Unforgivable Ties

Chapter 30

Vincenzo

S ome things about this life would always have to be hidden from Stephanie.

There was no way I was just going to give that man the beating of his life. He had planned on assaulting Stephanie, and if I had to guess, killing her afterwards. He was going to die.

I snuck through the abandoned snow lodge at 2:30 am, watching out for any signs of life. Everyone was asleep from a hard day of hitting the slopes or a long day at work. I exited through the back door, where no cameras could catch my exit. The moon was hidden behind thick clouds, making it impossible for anyone to see me. The snow under my boots crunched quietly as I made my way towards the wood cabin where that man was staying.

I grabbed a shovel that was sticking out of the snowbank, my mind set on what it was going to do. I hadn’t buried bodies in years—it was typically reserved for the grunts—but I would dig six feet with ease for this man.

I walked into the forest behind his cabin and got to digging. Through the thick layer of frost and snow, into the hard ground beneath. As the hole grew deeper, my breath came out in white puffs that danced and disappeared into the night.

After I dug the hole, I dropped the shovel and walked into the man’s cabin. He had woken up and was moaning in pain, but I had made sure to break his legs while kicking his ass so he wouldn’t go anywhere.

“Glad you’re awake,” I said, standing over his body. “I’ll enjoy this more.”

Before he could scream, I duct taped his mouth shut. Then I bound his wrists and legs together, creating a makeshift body wrap. His eyes were wide and terrified, his muffled screams echoing in the cabin. But my heart held no mercy for him—it never did.

I picked him up over my shoulder and took him out into the cool night air.

I had already gotten a lot of my fury out when I beat him to a pulp. Now, I wanted to see fear in his eyes. I wanted him to be just as afraid as Stephanie was.

There in the still, frosty air, I dropped him into the hole I’d dug. He squirmed and writhed under the bounds of his duct tape prison, his whimpered pleas muffled to near-silence. I watched his desperate struggle, drinking in the sight of his raw terror. A grim satisfaction settled over me, cold and harsh as the winter wind howling through the bare trees.

I didn’t say anything as I filled the grave in, instead choosing to enjoy the absolute terror on his face.

As I finished up, a light layer of snow had just began to fall. Good. The asshole could stay even further from the surface where people dwelled.

Then I went into the cabin and removed all signs that there was a struggle. To management, it would just look like an unreliable seasonal hire.

Finally, I made my way back to mine and Stephanie’s room. After a hard night’s work, I was ready to fall asleep with her in my arms.

“Damn, really was a massacre last night, huh?” Dino said as he stacked the cooler of organs on top of one another. The tall man sighed and picked up another cooler. “At least it was mostly the Bratva’s men.”

I grunted in response. Dino was a great worker, but I couldn’t stand how much he could talk. But his charisma was beneficial to us—he could sneak in places and charm the pants off people, getting intel that my friends and I could never extract.

“Stephanie told me about your birthday trip,” he said, ignoring that I clearly didn’t want to engage in conversation. “Wild what happened.”

“How much did she tell you?” I said, whipping around to face him.

“That you were great at snowboarding, the lodge had delicious food,” he paused and raised an eyebrow at me. “And that she was kidnapped and almost died.”

“You keep quiet about that,” I hissed, curling my fingers around a cooler. “That’s private.”

Dino shrugged his shoulders. “The secret’s safe with me,” he replied with a wink. His nonchalant attitude irked me. I had no patience for humor in the face of danger and death.

“But,” he continued, pushing his brown curly hair out of the way. “There was no way you let him live. Stephanie said you just beat the shit out of him and left, but I call bullshit.”

I was silent for a long moment, my back to him as I considered what was best to say. I had no plans to confirm or deny his suspicion, but he didn’t seem like the type prone to letting things go.

Finally, I said, “Believe what you want.”

Dino let out a knowing chuckle, his laugh echoing in the cool, tiled room. “That’s what I thought,” he replied, his tone smug. I gritted my teeth and went back to stacking the coolers.

“So soft for her you’d kill someone, eh?” Cesare said, walking up to inspect the coolers.

Fuck. I had been so frustrated with Dino that I hadn’t even heard Cesare enter the loading docks.

“Well, it’s actually the second—” Dino started, but I interrupted him.

“Can we just stay on task? I have no idea why you’re both so interested in my personal life when we have a job to do,” I shot back. My tone was sharp enough to warn Cesare to back off.

Fortunately, the old man backed off. He was one of the few men who could challenge my orders—he had worked for the Moretti family for years—but he was more interested in business today.

“The Surgeon is increasing the amount we get paid per organ,” he said, marking his clipboard as he inspected each cooler. “There must be some type of shortage. I don’t know if he’s having trouble finding live bodies, but either way, we’re making more money.”

“We already make plenty of money,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “What does it matter?”

“There’s always more money to be made,” he said simply, marking off the final cooler.

