in no time.”
“I can’t do this. I’ll be a traitor. They’ll kill me. I can’t do this.”
“No one has to know. Just get me out of here like they do with the shit. If we get caught, I’ll say I forced you. I’ve been banging those bars with my feet and loosening up the shackles for a while now. You could say I broke the cage and stole that shovel from you, threatened you or whatever.”
“No. No.” My brain was frying with this ultimate mindfuck. He was making it sound so fucking easy. So fucking doable. “Jesus, you’re the fucking devil.”
“If I’m the devil, what does that make of Don Bellomo?”
The devil’s father. The puppeteer of everything that was evil in the world of pain and blood he’d dragged me in.
The blind love of my sister. The father of her son.
The father I wished I’d had but now wanted dead. Along with every other Mafia devil like him.
“C’mon, Nicky. You have the power to fix everything. Free me so I can save us all from the monster called Sebastiano Bellomo. I know you want it. You know deep inside it’s the only way to truly save yourself and your sister from any future fucked up shit you’ll be manipulated into doing. So what’s it gonna be, Nicky? Are you strong enough to do what has to be done?”
I stared at him, a blazing war in my split heart, two sides fighting, and an answer on the tip of my frozen tongue.
To be continued…
Don’t hate me for the cliffy, please! I’ve already told you it ends that way in the beginning of the book. Don’t worry. You don’t have to wait long. The Italian Son is coming in a few weeks, which will conclude the universe of the Lanzas and the Bellomos
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