Vendetta: A DeLuca Family Novel (The DeLuca Family Book 2) (14 page)

“
S
o
, how's Leo doing?” Antonio asked. We were standing just outside of the tent, where we had been banished by the bride because she didn’t want us stinking up the reception area with cigar smoke.

“Surprisingly well, since I put him with Michael. Why do you ask?”

“I was thinking about pulling him in on some other things,” he answered cryptically.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

He just gave me a pointed look. Typical Antonio, never one to give you the whole story. The man seemed to think that everything was on a need-to-know basis. It was just as well; his mind was not something I wanted insight into.

“Have you seen Frankie?” Mia asked, coming to stand next to us.

“No,” I said hesitantly. “I've been out here; I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“I can’t find her anywhere. She said she was going to get her phone so we could cut the cake but that was twenty minutes ago,” Mia said, worrying her lip.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I took two quick strides to the edge of the tent and my eyes quickly scanned the crowd, not finding her. Something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones.

Antonio must have sensed my uneasiness. “Angelo and I will search the house,” he offered, stomping out his cigar and taking off towards his brother. I nodded and turned toward the house.

“Get Carlo and Mouse and meet me in the control room,” I called to Mia over my shoulder as I ran around the pool to the backdoors.

My hands shook and my fingers fumbled the keys as I tried to unlock the control room. Even in the most stressful situations when my life was in imminent danger, I’d never felt as scared as I did in that moment.

When I was finally able to find the right key, I pushed the door open and flipped on the light and a bank of blue screens greeted me. Hurrying across the room, I sat at one of the stations and frantically typed in my access code.

Before I had a chance to even find the file that opened the security footage, Mouse was at my side, pushing me out of the way.

“I got it,” he said taking my seat.

Mia and Carlo stood back. She was watching Mouse work frantically, and he was watching her closely. A pang of jealousy stabbed at my chest at the sight of the two of them.

Where are you, Franny?

Mouse’s hands flew over the keyboard and suddenly the monitors came to life, each one showing a different vantage point of the grounds.

“How long did you say she's been gone?” Mouse asked.

“At least twenty minutes,” Mia said. Her voice held the slightest edge of panic.

“Okay, I’ll take the tapes back at thirty minutes and we’ll fast forward from there,” Mouse explained as he cued up the footage.

“No sign of her,” Angelo said as he and Antonio walked into the room taking their place behind me. We were all staring at the screens as Mouse started to fast forward the footage.

“The night vision lens makes it grainy as hell so it might take a few passes. Tell me if you see anything,” he instructed.

“There!” I shouted. “The far left screen.”

Mouse nodded, pulling up the footage I’d indicated on all four screens. He pressed play and I watched as a man with a gun led Frankie down the side of the house and out to the driveway. He was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled down so I couldn’t get a clear shot of his face. Frankie and the man stopped at a sedan parked at the far end of the driveway.

“Can you zoom in on that?” Mia asked, taking an involuntary step forward.

“Yeah, give me a second,” Mouse said, clicking away until we had a close-up of the two of them.

My jaw clenched painfully and a deathly rage settled over me as I watched the man on the screen grab Frankie’s shoulders and shake her violently. It looked like he was yelling at her. The movement caused his hood to slide back but he was still turned away so I couldn't see who it was.

“Get that license plate,” Carlo ordered. He sounded livid, but I didn’t turn around; instead, my eyes were glued to the screen.

The man opened the door to the backseat of the car and crashed the butt of his gun into the side of Frankie’s head causing her to immediately fall limp. He shoved her into the back and slammed the door. When he turned around to get into the front seat, we finally got caught sight of his face. Mouse worked quickly enlarging the image.

No, this can't be possible!

But there he was. Illuminated on the screen was the man I used to call my brother taking the woman I loved away from me. 

“Is that?” Mia asked.

“That’s Eddie. How? You saw him die,” I said, looking from Mouse to Mia, hoping one of them could somehow explain what was happening.

