Brutal Husband (Brutal Hearts #3)

Chapter 22

22

Nero

After the wedding

“ Y ou want to know who Paul Shields is?” Luca asks. “He’s no one. You are not going to throw what we have away because of a petty sex pest and a slut.”

“Don’t you dare speak about my wife that way,” I snarl. “And he was.”

“What do you mean was?”

“Paul Shields was a sex pest, as you put it. He was more than that. He was a predator, and so I killed him.”

Luca’s eyes blaze with anger, and his hands curl into fists. “You’ve interfered with my wife. You’ve interfered with my business. This is unforgiveable.”

“That man was involved in things that no decent man should be within a hundred miles of. You should be thanking me for killing him.”

“Just like I should be thanking you for fucking my wife? Giving her expectations for our marriage that I have no interest in fulfilling? I’m disgusted with both of you. Why did you do this?”

“Because I love her!” I shout. “I love Rieta. Haven’t you realized by now? I want to spend my life with her, which means you and I are going to have to come up with a new plan.” I start pacing up and down. “We can tell Rieta the truth, and she can live with me. You can do what you always wanted, which is to step back from social events. Or what about this? We check to see if there’s still a warrant out for your arrest. If there’s not, you can go back to being Luca, and I’ll continue being me.”

Luca has both hands braced against his desk and is glaring at the wood. “You’re not Nero. I’m Nero.”

“What did you just say?”

“I’m Nero, and you will not side with that slut over your own brother.”

How dare he call my wife that disgusting word? I pull back my fist and smash it across his face. Luca goes reeling, then dabs the blood on his lip. For a moment he’s totally still, and then with a roar, he launches himself at me. This is what we need, a good fucking fistfight to clear the air. We’re evenly matched, which makes it impossible for either of us to get the upper hand, but we both get a few punches in.

A few minutes later, we’re both panting and bloodied.

“Take back what you said about my wife,” I snarl. “Don’t you ever say again that you’re me. The agreement is off. We’re undoing everything, and you’re going back to being who you really are.”

“This isn’t over.” Luca stalks behind his desk.

“It’s so over.” I come around the desk and reach for him, intending to grab his shoulder and make him look at me.

Luca reaches into a drawer, pulls something out, and jabs it into my ribs. Pain explodes in my body. For a moment I think he’s stabbed me. The pain is sharp, but it crackles. It goes on and on, paralyzing me. My teeth clack together, and I can’t control my arms or legs. As I crumple to the ground, I see the object sparking in his hand, and I realize he’s tased me.

“I’m Nero,” he seethes.

While I’m immobilized, Luca shoves me onto my stomach with his foot and lashes my arms behind my back.

My brother makes a phone call, but my brain has been rattled around so hard in my skull that I can’t follow the words. It sounds like someone is coming here. If someone is coming here, then our carefully constructed lie is about to fall apart. Rieta is the only one who can know that there are two of us.

I twist around as much as possible to see my brother standing over me. “What the fuck do you think you’re—”

Luca jabs the Taser into my lower back, right against my spine. I nearly black out from the pain. When I come back into myself, I’m panting, and my arms and legs feel like jelly.

“I don’t know who repulses me more. Her or you,” Luca says. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him sound so deadly furious before. “She was so eager to spread her legs for you, the disgusting little whore. I’m going to make her regret that. And you? You think you have any say in who Nero Lombardi is? You were meant to do as you were fucking told and never challenge me. Why was that so hard?”

Luca straightens up and drives his foot into my stomach with so much force that I can’t drag a breath into my lungs.

“I’m sending you away. While you’re suffering, I want you to remember that I’ll be here making Rieta suffer ten times as much as you are. That stupid little bitch will have no idea why, and there’ll be no one coming to save her. Because you’re never coming back.”

The door opens and I hear several sets of footsteps.

“This is my brother, Luca,” he says. “Get him out of my sight. I’ve sent you the place where I want him taken.”

I’m lifted onto my feet by several pairs of hands. “I’m Nero! That’s Luca. Let me go. Get your fucking hands off me.”

The men are deaf to my protests as they drag me toward the door.

