Caught In Her Vengeance - Book 2

39

Chapter 39

Catalina

Are they freaking serious?

I scowled when all the guys fell in line behind Nic like a bunch of mindless drones following their leader. Idiots. Throwing my hands up, I eyed their backs as each of them stepped through the threshold of the house before shutting the door behind them.

"Really?" I shouted from the driveway.

Sure I was being a bit of an asshole, but that was so fucking unnecessary. "Damn it." I looked at the two passed-out men in the trunk and cursed.

Raking my fingers through my messy hair, I tried to think of a plan. "It's okay, Cat, you got this," I told myself. There was no way I was going to go in there and ask those fuckers for help. "Think." I pinched the bridge of my nose then I heard one of them groan.

"Shit...Shit...Shit."

He began to move, and I panicked, looking around for something to protect myself with since the gun was back in Matteo's car.

The masked man sluggishly shifted from side to side as he unsteadily started to sit up. Just then, my eyes landed on Nic's tire iron. Before giving it a second thought, I leaned forward, grabbed it, and swung the steel rod across the side of his head.

Crunch.

The bone-crushing sound of the curved end of the rail connecting with his skull echoed from the trunk. His body immediately went limp, and he fell back onto the other man with an audible thud. Oh, fuck. I tossed the tire iron onto the ground. I hadn't meant to hit him that hard. I couldn't get the answers I needed if they were dead.

Thick sticky maroon liquid started to trickle from his head through his mask, making me light-headed. My mouth filled with water as his blood quickly began to puddle on the bed of Nic's trunk. I fought the urge to gag as my stomach churned. But it was no use. I ran over to the side of the car, hunching over, and planted both my hands on my knees, readying myself. My body jerked with brute force as I emptied the contents of my stomach.

Apparently, in my mind, it was one thing to shoot at a moving vehicle, but it was another thing entirely to feel the raw metal vibrate in your hand as it caved in the side of someone's head. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I sharply inhaled through my nose and exhaled slowly through my mouth. It was hard not to panic, but I had just killed a man with my bare hands. He was one of the bad guys. I reminded myself. He was here to kill you. You just killed him first.

Standing upright, I brushed the loose hair out of my face, and I pushed away my fear. I went over to Matteo's car, grabbed the gun, and walked back around to the trunk snatching the door and slamming it shut.

I still had Nic's spear key, so I got into the driver's seat, deciding to pull up to the building on the side of the house that I'd never been inside. I came to a complete stop and looked around for a key switch until I found it on the inside of the visor above my head, and I hit the button.

The garage door began to rise, and I slowly pulled inside. Automatic fluorescent lights flickered on, blinking one at a time overhead as I put the car in park. My eyes widened, and I took in an audible gust of air, almost choking on it. There were knives of all shapes and sizes covering one of the four concrete gray walls around me. Some were sleek and sharp, while others were jagged with ridges running along the length of their blades.

Another wall was entirely lined with rope. Each was a different color. They all differed in thickness and size. A third with basic shop tools, and the last wall was guns, guns, and more guns. Taking the keys out of the ignition, I tossed them into the passenger seat and opened the car door.

Getting out, I tucked the gun into my jeans. "Holy fuck," I whispered under my breath, taking in my surroundings. I slowly spun on the ball of my heels until I did a complete circle, eyes nearly bulging out of my head. It was no wonder no one ever parked in here. This place looked like a torture chamber. Which I guess made sense considering who I was living with.

There was a steel chair in the center of the room. I walked over and ran my fingers over the sleek metal when I realized it was bolted to the floor, with latches resembling cuffs at the end of both the arms and legs of the seat. I should have been unnerved finding all of this in here, but I wasn't.

In fact, ever since Olivia...Victor...Reaper tore my world apart. The darkness I'd been running from since my parents died called to me now stronger than ever. Only this time, I wasn't fighting it. No. I welcomed it. I wanted it to swallow me whole. Consume me completely, leaving me no other choice but to become the very thing that broke me—a monster.

Remembering there was no room in my plan for morality, I smirked to myself and decided this would be the perfect place for my captive. Hurrying over to the rope wall, I grabbed the first one in my reach when I heard some movement coming from behind me, drawing my attention to the trunk. I bolted over to Nic's SUV and reached for the gun with my free hand while opening the door.

Through the glass, I see the masked man dart in my direction before the trunk door comes to a full open. Luckily for me, I'm quick on my feet, and I sidestepped, causing him to hit the concrete floor face first. Dummy. "AHH! Fucking bitch!" He yelled in a thick Italian accent, and it almost reminded me of how Salvatore spoke when I pissed him off.