“Yeah, we all watched Kashnikov shoot him and then drag his body into the warehouse,” Mouse reiterated what I’d already known.

“Do you have any idea where he would take her?” Carlo asked.

“I have no idea. Everyone thinks he’s dead,” I said, shaking my head, still stunned.

“The car’s the dead-end,” Mouse called out. “It was reported stolen last night.” 

“Fuck!” I shouted, pacing around the room. My mind was spinning with possibilities. I knew it was too good to be true. 

“What about the members of his gang?” Angelo offered.

“No, they all think he's dead. I still don’t understand how he’s alive,” I muttered, running my hands over my head in frustration. “It doesn’t make any sense, why would he let us think he was dead?”

“He wanted Frankie for something,” Antonio said, his tone grave.

I felt the blood drain from my face as realization dawned on me. “The stalker. It fits. He knew things no one could know. The flowers. I sent Frankie the same kind of flowers every year for her birthday. I never sent them to her office, so there was no way her assistant would know,” I said out loud, piecing it together.

“Are you sure that’s something Eddie would’ve known? You guys weren’t close for the past few years,” Mia asked.

“Yeah, it is. I’ve been sending her the same flowers since I shipped off to boot camp when I was eighteen.”

“So that means…” Mia trailed off.

“He’s the one that killed those girls. He must’ve killed Josh just to throw us off,” Antonio said, verbalizing my worst fears.

“I have to find her,” I said, as I continued to pace back and forth.

“Wait,” Carlo said suddenly. “We never figured out who tipped off the Russians about the meet. It had to be him. He was the only one that knew both sides.”

“So he had this all planned. Fake his death and then what?” Antonio asked.

“Get Frankie,” I answered, my stomach churning with the thought of what he could have planned for her.

“Who else was he close to? Is there anyone that would hide him?” Angelo asked.

My head jerked up. “His mom, Rosa. But she and my mom live together. If my mother had seen Eddie she would’ve called me right away, and there’s no way Rosa could’ve hid him in the house without my mom finding out.”

“This guy is clearly unhinged; you should call them and make sure,” Angelo said.

I nodded my agreement, pulling out my phone and placing the call.

“Hello?” my mother’s voice came across the line, and I breathed a sigh of relief. She sounded normal.

“Hey, Mom, how's it going?” I asked, not wanting to alert her to the fact that something was wrong.

“Good, we're just getting ready for bed. How was the wedding?”

“It was good, Mom. I was just calling to check in. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Sure honey, love you,” she said and I disconnected the call.

“He’s not there,” I said looking up to address the group. “Both my mom and Rosa are there, and she sounded normal.”

“Can you think of anyone else? This can’t be random; he’s put too much thought and time into it. Everything he did while he was stalking Frankie was personal. it wouldn’t fit if he just randomly took her somewhere,” Angelo reasoned.

“I don’t know!” I shouted. “We didn’t have a lot of family, it was just us four, Frankie and her mom…Claudia!” I quickly found the number to Claudia’s house and dialed. The phone just rang out—no answer.

I shook my head at their expectant looks. “No answer; it’s as good a shot as any,” I said, reaching into my pocket for my keys as I headed out the door.

I’d tortured and killed, I’d been shot, stabbed, and blown up. I’d fought for my country and held my fallen brothers as they died. I’d worked for the most notorious crime boss of our generation, and none of it prepared me for how terrifying it was to imagine a life without Frankie.

“Enzo, you can’t just go in there half-cocked; we need to have a plan,” Antonio argued as he trailed me out the front door and down the driveway.

“Then come with me, but I’m not sitting around here making a plan of attack while he’s got her,” I said, turning to face the small group of people that had become like family to me.

Angelo and Antonio shared a look. “All right, let’s go,” Antonio said with a nod.