“Wait,” Luca calls.

The men stop. There are footsteps behind me, and I feel a tug on my left hand.

Luca comes around in front of me and holds his hand before my face as he slides my wedding ring onto his finger. “I’ll need this when I go meet my wife. I hope there are no hard feelings, Luca. You left me no choice.”

I lose all control, shouting and kicking and wrenching myself back and forth in my captors’ arms. I almost pull myself free.

“Get a hold of him,” Luca shouts.

Something slams into the base of my skull, and the world goes black.

I awake to an almighty thumping on my skull. It takes me a moment to realize that some of the thumping is coming from inside my own head, and the rest is a motor banging away. There’s a strange rushing noise all around me.

With a groan, I open my eyes and lift my head. I’m in a strange, cylindrical room full of crates that have been lashed down, and it’s freezing cold.

Where the fuck am I?

I’m able to sit up, but it takes a lot of effort because my hands are tied behind my back. Not far away, a man sits in a fold-down seat that’s attached to a wall, and he’s reading a newspaper. Beside him is an oval-shaped window.

Something clicks in my foggy brain. I’m on a plane? I think I am, but this isn’t a domestic aircraft. From the looks of things, I’m in a dirty and banged-up freight plane.

The man reading the newspaper peers over it at me and calls out in accented English, “He’s awake.”

A second man appears, and he doesn’t bother looking at me as he digs around in his frayed army green jacket for something. It’s a hypodermic syringe that he fills from a half-empty bottle.

He approaches me with his dirty fucking nails and what looks like an alarming intention to stick me with the needle.

I back away as much as I can against the plane’s fuselage. “No, don’t, what the fuck—”

The stranger pins me down with his boot and jabs the needle into my neck.

The world goes black once more.

When I wake up, I’m being dragged out of a vehicle and across snowy ground. There are men speaking around me, but I can’t understand a word of what they’re saying. At first I assume it’s because of all the drugs they’ve pumped into me, but then I realize it’s because they’re not speaking English.

I get a glimpse of a vast, empty landscape with a heavy gray sky filled with scruffy grassland and scattered with snow. Then the shadow of a large, austere concrete building. A gate grinds open, and I’m dragged inside. Then through another gate and into a dark, damp room where a man in a long gray coat sits behind a table.

I can’t keep track of how many people are around me. Some of them are holding AK-47s. Most of them look bored. They’re talking in a foreign language that sounds Eastern European or Russian, and I don’t understand a word of it.

I understand the kicks and shoves they give me. The jerks of their chin and the guttural sounds of their commands. They mean I don’t matter. They are in charge, and I’m at their mercy.

One of the men holding my arm lets go of me. He reaches inside his coat and passes a dirty printout to the man behind the desks, who unfolds and reads it.

“Luca Lombardi,” the man reads in a heavy accent.

“Nero Lombardi.” I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I still know my own name.

He peers at the paper. “It says Luca Lombardi.”

“That’s my brother, the piece of shit who sent me here. I’m Nero Lombardi. What is this place? A prison? I haven’t been tried or sentenced. I’m American. I shouldn’t be here.”

The man’s eyes widen mockingly. “Oh, the American shouldn’t be here.” He drops the paper on the table and slowly gets to his feet. His eyes are hard. His clenched fists look even harder. He pulls one arm back and slams his fist into my face.

Blood explodes in my mouth, and I fall to my knees.

“This place? This place is your fucking nightmare,” the man says, standing over me. “You are a prisoner here because we say you are, and because that piece of paper says you are. Not the fucking government or your constitution or a court. We own your fucking ass from now until the day you die.”

He continues talking, but not English, and the words are not directed at me. I’m seized under the arms and dragged to my feet. I’m taken into another room, where men with guns strip me of my clothes and throw some garments at me. I’m vaguely aware that there are other people around me. Staring at me. I get dressed in the T-shirt and jumpsuit, holding on to the metal frame of something. It’s a bunk bed with a thin blanket and no pillow.

I’m tired, hungry, and in so much pain that I sink down onto the bottom bunk and pass out.

I’m jolted awake by a loud, obnoxious buzzing.

