Page 87 of From Italy With Love

No.

“I visit her. Show her what real man feels like.” He leaned closer, his breath hot against my ear. “Make her scream. Make her beg. Break her like break you.”

I tried to move. Tried to lunge at him. But the restraints held me in place, and all I managed was to send fresh waves of agony through my broken body.

He laughed.

“Will kill her. Slowly. She suffer bad.” He straightened up, looking down at me with those dead eyes. “But first, she watch your son.”

Henry.

My son.

“Italian brat,” Ivanovich spat. “Going to snap neck like branch. Wife sees before I kill her, too.”

Something inside me broke.

Not my body—that was already broken beyond repair.

My mind.

My soul.

Whatever part of me was still holding on, still fighting, still believing I could survive this and save them—it shattered completely.

Because I couldn’t save them.

Couldn’t protect them.

Couldn’t do anything except sit there and listen to this monster describe in horrific graphic detail how he was going to destroy everything I loved. If they killed me, there would be no one left to protect Madigan and Henry from the Society. No one left to fight for them. No one left to bring them home.

They were alone. Completely and utterly alone. The realization was worse than any physical pain they inflicted. Worse than the broken bones and the blood and the agony radiating through every nerve ending.

I’d failed them. Failed to protect them. Failed to save them. Failed to be the man they needed me to be. And now they were going to pay the price for my failure.

Ivanovich signaled to his men, and they started again.

This time it was worse. They used knives. Cutting shallow lines across my chest, my arms, my legs. Not deep enough to kill. Just deep enough to hurt. To bleed. To make me scream.

And I did scream. I screamed until my voice gave out. Until I couldn’t make any sound at all except hoarse, broken gasps. They broke my fingers one by one. I heard each bone snap. Felt each one give way. The pain was indescribable. They poured saltwater over my wounds. The burning was so intense that I blacked out for a moment. When I came to, they did it again.

Hours passed. Or maybe days. I couldn’t tell anymore. All I knew was the pain and the darkness and the growing certainty that I was going to die here. That I would never see Madigan again. Never hold Henry. Never get the chance to tell them how much I loved them. How sorry I was for failing them.

Eventually, they stopped.

I was barely conscious. Barely alive. My body was a mass of broken bones and torn flesh, and blood. So much blood. I couldn’t feel my hands anymore. Couldn’t feel my feet. Everything was numb except for the pain, which was everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Ivanovich crouched in front of me and studied my face. “You strong.” He smiled. “But you break.”

I tried to speak. Tried to tell him to go to hell. But nothing came out except a wet, rattling sound.

“Everyone break,” he continued. He stood, then nodded to his men as they covered my head with a sack and dragged me from the room into another. Moving efficiently, they shackled me to a wall. Then the sack was ripped from my head, and someone threw a bucket of cold saltwater at me. Roaring out, I cursed violently as I struggled and fought with the chains that bound me.

“Sal?”

Gasping through the pain, my voice was barely audible. “Illyria?”

Screaming loudly, I heard my sister’s cries as someone laughed.