Pain and Pleasure by Callie Vincent

20

Esmeralda

The handaround my mouth is cold and chapped, I can feel the rough bits of skin against my lips. Whoever is behind me is gripping me so tight that my breathing is constricted, but I still thrash against him.

His free hand is stretched out, holding a gun that is pointed directly at Ricky's head. My eyes widen and I scream behind the hand, but it's useless. Ricky is as still as a statue, his hands raised in surrender.

"Make one more sound and a bullet goes through his skull." I hear the voice rasp against my ear and I recognize it immediately.

It belongs to the man who was tied up in Dante's boardroom the other week. I look to the hand that's holding the gun and notice his bandaged finger, confirming his identity.

"You had me at a disadvantage last week. Boss didn't realize you had a keen eye for detail, but really you're just as stupid as every other woman, walking into an alleyway at night away from your precious guards," he hisses in my ear, and I cringe inwardly.

Ricky's eyes widen in both understanding and apology. I try to signal for him to create a distraction, my eyes flicking between him and the main entrance by the door. We've been friends our whole lives, he has to pick up on some sort of cue.

Thank God he does, because within seconds of my eye movement, he's pointing behind the man that's holding me.

"I guess you're at a disadvantage again, being as one of her precious guards is right behind you," he says and the man turns his head immediately, his gun following in the direction Ricky pointed in.

I take that as my opportunity to immediately stomp on the man's foot and then kick my leg back and straight into his crotch. He doubles over in pain, allowing me to wrestle free of his tight grasp. Ricky leaps forward to grab the gun and I want to yell at him for doing something so stupid, but it's too late because both he and the man are tumbling to the ground, the gun clanking against the cement and scattering a few feet away.

Ricky and the man toss and turn on the ground and I feel helpless until I see an opportunity. Ricky has the man pinned beneath him momentarily and I stomp my stiletto heel into the man's exposed hand. He yells out in pain, and I scoot the gun towards me with my other foot as I keep this one pinning the man’s hand down.

I grab it and as soon as Ricky manages to climb away from the man, I press my heel into his neck, halting his movement. Ricky stands and yells for the guards as I bend to press the gun to the man's head, adrenaline coursing through me. I see Benjamin and two guards rushing towards us as I sneer into the man's ear.

"I'd love nothing more than to see your blood splattered across the pavement, but I'll leave that up to my precious guards." He's cursing and screaming at me, but it's useless because as soon as the guards grab him, they immediately start landing blows to his face.

I grab my purse from the ground and hand the man's gun to Benjamin, who tucks it into his pants as his phone starts ringing.

"It's Dante," is all he says, and I sigh.

I don't want to deal with him right this second, especially since I just escaped a chokehold. I grab Ricky's hand and start walking to the car, speaking to Benjamin as he trails behind us.

"Just tell him I'm safe and we're on the way home. I'll talk to him when we get there," I say before heading to the car with Ricky.

As soon as we start driving, the questions begin spilling from Ricky's mouth. I already feel a headache coming on, but I know I need to be honest with him.

"My biological father has been watching me for years. He abused my mother at one of Dante's clubs and she became pregnant with me. He murdered Dante's father that night and he's been out to kill me ever since he found out I was born. Even more so now that he knows I'm with Dante," I say, beating Ricky to the punch and unloading everything all at once.

His eyes widen and confusion filters through his panic. I shake my head at him, letting him know that I don't want to dive any deeper into it. It's quiet for the remainder of the car ride, but I speak up as we near the mansion.

"Ricky, I think you should take Marianne up on the New York offer. I never want to be without you, but I also don't want to see you dead. I don't want you caught up in this. I want you to live your dream," I say, looking at his sad eyes as he reaches a hand out to me and grabs one of mine.

"If you think for one second that I'm going to leave you after knowing that somebody wants you dead, then you really are fucked in the head. I'm not going anywhere, Emmie," he says sternly and I shake my head defiantly.

