Secrets That Bind | Book I

25 // whispers of the past

𝘈𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘰

///

June 2007

Metal scrapes against the cobble stoned street as I try to dodge one of Amarusso's boys from stabbing me with their blade. Their laughter echoes in my mind—the group of four boys tasked with ending my life—as I look up at them in fear.

Everything Padre had told me goes out the window as I try to push myself up to run away.

Fuck fighting back. I'm outnumbered and I don't even have my gun on me.

But a black boot enters my vision and pushes me back down, my head hitting the cobble stoned street a little harder than I'd like, and everything goes silent. It's like I'm in a vacuum—a blackhole. The fear is gone, the boys' laughter, and their knives are no longer terrorizing my mind—I feel nothing. But I know my body is in its fight or flight mode with the way my heart is hammering in my chest.

The only thing I can think of now is curling my body up into a fetal position, trying to protect myself as much as I can against the four boys and their sinister smiles and taunts. I hate that I can't fight back. I hate myself for leaving my gun with Valore. I hate myself for not taking my boxing lessons seriously. But most of all, I hate myself for feeling powerless.

I'm at the mercy of the very boys Padre had warned me about on multiple occasions.

"They are savages, Sandro. Do not take this lightly. They want our ports and they will stop at nothing to get what they want. The Amarussos, they are a breed of their own."

"Cazzo," I whisper under my breath as I hear a set of footsteps near my body. I'm sure the people in the houses nearby are peeking through their windows, watching as Amarusso's son and his friends send me six feet down under in a bloody pulp.

A hand grabs me by the collar, forcing my hands to fall away from my head. Fierce, brown eyes peer down at me.

Antonio Amarusso.

"Genova è nostra. apparteneva sempre agli amarussos, e ci riprendiamo ciò che è nostro. il vostro [Genoa is ours. it always belonged to the Amarussos, and we are taking back what's ours]." Antonio seethes as his three friends crowd around us. He lets go of my collar before pulling out a brass knuckle from his pocket as his friends begin to kick me.

My back, my stomach, my chest are engulfed in searing, hot pain. Repeated kicks and anger infused yells fill the night air, my cries of pain bouncing off the walls of the narrow residential street we're in.

"Hey!" A guttural voice yells.

"Figli di puttanas [you motherfuckers]!" Another voice shouts.

But I don't have the chance to see who the newcomers are as my mind is succumbing to the pain emanating all over my body. It feels like my body is on fire, yet I can't move a muscle.

Blinking rapidly, I roll over to my side as I spit out a mouth full of blood. In my peripheral, I can see a familiar pair of black shoes repeatedly kicking a boy's head—Antonio's head—now that I wipe the tears away.

A pair of hands grab me by the shoulders. "Andiamo, Emilio può prendersi cura di loro [Come on, Emilio can take care of them]," Valore says as he lifts me up from the ground. He takes my left arm and throws it over his shoulder as he practically carries me away.

The only thing I can focus on are Emilio's guttural yells as his fist collides with flesh again and again, the sound morphing its away into the night.