I looked back at Mia and Carlo. She was holding onto her swollen belly, worry etched on every surface of her face. Carlo’s head was bent close to hers and it looked as though he was whispering something in her ear.

“Bring her back,” Mia called out to me, and I nodded.

I headed for my SUV, Angelo and Antonio a few paces behind me. I clicked the key fob to unlock the doors and suddenly a wall of fire was hurling me backwards through the air. I registered the earsplitting explosion and the surreal feeling that my bones were vibrating in my body before everything went black.

P
ain
. So much pain. Then I felt something hitting my face repeatedly.

“Wake up,” a voice above me hissed.

I blinked my eyes open only to see that my nightmare wasn't really a nightmare. Eddie was there, looming over me. Panic seized my heart, and I tried to move to get up only to realize I couldn’t move my arms.

I felt something hard digging into my wrists. I turned my head to the side to see that both my wrists had been zip tied to the bedframe.

My bedframe.

I whipped my head around to take in my surroundings and my vision swam, an excruciating pulse hammering in my skull. When I was finally able to see clearly, I tentatively looked around. What I saw made my stomach flip and my heart skitter to a stop.

I was in my old bedroom; the one I grew up in. I look down at myself noticing that I couldn't move my legs either. My ankles had been secured to the foot of the bed as well, except with rope instead of zip ties since my feet didn't reach the footboard.

What disturbed me the most was the fact that I was no longer wearing the dress Mia had picked out for me. In its place was a pristine white nightgown.

“Where are my clothes?” I croaked out, my throat dry.

“I couldn't let you wear those,” he sneered. “God, Frankie, when did you become such a whore? I could smell him on you. I had to clean you up; couldn’t have you ruining my fantasy with your filth.”

My thoughts raced thinking of all the things he could’ve done to me while I was unconscious. Tears formed in my eyes at the possibilities. He brought me here to do what? My old room, my old house.

My mom.

“Where’s my mom? What did you do to her?” I demanded, my voice growing shrill.

He made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “Don’t worry, she won’t be bothering us. Your mother never liked me anyways. But don’t worry; No one will get in the way of us being together, not anymore. I’ve taken care of everything.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Why, why, why?” he asked, mocking me. “You want to know why? Because I. Can't. Get. You. Out. Of. My. Head!” he screamed, punctuating each word with a fist to his temple.

“Please, Eddie. You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded.

“Yes, we do!” he screamed. “You live inside my head. No matter what I do, I can’t get you out of my mind. You don’t understand what it’s like living trapped in your own thoughts. All I can think about—all I can see—is you. Don’t you understand? I have to do this for us. Then finally, the noise in my head will stop and we can be together forever.”

Unbridled fear gripped me as I realized just how delusional he was. How had I not known? Ho had I not realized what he was capable of?

“This isn’t you. This isn’t the Eddie I know,” I said, hoping to reason with him, or at the very least keep him talking. I had no idea how long I’d been out but someone had to have noticed my absence by now.

“You never knew the real me,” he sneered. “But you will.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t always like this; I used to be able to control it. I was good at hiding my thoughts, my fantasies,” he said, his voice shifting from manic to eerily calm and intelligent. The sudden change in demeanor made me break out in goose bumps. Crazy, unstable Eddie was one thing; but calm and cold-blooded was something else entirely.

“Who would suspect that idiot?” he continued. “The Eddie you knew was just another high school dropout, right? The criminal, the gangbanger who got himself locked up for robbing a liquor store. No, that’s not the real me. It was all part of my plan. I let everybody underestimate me; that way, no one would suspect I could come up with something like this. You see, Frankie, you've always been my goal.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Stop asking that!” he roared, leaning over the bed to get in my face.

“I-I’m sorry,” I stuttered out.

“It was all so easy—faking my death, keeping an eye on you. You may be a master with computers, but not everything is digital. Not everything can be reached by the stroke of the keyboard or the click of a mouse. I just had to do it the old-fashioned way,” he shrugged.