"It's not safe for you here. Don't put your dream on hold for this. I'm going to be okay-"

"And what about your dream?" he asks, cutting me off.

I look down at our joined hands and sigh, wishing we were kids playing with dolls on his bedroom floor again. Dressing them up and dreaming futures that were once so far away.

"Emmie, I-" he starts to say, but is cut off by a newly approaching and angry Dante.

"Esmeralda!" he shouts and I cringe, my exhaustion stretching from my head to my toes.

Ricky sighs and lets go of my hands, pulling me out of the car with him as Dante rushes to me, his hands searching every part of my body for a bullet hole that does not exist.

"I'm fine," I tell him, but he ignores me.

His hands finally stop traveling my body and he looks at me with frustration. He's so hot and cold, but I don't have the time for it tonight.

"What in the hell were you thinking? My guards turn their heads for one fucking second and you're rushing into an alleyway late at night?" He snarls at me and my lip starts to quiver.

Do not cry.

He keeps berating me and suddenly Ricky snaps at him.

"I'm the reason she went into the alleyway. If I had known what threat she was facing I obviously wouldn't put her in danger like that," he explains.

"But she was still in danger, no matter what you knew. Her life could've ended right before you, but you didn't think about that, did you?" Dante snarls in Ricky's face.

"Stop," I whisper, but nobody hears me.

"Maybe if you weren't such a controlling and secretive bastard, I would've been more aware!" Ricky yells.

They start arguing back and forth, their anger and voices rising by the minute. The tears in my eyes start to gather and pull out from the corners, traveling down my cheeks and wetting my face. I begin to shake with frustration and exhaustion, my fists balling and clenching at my sides. They start to roar at each other and it's all I can take before I snap.

"I said stop, God damnit!" I yell out, stomping away from them and running inside the house.

Tears are pouring from my eyes and blurring my vision, I can barely see the stairs as I climb them to my bedroom. I feel like I have lead sitting in my stomach. I can still feel the chapped, sweaty skin of the man's hand around my lips. I run to my bathroom and I turn the water on, scrubbing my face aggressively, trying to erase both the man's touch and the night's exhaustion away from my skin.

I catch my reflection and notice a large, red handprint marring my skin and it makes me cry harder before bending down and splashing water on my face, my hands rubbing at the mark as if they're trying to scrub it away from existence.

I feel somebody come up behind me and I know by the crackle in the air that it's Dante. I ignore him and continue to scrub at my face, tears still pouring from my eyes. He comes closer and rests a hand on my shoulder, trying to turn me so that I can look at him. I whip around and slap his hand away.

"Don't you touch me! Not if you're just going to scream at me after I've nearly been killed!" I yell, crying ugly, sloppy tears.

He just stares at me, his eyes filled with sadness. He goes for me once more, wiping my tears away with his thumb and I let him. He pulls me into a fierce embrace, and I cry into his shirt for what seems like hours.

"This is why I didn't want you to go, mi ciela. God, I was so worried. I can't lose you. I can't ever lose you," he whispers into my ears and it makes me cry harder.

"I want him dead. I want him to pay for everything. For what he did to my mom, to you. For the peace he's stealing from me. I just want to live my life," I cry, and he strokes my back with his hands.

I pull back and he holds my face, his palms stretched over my cheeks. His thumbs idly wipe the fresh falling tears that pour from my eyes. He kisses my nose and I fall even more in love with him.

"I swear to you, Esmeralda. I'll kill him with my bare hands. I'll tear him apart limb from limb to keep you safe," he vows, and I lean into his touch, quickly erasing the memory of the man's hands on my face.

It's silent for a moment and my tears slow, a few falling now and again, but I sniff them back and open my eyes to look at Dante. He looks so serious and holds so much emotion in his eyes. It makes my heart thump loudly for him. I can't believe I just cried like that in front of him and he held me the entire time. No one but Ricky has ever done that for me.

"I heard you pinned him down by the neck with your stiletto," he says proudly and I smile.