My head feels clearer, and as I sit up and look around, I see that I’m in a large cell with a row of metal bunk beds. Men are clambering out of bed, scratching their stomachs or rubbing their fingers sleepily through their hair. Hard-looking men with a lot of tattoos.

A few of them cast bored looks in my direction. Most of them ignore me. The few conversations I overhear are in another language. Not knowing what else to do, I follow the others through the open door and down a long, damp-smelling corridor. We enter a canteen area with trestle tables and the smell of cooked food. It’s not an enticing smell. I take a metal tray and line up with the others, and when it’s my turn, a ladleful of something off-white and lumpy is plopped onto my tray.

As I walk among the trestle tables, many of the men flash me hostile looks, so I keep my distance. One of the tables has a solitary figure, a man of about fifty with his jumpsuit knotted around his waist. I take the seat opposite and attempt to eat my breakfast—if that’s what it is. It’s not recognizable as food, and I can’t figure out if it’s oatmeal, grits, or something else. I tentatively try a mouthful.

“Fucking disgusting,” I say, and drop my spoon onto my tray with a clatter.

“There’s been worse,” the man opposite me says with a shrug.

I look up in surprise. “You speak English? Where are we?”

“Guess,” the man says unhelpfully, and goes on eating.

“I don’t have a fucking clue. Is this a prison?”

This place certainly looks like a prison. There are barred cells, long corridors, and heavy metal doors. I can easily tell the inmates from the guards. The inmates are wearing gray jumpsuits like mine, and the guards wear jeans and jackets and carry guns. I look at the back of another prisoner’s jumpsuit for the name of the prison, but it’s blank. It’s also strange that the guards aren’t wearing official uniforms.

The man shakes his head. “A government prison? No, friend. This is a private prison. You must have made someone angry. Someone with money, but they do not want you dead. They want you to suffer.”

I groan and rub my hand over my face. Luca, you cold, vindictive bastard. When I get my hands on my brother, the beating I gave Shields will look like a therapeutic massage.

If this isn’t a real prison, the security probably isn’t very good. Maybe I can escape. Looking around, I count the number of guards with machine guns. On my way in, I think I saw barbed wire, towers, and heard barking dogs.

“Any idea who sent you here?” the man asks.

“My twin brother.” I can’t see any way out of this place. As far as I can tell, it looks like a purpose-built prison, or a real prison that was abandoned.

He gives a low whistle. “Your brother? What did you do, fuck his wife?”

Anger flashes through me. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m up on my feet, and I’ve grabbed a fistful of the man’s grimy jumpsuit and I’m shaking him. “His wife? His wife? She’s my fucking wife .”

Then he holds up both hands in surrender. “Okay, okay! She’s your wife.”

No one comes to his aid, despite the fact that I seem like I’m on the verge of killing him. It’s not this stranger’s fault that I’m locked in here away from Rieta. If he’s in here, we’ve got the same problems.

I collapse back onto the bench and push my hands through my hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I lost my temper.”

No one knows where I am. Worse, no one knows who I am. The only person in the world who cares about me is in Paris on our honeymoon, believing that the man sharing her bed is me. “I’m Nero. Don’t believe anyone if they call me Luca.”

The man looks annoyed with me, but picks up his spoon and goes back to his breakfast. “If you say so, Nero. I’m Bogdan.”

“What do they do with us here?” I ask.

Bogdan regards me with narrowed eyes and adjusts his T-shirt. “You’ll see.”

I do see, almost straight away. We perform exhausting physical labor, breaking rocks into gravel. It’s work that could easily be accomplished by machines, but the point isn’t the gravel. The point is to break us. That night, I fall into bed completely exhausted.

The next day is the same.

And the next.

And the next.

The food they give us isn’t enough, and it’s disgusting, but I force it down, knowing I have to keep my strength up.

In moments when the guards aren’t listening, I seek out the other English-speaking inmates and whisper to them of escape and rebellion. This isn’t a real prison, and these people have no right to keep us here. They’re the ones breaking the law, and we have every right to leave.

The first man I speak to shrugs me off. “Why would I escape? Out there, I am a dead man, and so are you.”