Spitting blood onto the ground, the asshole attempted to get up. I'll show you a fucking bitch. I clenched my jaw, and I used the butt of the gun to pistol whip him as hard as I could, causing him to fall flat onto his stomach. His limbs, like the other man's after the blow to the head, went limp, but he was still breathing. I'd just knocked him out. There was no way I'd get him in the chair now. Instead, I pulled out my phone and googled how to hogtie a pig. I used the rope in my hand to tie around his ankles and drug him to the center of the room.

Pulling his dead weight had made me breathless, but I needed to push through. I took a couple of deep breaths, then flipped him onto his stomach. It only took me two tries, but I was finally able to secure the rope enough that his hands wouldn't go free no matter how hard he tugged at his restraints.

Next, I opened a new tab on my phone and searched for how to suspend a deer. Thankfully there were pictures because I would have never been able to figure it out on my own. Fingers crossed, the phone company thought I'd taken a recent interest in hunting and not that I was about to torture some Italian dude who tried to kill me.

I grabbed another rope and then threw it over the industrial pipe on the ceiling, looping it twice. I pulled a knot and then another. Then I took my phone back out and began following the steps one at a time until the man was slowly lifting off the ground, shoulders first. Breathing heavily, I grunted and groaned, pulling the rope hand over hand as a thin sheen of sweat began to cover my skin.

And as if everything wasn't working against me already, I felt a sharp cramp in my lower abdomen before a warm stream of blood began to trickle into my underwear. Fucking great. Aunt Flo always had the best timing. Once the man was a reasonable distance in the air, I wound the rope's end to the bottom of the bolted chair and secured it with a double knot.

Christ. That shit was a lot of work. "Fuck me," I huffed out. My chest rose and fell frantically as I lay back on the cool cement floor. It was the perfect contrast to my burning flesh, and I closed my eyes, trying to catch my breath. Fuck those guys. Just then, I heard a door open, and heavy footsteps began to fill the room. I didn't have to open my eyes to know it was them.

"Holy fuck," Matteo whispered, and I knew they'd stumbled upon the asshole dead in Nic's boot.

Then I heard an inert drawn-out whistle, one that had Salvatore's name written all over it, before Lorenzo chuckled—something wicked in his tone, and for some reason, it called to something deep within me. "No fucking shit. She offed him in the back of your shit, bro."

"Catalina," Nic called to me, and I opened my eyes to find him practically standing over my body.

"Surprised?" I sat up and looked at the large calloused hand he offered to assist me to my feet. Oh, now you wanna help? I rolled my eyes with an unamused snort before getting up on my own.

Disregarding all the men in the room completely, I wiped my hands off on my jeans before looking up and narrowing my eyes, tipping my head back a bit to meet each of their gazes as I spoke. "Oh what, you four thought that you were gonna put me in my place and teach me some hard lesson? Hate to break it to you, assholes, but the foster system didn't raise no bitch."

To that, Lorenzo laughed out loud. I turned my glare to him before he shook his head and shrugged. "That's why you ran away, right?"

Stepping passed Nic. I turned my attention fully to his younger brother. "First off, fuck you." I scowled, pointing at him, not really sure why he was even talking to me.

Since the last time we spoke, it wasn't exactly left on the best of terms between us. "Second, yeah, sure, initially, I ran because I was scared by everything I'd just seen and learned that night. Who the fuck wouldn't? It was a lot all at once." I shook my head and narrowed my eyes. "But somewhere along the road. I don't know when," I paused mid-sentence, looking up in enough time to see Nic and Salvatore drop each of their gazes to their feet. I knew precisely when, and so did they, but I wasn't going to bring it up now.

Clearing my throat, I looked back at Lorenzo, trying to look unfazed. "During those six months, I learned that this world is cruel. It's either kill or be killed, and I'm not dying."

"Perfect," Lorenzo enunciated the word ever so slowly, his icy blue eyes filling with malice as they flickered from me to the dangling man in the center of the room, who was beginning to come to. "Because we have much to do. And it isn't going to be pretty."

The way he spoke about it was different than when he talked of anything else. He enjoyed this. His words slowly rolled off his wicked tongue and sent a shiver down my spine. I soon found myself mirroring the sinful gaze staring back at me, and I knew there was no turning back now. I was in too deep.

"So what are we waiting for?"

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