Chapter 4

The next day, Dante was different. There was a new, sharper edge to his cruelty, a desperate need to break what little was left of me.

He didn't speak. He just pulled me from my room, his grip bruising on my arm, and pushed me into the back of a black SUV. We drove for what felt like an hour, away from the city, toward the industrial wasteland of old warehouses and forgotten factories.

The car stopped in front of a rust-stained metal building. The air smelled of decay and damp earth.

He pulled me out of the car and shoved me toward the door. "Walk."

Inside, the warehouse was vast and dark. A single, bare bulb cast long, dancing shadows. The only furniture was a single metal chair in the center of the room.

He pushed me forward, his hand on the small of my back. As we got closer, I saw that the chair wasn't empty.

Someone was tied to it.

A woman. Her clothes were rags, her hair matted with dirt and dried blood. Her face... her face was a ruin. Swollen, bruised, unrecognizable.

But I knew her.

Even through the mangled flesh, I knew her.

My breath caught in my throat. A sound, half-sob, half-scream, escaped my lips.

"Mama?"

The figure in the chair stirred. A low moan was the only response.

Dante' s voice was a cold whisper beside my ear. "You see, Elara, I am a man of my word. I told you I would make your family pay for what they did to mine."

He circled the chair, his steps slow and deliberate. He tilted her head back, forcing her to face the dim light. Her eyes were gone. Just scarred, empty sockets.

"They blinded my mother before they killed her," Dante said, his voice conversational, as if he were discussing the weather. "They made her listen as they shot my father. They made her listen as they shot my sister."

He looked at me, his eyes boring into mine. "This is justice. An eye for an eye. A mother for a mother."

I fell to my knees on the cold concrete floor. The world was spinning, the darkness of the warehouse closing in on me. "Please," I begged, the words tearing from my raw throat. "Dante, please. Kill me. Take me. Let her go. She' s suffered enough."

He laughed. It was a hollow, broken sound that echoed in the cavernous space.

"Suffered enough? My revenge has only just begun."

He gestured to two of his men who had been standing in the shadows. "Take her out back. Finish it."

They untied my mother from the chair and began to drag her away. She was limp, barely conscious. But as they pulled her past me, her head turned in my direction.

Her ruined lips moved, and a garbled, broken sound came out.

"...survive..."

It was the last word I would ever hear her speak.

They dragged her through a large metal door at the back of the warehouse. I was left on my knees, staring at the empty chair.

A moment later, a single gunshot echoed through the building.

And then, silence.

Dante dropped something on the floor in front of me. It glinted in the dim light.

My mother's simple gold cross necklace.

I was left alone with it on the cold, dirty floor.