Conquered by the Mafia Boss

“I need to make some phone calls to take care of this. Try to escape, and I’ll tie you up.”

He shakes his head at me as I cross my arms and sit down with an angry sob.

A strange feeling goes through me as I take my seat. It’s like a long, drawn-out howl. The worst grief I’ve ever felt in my life squeezes my chest and I just collapse over the kitchen table. My sobs echo through the house, loud enough to disturb the biker from his phone calls. He steps outside, slamming the door shut. Then there’s nothing but the echo of my grief and the resounding fact that I failed.

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Pain. Searing, hot pain. It drags me out of whatever coma I was in and I hear a loud scraping sound.

I’m not dead.

Huh.

My eyes flare open and there are at least six guys in what looks like a basement. All bikers. Not Les Diables. Their colors are different. One turns around, and I see the letters sprawled over the black leather: POPEYES MC. The Popeyes. Holy fuck, I can’t believe I got jumped by a group of disillusioned Les Diables fucks.

The same disillusioned fucks who killed my dad during the biker wars. They say some things come full circle. They seem to be right.

My chest swells and the pain in my shoulder and abdomen stabs me suddenly. Fuck, I need to get out of this alive. Elena needs me. I have a wife and a baby on the way, and I can’t just fucking die. Not now.

It doesn’t escape me that that fucking cunt hair is behind all of this. He hired these fucks to kill me, only they’re taking their sweet-ass time-why?

“You’re awake,” the man sitting on an empty crate says unnecessarily.

“Do you know who I am?”

“I do. The only good Italian is a dead one.”

The others laugh like sheep.

I glare at all of them, trying to size them up. “So why are you taking orders from one?”

He drags a lead pipe over the cement floor and grins nastily. “Because this one has a lot of fucking money.”

“All you dumbasses are going to get killed the moment Johnny gets wind of what happened to me.”

I strain my biceps against my restraints. Coils and coils of rope bind me to the chair. My hands are beet red from the lack of circulation.

“We want to know where the money is. The hundred grand you have stashed away.”

The basement echoes with my hollow laughter, which cuts off into a groan. The lead pipe smashes over my knees, breaking at least one of them. For a moment, I debate sending these fucking morons to Tommy. They won’t get within five yards of him.

“You’ll have to kill another made guy to get to the money. Does that sound worth it to you?”

That part is a lie, but they look at each other. The leader, an old man with a long gray beard, looks at me with wrinkled eyes.

“Vidal,” he says, rolling the name from his tongue. “Vito Vidal. You’re his fucking kid, aren’t you?”

My lungs heave as fire burns beneath my skin-I just want to smash this old fuck’s face in. He knows my dad.

They shot him down in the streets like a fucking dog.

“Listen, we’re just here to get you to back off from the girl. Elena Vittorio. She’s Rafael’s, end of story. All you have to do is say that you’ll stay away from her.”

“Don’t talk about my wife.”

“She’s the one who hired us.”

Their lies make me laugh. She loves me-she told me so right before I left. My chest burns when I realize that I never said it back. She just took me by surprise and I didn’t have the balls to say it back. She and that baby are the only things in the world that matter to me, and God help the man who tries to take them away from me.

A bead of sweat rolls down my face as he slaps a sheet of paper-a certificate of divorce that Elena (supposedly) has already signed. Seeing her fake signature sprawled on the paper sends a jolt of pain to my heart, even though I know it’s bullshit.

I look up into his faded brown eyes.

“Go fuck yourself.”

He shrugs and pulls it back toward himself. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll get your signature one way or the other.”

A man fists his hand through my hair and taps my face with a pair of filthy pliers.

“Open up.”

Pull all my teeth, you sons of bitches. I don’t give a fuck. I won’t sign that shit.

I open my mouth and he sticks it inside. The rubber chafes against my lips as I taste the metal in my mouth. He grips the very back molars and then I know it’s going to hurt like a bitch. He twists hard and I feel the bone crunching in my mouth. Delicate tissues snap as it grinds in my head and my tongue is drenched with blood. I grip the edges of my chair and fight the urge to scream as pain rivaling my gunshot wounds tears my mouth. He yanks with a sickening wet sound and my bloodied tooth swims in front of my face. My mouth swells immediately and dark blood gushes from my lips. I spit it out as the pain throbs, almost as if there’s still something stuck in there.

Fucking bastards. I’ll fucking kill every last one of them.

The old fuck lays the contract there as though I’ll sign it, and I spit at it. A splatter of dark blood hits the paper.

“You know, you must be the only guy in the fucking universe who’s fighting so goddamn hard to keep his wife.”

The guy with the pliers presses a gun to my damp head. “Sign it.”

“No.”

I can’t believe this-I fucking failed her, Elena. My beautiful wife is going to give birth to our kid without me, and my heart squeezes to think of her. I don’t give a shit about myself, it’s all about her.

The door slams open and four quick blasts cut down the Popeyes where they stand. The one holding a gun to my head wheels around, screaming, but a blast from a shotgun knocks him the fuck down. My vision swims as I see Les Diables bikers swarming in the small room. The old fucker is still alive. He raises his hands. Kevin, one of the guys I recognize, raises his gun to his head.

“Wait,” I say to him. “I want to do him.”

“Let’s make this quick.”

Relief floods over my body as they cut through my ropes. I wonder what fucking God I have to thank for this. So many questions run through my mind, but I’m just glad that my ass is saved. I stand up, a little shaky on my feet, but Kevin hands me a gun.

“Wait,” the old fuck begs. “Just wait a second. The Italian was the one who put us up to this. He never said to kill you. We weren’t going t-”

BAM.