I get the same response from everyone I try to convince. The people who are imprisoning us aren’t the guards. It’s the ones who sent us here, and it’s those people my fellow prisoners fear.

If no one will help me, I’ll escape on my own. When we’re moved around the prison, I study every door, window, and corridor I can see. I memorize the layout of the place and hunt for weak spots.

One morning, my interest in my surroundings becomes too obvious, or I’m not walking fast enough. Without warning, a guard slams the butt of his rifle between my shoulder blades, nearly knocking me off my feet and sending me stumbling.

When I turn around and face my attacker, the cold disdain in his eyes reminds me so much of Luca. I’m stuck in here, and he’s out there, living my life with my wife.

I lose all self-control and launch myself at the guard with a roar. It doesn’t even occur to me that he’s holding a weapon and could gun me down. Luckily, I move so fast that he hasn’t got time to aim. He crashes to the ground with me on top of him and I start beating him with my fists. I’m so angry that I can’t even see what I’m doing. There’s a red mist in front of my eyes, and all I want to do is kill.

The other guards pull me off him, and then I’m being kicked by half a dozen booted men. Their rifle butts slam into my body as they swear at me in a language I don’t understand.

I’m dragged into the exercise yard and tied to a post. My clothes are ripped off and the cold bites into my flesh. I’m so dazed by the beating that I’m barely aware of where I am.

Suddenly, there’s a blaze of fire in my back. I don’t understand what’s happening until the third lash hits my flesh. I must have fucked that guard up because the whipping goes on and on until I pass out.

I’m left there to bleed and freeze and swim in and out of consciousness.

It takes me weeks to recover and be able to move without gasping in pain. Every day, every second, my resentment grows, and I fester on my mistakes. I should have grabbed that guard’s gun from him instead of letting my temper take over. I should have murdered every single guard in the place and then walked out of here leading the prisoners to freedom. Now it’s too late. Every single guard knows I’m a troublemaker and is on edge around me. If I go for their guns, they’ll shoot me.

I need something to focus on to keep myself sane. I can’t give up before I find a way to escape, because I am going to get out of here. I’m not dying in this place and leaving Rieta with my brother.

After a few weeks, I’m able to get my hands on the things I need. It’s not much, but it takes all my negotiating skills and half my rations for a week to get my hands on the precious items: a paper clip and a blue pen, half used. I sharpen the paper clip wire into a point against the stone wall of my cell and dip it into the ink. Then I stick the needle into my flesh.

It takes me several nights because I go slowly. I want it to be perfect. A daisy slowly appears on my arm, with a dozen petals and a delicate leaf. I admire it as it grows, turning my forearm this way and that. I think about my smiling bride holding a bouquet of daisies, and she feels near to me once more. Now I have a tattoo on my body that Luca doesn’t have. He took my life from me, including my ink, but this ink is mine.

Rieta is mine, even though she doesn’t know I exist. Every time I look at the tattoo, I think of her, and I know I will find my way back to her.

The tattoo keeps me calm for a while, but soon the taunts of the guards and grinding exhaustion and despair eat away at me. Hearing one of the guards call me Luca makes me lose control again. The guards have me on the ground before I take more than two angry steps toward him.

After that, I’m put in solitary for a long time. It’s a freezing, windowless cell, empty of everything except a bucket. The light ebbs and flows under the door, and I lose track of time.

The only comfort I have is my tattoo. I stare at the flower for hours, days, thinking of her. Rieta is my anchor. She’s the only thing that helps me remember that I’m human.

When they drag me out and throw me back in with the other prisoners, Bogdan tuts and shakes his head.

“They are going to kill you one day if you do not learn to shut your mouth and keep your head down.”

“I can’t help myself. Every time I look at these fucking guards, I picture Luca, and I lose all control.”

“Then you will do your job for your brother. You will die, and his hands will stay clean.”

I’m going to die here. The cold and hunger will get to me, or more likely my temper will get me beaten to death. With every day that passes, I slip further into despair.

Until one day, a guard pulls open the door to the cell I share with the other prisoners and shouts Luca’s name.