The life of a Mafia princess

• t h i r t y o n e •

Third PoV

The room is dark and the air is sticky when he regains consciousness. All sources of light are blocked by dark curtains. The lamp is hanging from the ceiling, barely holding onto it. Its lightbulb is laying underneath it, broken into tiny pieces.

He blinks his eyes against the dark to clear his vision. The room remains dark but he can make out a few shadows.

Opposite of him is a wall, full with various of unidentifiable things. Aside from the chair he's sitting on and a table with a chair in the corner, the room is empty.

The chair is bolted to the floor and he is tied to it. His legs and arms are held securely in place by chains and rope. His hands are secured separately by tape that is wrapped around the chair from his wrist down to his fingers.

He struggles against it. He tries to free himself but he can't. The bonds are to tight and to secure. Without help, he might never get out of this.

His struggling allows him to regain further consciousness. Suddenly foul smells hit his nose and he wishes he would lose his sense of smelling.

Old, dried blood mixed together with the faint smell of fresh blood - most likely his own - and various other bodily fluids hits him. His struggling momentarily stops as a wave of nausea hits him.

Just mere seconds later though, his struggling once again increases. He tries to stand up, but can't. The restraints refuse to break.

He continues to struggle in silence for what could be mere seconds but also several minutes until the door opens. Light from what seems to be a hallway enters the room and Ivano screws his eyes shut.

A man enters the room and shuts the door behind him, allowing the darkness to take over the room once again. During the few seconds the room was illustrated, he saw the various knives, chains and other devices that from the bloodstained state of them are always only used to inflict pain on others. The puddles of dried blood and other bodily fluids all over the room further confirmed Ivano's thoughts about what will happen in this room. Most likely sooner than later.

The Mancini brother's attention is drawn towards the stranger. He thinks that the stranger is sitting in the chair, leaning into it in a comfortable position but is not quite sure of it. A small, usually quiet part of his consciousness screams at him that no one could be comfortable in a room like this. Aside from him of course, if the roles were reversed.

"Ivano Mancini. Definitely not the one I expected to find here but you should be good enough until my desired Mancini sibling is here." The stranger chuckles.

Ivano furrows his eyebrows. The voice sounds oddly familiar but no matter how hard he tries to match the voice to a name, he can't put those two together. It's almost as if his consciousness doesn't want him to solve the mystery because the betrayal that follows the truth would hurt too much.

"I'm the best you'll ever get." Ivano scoffs.

A laugh escapes the man's lips, "the best I'll ever get is Eleonora Mancini."

"You'll never get my sister."

"Oh but I will. She will get to experience my company again very soon, Ivano." The words make Ivano's anger spike up and increase his struggling against his bonds. The smug, satisfied tone of voice ignites the urge to kill him with his bare hands in the Mancini brother.