Red
Men

C H A P T E R F I F T Y T W O

I didn’t just stop.

Time stopped.

I could hear the blood pumping around my head, whooshing in my ear and I could feel the hardness of my chest because I had stopped breathing.

Slowly I turned around to face him and through swollen purple eyelids like looked back at me.

“What?” I asked, unsurely.

“You heard me Red.”

Anger bubbled up inside of me, I could feel it race from my toes all the way to my finger tips. I picked up the first object I could set my hand on and threw it at him.

It was a knife, blunt and shiny. It penetrated his thigh and he growled in pain, clutching the chains tightly with his two hands.

“You fucking liar!” I yelled, pacing over to him and yanking out the knife causing another painful groan to leave him.

This time I dug the point sharp blade into his neck and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“I’m going to slice your fucking little brat into millions of pieces and send them to you in an envelope.”

“They’re alive red, we faked all their death.”

I bitch slapped him, I know that was a really shitty, undignified move but clearly I was thinking with my emotions switched on. He blinked a few times, un-reactive.

“You’re fucking lying to me.” I screamed in his face.

“I told your father about Grace. He was actually the first person besides Adrian that I ever told about her and the last person I ever expected to tell.”

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” I dug the knife further into his neck. “Stop lying to me!”

“We took your father hostage, when you asked me not to kill him I knew I fucking couldn’t. I loved you Red. I fucking loved you and all I wanted to do was make you happy.

So I went to your father and I told him how I felt about you. I wanted him to know I was telling the truth so I came clean to him about everything. Our family history, getting tricked by Petrov, us hooking up, Grace. I risked my everything for you. For us. I told him about Grace because I trusted you and your belief that your father was a good man.”

My own tears were falling into my lips, tasting salty and my head hurt. I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t trust him. This is what we did.

We fight.

We make up.

We betray each other.

We’re enemies.

“Funnily enough, in revealing my secret I actually found a mutual understanding with your father. He too had a child that he hid away from the mafia in order to protect her.”

“No.” I interrupted, backing away and putting my hands over my ears to protect myself from hearing his lies.

“I know you think he did that to use you as a weapon but he only worked you so hard because you slipped through his fingers once before. You got stabbed and tortured. He wanted you stronger, braver, able to fight that. Everything he did, he did it because he loved you. He wanted to protect you. As do I with Grace.”

“Why are you saying these things to me?”

“Because they’re true Red.” He pulled himself upright again on the chains. Gravity was getting to him and he couldn’t stand straight without drooping.

“I commended your father on keeping you hidden so long and I promised him I would protect you at all costs. I would lay my life on the line for you, at all costs. And I asked him to consider him letting his only daughter become a merger our mafia families.”

“My father would never agree to that, not with you. He hates you. He hates your whole fucking organisation and he was always so fucking desperate to make you pay. To avenge my mothers death. You’re lying to me.”

“Red, that’s true. He hated me. He wanted to kill me, brutally. But, you know what was stronger than that?”

I shook my head, nothing.

“The love that he had for his daughter. In agreeing to the merge he knew that you would have the protection of all of the Valentino’s. You would have the protection of all of the Blackburns. All he ever wanted to do was to protect you Red. We would be one family unit.”

“No.” I couldn’t let myself believe it. “My father would never sell me like that. I’m not just some mafia girl he could just give away. I pick my own husband.”

“But you are, you just try to deny it. You’re a mafia girl, you’re just more involved in the fighting than most.

Your father always allowed you to pick your own partners because he cared more about your happiness than merging two families.

But honestly, he could see how strong willed you were, how stubborn and fucking irritating you are. You lack the simple fucking ability to follow instructions and you’re fearless. Your father thought no respectable mafia leader would take you on board but my proposal changed everything.

He seen the power and potential this merge could have for us both and he wasn’t about to mess up that opportunity, whether you wanted to marry me or not.”

“It makes no sense, I don’t trust anything you’re saying.”

“It’s simple red. I made a simple deal with your dad. We kill Nikolai, he ensures Graces safety and in exchange I marry his daughter. I took out over one hundred Petrov men with that single bomb, Nikolai felt so threatened he went into hiding.

At that party, he was watching you react to their death. He believed that the Valentino’s were really dead and furthermore, he got it proved to him when you stepped up as leader. We know Petrov’s thoughts on females in power. I wanted that win for you.

I’ve always seen your leadership potential Red. You’ve always been the one in charge. Men just steal your credit. It was you risking your life coming to my club, you making the decisions and calling the shots.

I thought it time you stopped letting people take your power. So my condition to your father was that you couldn’t know they were alive. I needed you to step up, lead us all the way to Petrov’s death.”

“You used me as a pawn.”

“You used me as a pawn first.” He snapped. “Point is, Petrov will never see Alessio and your brothers coming. The plan was simple, hijack their quarters, take over their men, access their files and destroy the sex trafficking ring once and for all. It wouldn’t matter who the Petrov men fall in line too because the Valentino’s and Blackburns will be one.”

I laughed cynically.

“So, you men, you had it all figured out. You all went behind my back and made these life arrangements for me that I didn’t even get a say in?”

“It doesn’t matter now anyway.” Ace stood up straighter. “I loved you red, then you endangered my kid. You fucking beat her. It’s changed everything but please just tell me this, is she frightened?”

I sighed.

“She’s having the time of her fucking life Ace. Those pictures were fake. She did our makeup, we did hers.

She doesn’t stop, we dance, we bake, we draw pictures. Today we played tag and she convinced us that we needed to get a dog so now we’ve got some random puppy pissing everywhere. She’s been sleeping with me in my bed, not chained to some warehouse floor but she misses you.”

“So what was the point?” Ace asked.

“This.” I pointed down to his struggling body. “You look you’ve been to hell and back over the past forty eight hours. I was going to torture you a bit, pretend I was hurting her and then kill you. Grace was always going to go back to Adrian unharmed. I promised you her safety and I fully meant it.”

“I want to see her.”

“And I want to see my family.”

“Then free me, I’ll have back to you by tonight.”

“You don’t get your daughter back until my family are back in the safe house.”

“Okay.”

I grabbed the key and slotted into the hole, but first I glanced up at Ace. “If you do something stupid right now, you’ll never see Grace again.”

“You have my word. I will walk out of here slowly, arms up, completely unarmed with a gun aimed to my head. I just want Grace back.”