Third Comes Vengeance (Promised in Blood, #3)
Lilith Vincent
1
Chiara
My harsh breathing echoes off the walls and the air feels heavy and damp. Water is dripping, and there’s broken concrete beneath my bare feet. All other sound is muted. Like a coffin. Like a crypt. I strain for the sound of traffic, voices, music. Anything.
Alone.
I’m so alone.
The last thing I remember is Acid pressing a cloth over my mouth and struggling with Thane. I lift my head and stare around me. There’s a thin shaft of daylight from a vent high in the wall, but most of the room is in darkness. The ghosts of four murdered women cluster around me, and I can feel their sorrow and hear the echoes of their screams. There are ropes around my arms, waist, and legs, intricately crisscrossing my body, like whoever did this took their time, their heart full of sadistic delight.
Lorenzo described this place as he sat, hollow-eyed, over a glass of vodka. An underground room, their sisters all alone and tied to chairs.
Then a killer entered and ripped them apart.
There’s a sharp pain in my heart. Acid is probably recording me right now, and when this is all over, he’ll deliver the video to my men. A sob rises in my throat as I picture Lorenzo in front of his laptop with a pen in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. Shoulders slumped. Defeated. A gun lays on the table nearby, tempting him.
“No,” I moan, yanking my body this way and that, trying to loosen the ropes.
How could Acid look Lorenzo in the eye day after day, week after week, year after year after what he did? There was always something crafty about Acid, but I assumed he had to be that way to survive in one of the roughest parts of Coldlake. All this time he’s been concealing a psychotic hatred of the men he takes orders from.
I twist my wrists, but I’m bound so tightly I can barely move. My only hope of getting out of here is that one of Lorenzo’s guards survived Acid and Thane’s attack and recognized my kidnappers. They’ll be able to tell my men who took me, which will give them a place to start looking.
But where are my men? They all disappeared in the middle of the night without telling me, and the only clue I have is Cassius’ cryptic text, I’m in position. That sounds like they were watching something, or about to attack someone. The Black Orchid Killer? My father?
Whatever happened next, something went wrong. Every single one of Lorenzo’s men turned pale as they received a text that read, Orchid Protocol. I have no idea what Orchid Protocol is, but the guards did. It was a signal to take me from Lorenzo’s home to a different location. The safest place for me in Coldlake was Lorenzo’s own fortress-like house, with its high walls, armed guards, and security cameras. I don’t understand why they needed to get me out of there.
Lorenzo, where are you?
Are you still alive?
Is Nicole alive?
Why did she answer the phone when I called you?
If that even was Nicole. Whoever it was, she was whispering and slurring her words. A girl who was drugged and afraid, and she was trying to warn me about something.
It’s a trap.
Dead.
And then… Blond. Scary.
The blond, scary man is dead.
Or was it Dad?
Could it be that her father was leading my boyfriends into a trap? Other than disliking my men, Mr. De Luca has no reason to personally go after them. Or was the woman on the phone referring to my dad? That makes more sense. Dad absolutely wants the Coldlake Syndicate destroyed.
And I’m stuck in a basement, tied to a chair while God knows what happens out there to my men.
“I’m going to kill you, Acid,” I seethe.
A deep chuckle emanates from the darkness, and all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
I lift my chin and stare around the room. “Is that you? Where are you?”
A figure steps forward into the light, dragging a chair with him. He straddles the seat, one muscular, tattooed forearm resting along the back of the chair. When he smiles, his emerald eyes glimmer.
“How are you going to kill me, your highness?” he purrs in a voice like black velvet. He’s wearing black boots and jeans, and a tank top that fits loosely across his muscular shoulders. The green eyes of the skull tattoo on his throat flame in the dim light.
A second figure strolls out of the darkness. Lean but broad through the shoulders with narrow hips, long legs, and careless black hair. There are silver rings decorating his fingers, fine silver chains around his neck, and cuffs on his ears. The shirt he’s wearing is made from fine fabric, soft and expensive-looking, unbuttoned low on his smooth chest. Abstract tattoos decorate his skin, and the nails on one of his hands are painted black. Those dark eyes of his are soulless black holes in his face.
He hunkers down beside my chair and tugs on a few of the ropes that bind my arms and legs. Testing them.
“Struggle for me,” he murmurs.
I stare at him, perplexed. “What?”
His gaze travels lovingly over the ropes. Blood red ropes. Beautiful, twisting knots and loops.
“Struggle for me. Try to get away.” He wants to watch me pull against my bindings because he gets sick pleasure from seeing me at his mercy.
“Go smash your dick with a hammer,” I snarl at him.
Acid bursts out laughing. “Nice try, Thane.”
This is Thane? I’ve never met him, but he and Vinicius work together and I heard his voice once. He called Lorenzo the night a woman’s body was found in the canal. He sounded unemotional as he relayed what he’d learned from the police scanner, but as I gaze into those dead eyes, I see his inhumanity is on a whole other level.
“You’re supposed to be on our side,” I tell him, then look at Acid. “So were you.”
The smile drops from Acid’s face. “Strife is on Strife’s side. Always has been. Always will be.”
My eyes are slowly adjusting to the darkness. I peer into the shadows, searching for the video camera and whatever they’re going to use to kill me. Whatever they have planned, it will be lurid and violent.
“Why did you kill Salvatore, Vinicius, Cassius, and Lorenzo’s sisters?”
Acid and Thane exchange glances, both of them smiling. All the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
“Why do you think?” Acid asks, turning back to me.
“Because you’re petty assholes. Nine years ago, you thought that with Salvatore’s father gone, you’d be able to take control of this area of Coldlake. Then the Coldlake Syndicate was formed and you discovered you’d be answering to Lorenzo. The four of them are too powerful for you to take on, and so you lashed out at their sisters instead.”