We heard the faint sounds of a van pulling around the side of the warehouse, the familiar grumble of the engine unmistakable. Cesare glanced over his shoulder as if to confirm before returning his attention to the clipboard.

A black van backed into the loading dock, its heavy tires grinding on the concrete floor and echoing ominously through the warehouse. The van’s front doors swung open, two men in dark clothing jumping out. They wore gloves and masks and did not even greet us as they loaded the coolers into the back of the vehicle.

This was one of the few times Dino knew to keep his mouth shut. He watched the men load the coolers, checking each one off a list as they put them in the back.

After everything had been loaded and accounted for, one walked up to me and passed me a briefcase that was full of cash. I popped the lid open to confirm the contents, and after a quick visual inspection, it looked like all the money was there. The Surgeon was a trusted partner, and had never shorted us, so I chose not to count each bill in front of the men.

The two men nodded at the three of us before getting back in the van and driving away. The van disappeared around a corner, and the eerie echo of silence filled the warehouse once again.

“They’re always so easy to work with,” Cesare commented.

“So quiet, though,” Dino complained, leaning against the warehouse wall.

“Maybe you could ask them for some pointers,” I said, picking up the suitcase by the handle and walking towards the door.

I paused at the entrance, my gaze sweeping over the empty warehouse. The lingering scent of antiseptic and a faint metallic tang of blood served as a stark reminder of our ghoulish business.

As I walked through the hallway, the smell began to slowly dissipate. The whole place had a haunting air of resignation and hopelessness, an echo of lives snuffed out untimely and solitude.

I abruptly stopped in front of the medical bay. Maybe I would just stop in and see how she was doing before dropping off the cash.

I opened the door to find Stephanie busy tending to a patient. It was some grunt that had gotten shot in the back, in the fleshy part near his shoulder. He was grimacing as Stephanie stitched his flesh, and I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes. That was hardly a painful place to take a bullet.

“Vincenzo?” she asked, looking up from her work.

Suddenly, I became very aware that the man was shirtless, and a wave of jealousy rolled through me. I didn’t want Stephanie touching any other shirtless men except for me. The rational part of me knew this was different, but the primal, possessive part of me growled in dissent.

My grip on the case tightened, my knuckles turning white. I wanted to rip the man out from under her hands, shove him aside, and replace him with my own body. This was irrational, I knew that, but when it came to Stephanie, rationality had long flown out the window.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “I’ll just wait until you’re done.”

I sat in the corner of the room, sitting the briefcase on the floor. Putting away the money could wait. Right now, I needed to monitor the half naked man around Stephanie.

“O-K,” she said, enunciating each syllable, before looking back down at her work.

I studied her as she worked, mesmerized by her dedication and precision. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail, a few loose strands framing her face. Her blue scrubs were stained with blood, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was in her element here, a queen in her court, a true professional.

Yet within me brewed a storm of jealousy and paranoia. My fingers curled and uncurled, yearning to brush those loose strands from her forehead, to touch her like no one else could. I drowned in my thoughts, in the fertile ground of doubt and possessiveness that threatened to consume me.

After what seemed like an eternity, she finished her work. Stephanie gave the man care instructions, and he nodded, his body shifted away from her. I could tell my presence had him uncomfortable. Good; it was meant to.

He mumbled a quiet thank you to Stephanie before making a beeline toward the door. The man was too afraid to look me in the eye as he passed by, his steps rushed and uneven in fear. I watched him go, my glare fixed upon the back of his retreating form until it disappeared behind the door.

“What was that?” Stephanie’s voice broke through the heavy tension in the room, and I turned my gaze back to her. She had discarded her gloves and was glaring at me with a look I hadn’t seen since we met.

“What do you mean?” I asked, walking over to her.

“You know what I mean. You just burst in here and then terrified my patient,” she snapped, not looking at me as she furiously washed her hands.

“I may have been jealous that your had you hands on a shirtless man.”

“Yeah, I got that.” She turned to face me, her normally warm brown eyes turned dark. “But you better get used to it. All I do here is help men, and a lot of them are half naked.”

“I know,” I sighed, running a hand through my hair. I watched the way her eyes softened just a fraction before hardening again. “I’m sorry.”

Sorry was not a phrase I used often, and when I did, I normally had to grit it out from between my teeth. But, for Stephanie, it slipped out like a prayer. A plea for understanding, a bid for forgiveness.

“You can be an idiot, you know that?” she said softly, giving me a small smile.

I came up to wrap my arms around her, but she wriggled away from me. “Don’t! I have blood on me.”

“That’s hardly anything,” I said, catching her waist and pulling her into me.

She started lecturing me on the hazards of bloodborne pathogens, but I silenced her with a gentle kiss to her lips. Her lecture trailed off as she melted into my arms, and for a moment we just stood there in the silence of the now deserted clinic.

At that moment, I wished we could stay like that forever.