Mafia Betrayal

Chapter Twenty Four

Luca

Grant was strapped to a chair in the center of the room, completely motionless. If I hadn't checked his pulse myself, I would've thought he was dead. He was hardly recognizable, with one eye completely swollen shut and the other getting close. Weeks old blood was caked to his skin and some of his older wounds were festering with infection. His left shoulder was completely dislocated and his arm hung loosely, all the bones shattered. Honestly, it was a wonder he had made it this long.

"What's your plan, boss?" Carlo asked, eyeing the array of tools we still had set out to use on him.

I hesitated, contemplating what to do. At this point, he was numb, and nothing we could do would have any effect on him. Keeping him alive much longer would be a waste of time, and I was ready to end this.

"Give me the knife." I said, watching as Carlo picked one out of the pile. It was a spiral blade that my grandfather passed down to my father, who eventually gave it to me. It had the blood of at least a hundred men on it, but no kill gave me more gratification than this one.

With the warm leather of the handle pressed into my palm, I took a deep breath and readied myself.

I was interrupted by a creak out in the larger room of the safe house, and I paused.

"What the fuck was that?" Angelo hissed towards Carlo. "I thought you swept the place."

"I did!" Carlo defended.

"Well, clearly not well enough!" Angelo chided.

Carlo rolled his eyes. "We are in the middle of the fuckin' forest. It was the wind. Or a tree branch, or a damn squirrel. There's no one here."

"Why don't you two quit bitching and take care of whatever it is?" I growled.

They glared at each other, locked in some ridiculous cockfight. Finally, Carlo relented and stomped out of the room.

"Now, where were we..." I stepped toward Grant. He glared at me, mustering what little strength he had left.

"I hope she's proud of you." He smirked. "Such a big, powerful man who needs to beat on other people to make himself feel good. You know I was right in keeping them away from you. She'll come to her senses, eventually."

I towered above him with the knife clenched in my fist. He knew exactly what he was doing—trying to provoke a reaction out of me. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction, though. I came to peace with this decision weeks ago, and nothing he could say to me now would either change my mind or get to me.

His opinion meant nothing to me. He was a greedy, manipulative bastard, and he didn't give a rat's ass about Charlotte and Layla. All he wanted was to make me suffer. And for a while, he did, but like always, I was coming out on top and it was time to get rid of this piece of trash for good.

My heart filled with rage as I looked into his eyes and thought about everything he robbed me of over the last few years. He was against me for as long as I could remember. It started simply with him trying to take down the family. Our demise became an obsession for him when he was new to the force, a way he could make a name for himself. He tried anything he could to put us away, and it was the final blow when his witnesses were killed during Angelo and I's trial.

Then came Charlotte. It was a big fucking coincidence that he happened to be her ex-boyfriend. His obsession shifted to trying to drive us apart, filling her head with hideous ideas that I was going to get her killed, that I wasn't good enough for her. That I didn't care if she or our baby died.

It should have been enough when he slipped her the names of the open cases against me. Or the day that he dragged her down to the police station on bogus fraud charges. But I still let the guy live, and that was a mistake that would haunt me forever. It gave him the opportunity to come back and continually wreak havoc on my life.