“But how did you get into my apartment?” I asked.

“Please, that was easy. I just made a copy of your key.”

“How? When?”

“About three years ago, when you first moved in. You came to dinner at the house, and I left to go get milk for my mom. I just swiped your key on the way out, went to the hardware store, and got a copy made. I put the original back on your keyring before you left and that was that. Not everything is complicated. Sometimes it’s the simplest plans that work the best.”

“But we changed the locks,” I argued.

“Yeah, he thought that would deter me, but I've been picking locks since I was twelve. I started out small; first, it was your diary. I wanted to see what you wrote about me. But I barely got a mention. It was all about perfect Enzo, even then. Eventually I got better, until I was able to easily get in and out of your room at night without waking you. I watched you for years, Frankie.”

“Why did you watch me sleep?” I asked.

“Because you’re perfect when you sleep. Still and peaceful, exactly as you should always be.”

I wanted to cry, but there was no one to hear me. I wanted to fight, but it was useless. I didn’t want to hear anymore, but I had to keep him talking to bide myself more time.

I swallowed through the lump in my throat. “Explain to me how you did it all; it was very clever. I had no idea it was you,” I said, trying to play into his obsession, to earn his trust.

“Everything was going according to plan until
he
showed up. You let him in your house! I had to tell you, had to let you know that it wasn’t right. You were never his, you've always been mine. When you left, I went to your apartment and started looking for things he may have left, some sort of sign that you'd been with him, because I just knew. I knew he couldn't fucking keep his hands off what was mine. That’s when I found the box underneath your bed. Those letters he wrote; you kept them all. You know what I didn’t find? A single fucking letter from me. Not one.”

I kept quiet, because he was right. I didn’t keep
his
letters. There had only been a couple of them, but they didn’t hold the same sentimental value Enzo’s had. I hadn’t thrown them out intentionally like he thought, but I didn’t make an effort to set them aside either.

“Then, at the bottom of the box I saw those pictures. Sonogram pictures, Frankie. I checked the dates; they were from when I was still in jail. That motherfucker touched you while I was locked up after he promised he wouldn’t!” 

“Eddie,” I said, “I don't— “

“You love me!” he interjected, his face so close I could feel his hot breath against my cheek. It smelled of cigarettes, making me queasy.

“You said you loved me, so why did you try to run us off the road?” I asked. My head was pounding and my eyelids were getting heavy. I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to stay conscious, but I had to keep him talking.

“I warned you so many times, but you wouldn’t listen. He was keeping us apart. Can't you understand I had to get to you? I had to find a way to get him away from you.”

“But you took off before you could get to me,” I said.

“The others were coming. I planned it all out; I knew exactly where all the side roads were. When I saw their headlights, I turned off my lights and took the next back road. They would’ve just complicated things. I’m sorry I didn’t come for you sooner,” he said, stroking my face. I had to fight the urge to recoil from his touch.

“It’s okay, we’re here now,” I choked out the words.

“Yes, we are,” he said, his face so close to mine I couldn’t fully see him. “You’re here and everything is perfect, just like I always imagined.”

My heartbeat picked up at his words; he sounded different again. His eyes had gone vacant and his breathing grew ragged. I kept still, trying not to move a muscle as he pulled a switchblade from behind his back.

No, this isn’t supposed to be happening. He’s supposed to keep talking until someone finds us.

“I’ve dreamed about this moment for years, what it would feel like to finally do all the things I’ve always wanted to do to you,” he said, but more to himself than to me.

Climbing onto the bed, he straddled my thighs, leaning on one arm so he was hovering above me. He raised the knife. The blade caught the moonlight, causing beams of light to play above us on the ceiling. My eyes were so heavy, I tried to focus on his face, searching for any evidence of the Eddie I used to know. He brought it to my face, gliding the flat blade across the skin of first one cheek, then the other. I watched as his nostrils flared and the vein in his neck pulsed.

