My Mafia Madness

Chapter 18 - Tainted with Venom

Dante took a moment to compose himself, taking yet another drag of his cigarette before standing and making his way over to kneel down in front of the restrained captive he held down in the basement of one of his many warehouses.

Raymond continued to look the Reaper dead in the eye, which might have been a mistake.

Dante's expression was cold as he blew the smoke out of his lungs, aiming it directly into Raymond's battered face as he did.

"And just who's gonna take this city from someone like me?" Dante challenged confidently.

Suddenly Raymond became surprisingly shy and turned his head away, breaking their eye contact.

It appeared he wouldn't give up his current employee so easily.

Dante grinned at his minimal level of triumph.

This meant that now he got to play with his victim before he eventually killed him.

Standing up once more, the Mafia Boss made his way across the room to where the tables sat waiting for him.

He made an obvious attempt to strike fear into the mind of his victim as he held his hand up and slowly ran it across each one of the tools laid out before him.

He took slow steps as his fingers brushed along each instrument, one at a time.

"Did you know that it's the brain that controls just how much pain a person can tolerate?" Dante questioned from his position over the table.

His hand reached down and grasped at a black and silver curved karambit knife before lifting it up and carefully examining it.

"Without the brain, you wouldn't be able to feel pain at all..."

He continued on thoughtfully before adding, "It's actually quite funny if you think about it. We live in order to feel pain."

Raymond's eyes darted toward Dante as he closed the gap between them with confident strides.

Even restrained, Raymond still flinched as Dante crouched back down in front of him once again.

He had a murderous glint in his eye as he firmly gripped at the curved knife in his right hand.

"Tell you what... I'm a reasonable man. How about I make you a deal, hmm?" he urged.

"If you can take what I'm about to do to you without screaming, without making a single sound, I'll let you go free."

Raymond swallowed nervously; his eyes caught within Dante's predatory gaze.

"Deal."

Dante grinned with delight as he lifted the curved karambit blade up and twirled it between his fingers for Raymond to see.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked.

"It's a knife."

Raymond replied dryly, spitting some of the blood he had just coughed up onto the floor.

"Actually, it's called a Karambit. Originally it came from the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra in Indonesia..."

Dante held it up for Raymond to see a little closer now as his captor continued his apparent history lesson.

"You see, the claw like curve to the blade is what makes it so dangerous. It's not primarily used to simply stab someone like countless other knives, but rather to slash or hook at someone's flesh, much like an animal's claw would... if it were eating you alive."