His thumb caresses my lips, tracing them over and over again as he stares admirably at me. God, I love this beautifully complicated man so much that my heart hurts with this love. This achy, all-consuming love.

"I guess the gun training wasn't really necessary?" he asks, and I shake my head at him.

"It was. I had it cocked and ready at his head as soon as Benjamin showed up," I say proudly, and he smiles a big, smug smile.

"My sweet, brave Emmie," he says, picking me up and carrying me to my bedroom.

He sets me down on my bed and stares at me, pondering a thought from what I can see. I raise my eyebrow in question and his eyes darken.

"I have something for you," he says, his voice low and almost scary sounding.

"This doesn't sound like a fun surprise," I say, and he shakes his head.

"What is it?" I ask and he pauses, pulling me up by my hands and leading me to my door.

"Vengeance," is all he says before he walks me out and down the stairs, towards the direction of his quarters.

As soon as we walk through the library, he stops me at the stairway that leads to the cellar. An eerie feeling seeps through my veins and I look up at him in question.

"Do you seek vengeance tonight, mi ciela? After what that's bastard done to you, do you seek relief for the trouble he's caused you?" he asks me, the questions full and long, making me think in silence.

I think about how he's been watching me, tracking me for several weeks. How he's invaded my privacy and plotted an attack against me with every move I made. I think about his chapped and sweaty hand gripping my mouth, about the gun pointed at my best friend’s head.

I think about everything for a few minutes, before I nod my response to Dante. He touches my cheek and gives me a chaste kiss to my lips before walking me down the winding staircase of the cellar. We pass by the spot that I stumbled across a few weeks ago, the place that once held a chained man. I notice how the chains are still on the brick wall, hanging and dangling against the stone as we pass.

We walk down a long hallway before stopping outside of what appears to be a cell. Dante unlocks the barred door before leading me into it. The room is dimly lit, but I notice a guard standing to the left and right of me. Sergio is standing in the middle of the room, right beside the man who just tried to kill me. His hands are tied behind his back and a gag is back on his mouth, but I can still see the angry red and purple bruises swelling around his face. The guards really did a number on him, but they left him alive for some reason.

"For you," Dante says behind me, as if reading my thoughts.

"For your vengeance," he says, coming up behind me and kissing my shoulder, right before he hands me a gun.

I immediately get the point and instead of protesting, a feel a thrill rush through me. Dante approaches the man and lands a blow to his face, and I hear him groan behind the gag as Dante crouches in front of him.

"You left a mark on my woman's face tonight. You touched what belongs to me," he says.

I should be scared in this moment, but I feel powerful. I feel cared for, in this weird, fucked up way.

"If it were up to me, I'd rip your intestines out and feed them to you by hand. But alas, ladies first," he says, standing back and gesturing to me.

"It's loaded and ready when you are," he says to me, waving towards the gun. "For your vengeance, pequeña," he murmurs.

I look away from him and towards the bleeding man knelt before me, his face almost unrecognizable. If I think too hard, I'll chicken out, but I can't help but think about how I am about to kill a man. A man that had no problem with killing me. A man that was just another threat to my existence.

I stand there quietly, my hand gripping the gun as it stays pointed to his head. Just a month ago, I was just a waitress and a college student. Today I am the daughter of a drug lord, a lover of another one, and a target of a murderer. Today, I am pointing a gun at a man that tried to kill me, my finger resting on the trigger.

I changed way before today. I changed the minute I was dragged into this house. The minute that Dante's skin touched mine. I'll never be the same after this anyway, so I may as well seek my own vengeance, find my own peace in all the wreckage.

I aim the gun to his head and pull the trigger before I can think anymore, the shot ringing out and going through his skull. His body thumps to the floor and I see blood pooling immediately. I drop the gun to the floor and turn to Dante, feeling numb.

"Get rid of him. Preferably, packaged up and sent by express delivery to his boss. Tonight," he orders Sergio and his men and they immediately pick the dead man up and wrap him in a sheet, carrying him away and out of the cell.