“Do you know how many times I laid awake at night imagining all the things I’d do when I finally got the chance? They scared me at first,” he murmured, leaning down to run his nose through the hair at the crown of my head. I cringed as he inhaled deeply and groaned.

No! Where are you, Enzo?

“But then,” he continued, sitting back up, “I finally saw the beauty in it. I came to realize that I
had
to do this—for us.”

He positioned the blade under one of the thin straps of my nightgown. In a swift movement, he sliced through the fabric and the strap fell away. I couldn’t help but let out a whimper when I felt the cool metal press against my other shoulder as he repeated the process.

My breaths were ragged with fear of what was to come next. I tried pulling on my bindings discreetly, but it was no use. I was completely immobile.

Eddie dipped the point of the knife into the hollow of my neck. He slowly dragged it down my sensitive skin and over my breastbone, causing the silken material of the nightgown to pull away and slide down until it was resting just beneath my bared breasts. His breath hitched at the sight, and the bulge starting to grow behind his zipper didn’t escape my notice.

“Eddie, why don’t you untie me,” I suggested. It was a long shot but I had to try.

“No. It’s not part of the plan; in my head, you’re always tied up. Now, be quiet. You’re ruining it!” he growled.

The fact that each time he opened his mouth I didn’t know which Eddie I was going to get, was the only thing that kept me from screaming out. Instead, I closed my eyes and stayed quiet. Silently praying to every god I’d ever heard of to not let this happen, to save me.

I cried out at the sharp pain as he sliced a long line into the skin below my collarbone. He didn’t cut more, just one long burning line from the center of my chest, ending just before my shoulder. The distraction of pain was short lived. I couldn’t help but notice his visceral reaction to cutting me; he got off on it.

His eyes were on fire as he stared at what he’d done. I felt the warm ooze of blood and shuttered at the thought of what those girls had to endure. I was sure that they’d suffered at the hands of my torturer, their deaths being drawn out for his enjoyment.

Without taking his eyes off the wound he’d created, Eddie bent his head and dipped down. His hot breath hit my skin, followed by his warm, wet tongue as he licked the cut clean.

“It tastes even sweeter than I thought it would,” he murmured against my chest, nuzzling me there, as if he was cherishing the moment.

I was quickly reminded how far gone his mind was when I felt the bite of his knife slice along the skin on the other side of my chest. This cut was deeper. I could tell by the sharp tug of my skin as it gave way to his blade. I gritted my teeth, not giving him the satisfaction of my cries this time.  

He sat back up and placed the knife on the pillow next to my head. He ran his fingers across the cuts he'd made—tentatively at first—as if he was testing the feel of my blood on his fingertips. With a hum of pleasure, he dug his fingers into my flesh and roughly spread the quickly cooling blood from my wounds across my chest and over my breasts, coating me.

Terror gripped me as his hips pitched forward, causing him to rub against me where he straddled my thighs. He took the bottom edge of the nightgown in his hands and pushed it up my body until the whole thing was bunched up just below my breasts. Before I had time to register what he was doing, he snatched up the knife and quickly made three more cuts across my torso. My stomach tensed and I fought frantically against my restraints, no longer worrying about upsetting him.

I have to get out of here; he’s going to fucking kill me.

I bucked my hips but there was no use. I was tied down too tightly, and all it did was bring me closer to his growing erection. I recoiled, pushing myself further into the mattress in an attempt to distance myself from his excitement.

I watched in horror as he reached down and unfastened his jeans, frantically pulling at the zipper. Bile rose in my throat as he wrapped a hand around his erection and began to stroke himself while staring down at my body. It was as if I could feel his eyes touching every part of me as his nostrils flared, his breathing became faster coming out in short puffs. I squeezed my eyes shut, the sight of him making me nauseous, but I couldn't shut off my ears. My terrified whimpers were mingled with his groans of pleasure.