Oliver Reid
It takes all the energy I have remaining to turn onto my side on the ice-cold concrete, just in time to watch the early morning winter sunrise..
I say sunrise, when in reality I mean the measly sliver of light that peaks through the crack in the boarded up basement window each morning.. The measure by which I have come to count my passing days in captivity..
Laying broken in the dank, darkness, I begin to scratch another line in the tally I've been keeping.. The only sound is the grating of the small, shiny coin as I scrape at the concrete..
The sour scent of rising damp lingers in the cold morning air and the creakof footsteps on the floorboards overhead begins to stir as my captors wake to move about the mansion..
I've been here at the De'lucca compound for over a week.. Twelve fucking days..
The first few of those were spent beneath the fists of Angelo's various henchmen, some of whom I had befriended undercover..
Yeah, those were the beatings that were administered with the most brutality..
They all ask the same questions, again and again, over and over.. They want to know who I am.. Who I work for.. What was I doing with Mikki.. What's do I know about their operations..
I keep telling them the same thing..
That they're making a mistake.
Its both a lie and the truth, so I feel safely justified in doing neither the right thing, nor wrong..
No.. What got me here, to this place wasn't a matter of right or wrong.. Good or bad..
It was something that makes men far stupider than sin, and far weaker than morality..
Something far more dangerous..
Mikki De'lucca..
These idiots are so out of order, fumbling for answers and untrained, all they have managed to do so far is prove to me they are scrambling.. They don't seem to know anything about me, or what Mikki and I had been planning together.. And I refuse to talk.. I'd never turn on my agency and I'll never give Mikki up..
No way..
l'm yet to see the Godfather himself make an appearance during my interrogations, which strikes me as strange, since it's his daughter I was caught trying to turn into an informant...
I can't stop thinking about it.. How did Angelo find out about me? Where did he get his intel?
And why hasn't he tried to put the hard word on me to get his daughter back?
Something isn't right..
Ah, shit.. I had been satisfied enough in my position at the DEA, so I'll agree that It was stupid of me to take a contract moonlighting for the private firm of Specter, but their acting director had been desperate to get to the Godfathers daughter.. And contracts like that, well, they can make or break careers..
I guess we know which it is for me, because if I break much more it'll be to fit in the barrel this bastards dispose of my body in..
Really I should have known better than to want for more, since I never had that kind of luck in the past..
I can't entirely blame Harris for his methodical madness.. After Elijah Pierce went rogue and caused one hell of a scandal, Jake was relegated as a one man clean up team.. Nobody else at the Beaurau wanted to touch the damn thing.. Nobody was risking their career on the De'lucca curse..
Harrison had been appointed to oversee the whole clusterfuck over at the FBI and all eyes in the intelligence community had been on him right from the start.. I imagine he felt the external pressure to find a win.. And what better way to save face than to bring down one of the country's most dangerous crime Lords?
Yeah.. I get it..
Problem is, the guy was just wrong..
I mean.. Dead fucking wrong and looking in all the places he shouldn't, for answers that don't exist..
From my very first meeting with Mikki, it was obvious to me she knew nothing about the FBI scandal.. She was as clueless as a lamb and anything she did know, she discovered at my request and reported back dutifully.. Sje was an ideal informant, reliable, detailed, careful.. Mikki wanted out as badly as I needed in.
But when I tried communicating any of this to Harris, he was less than impressed..
In fact, the deeper I worked to embed myself in the mafia ranks, the more obvious it became just how separated Mikki is from Angelo's activities..
Not only was she withdrawn from associating with most of her fathers associates, Angelo himself had been keeping her at a distance, like he himself was afraid of the damage he had already done to her..
To me, it was clear as her glittery green eyes.. Mikki is about as innocent as they come..
Ah, all except for one thing..
She had been hell bent on revenge.. And I mean the woman has her unchangeable mind set..
So when she asked for my help.. I didn't feel like I could say no.. If I had, she'd have gone right ahead and done it without me.. At least this way I was able to protect her, to keep her name out of it..
It's not like she is the only person who'd happily see Angelo's end.. And I suppose in a way, she'd have more of a right than most to the call..
Or maybe that is just what I tell myself..
Like I said, Mikki weakens my morality..
What's right and wrong?
I don't fucking know anymore..
I won't lie, from the minute I met her, I was changed.. It was as if something or someone else overcame me.. I've always been a sucker for a pretty lady.. And Mixxy, she's the the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.. But more than that.. She is real in a way I've never known..
She is honest, up front and down to earth.. She's smart, dry and witty and she doesn't take shit.. She has the ability to make whoever she is smiling at feel special.. She's just - - perfect..
There is something about Mikki that captures me, and now as I lay here dying, she is the only thing on my mind..
I fell in love with her so easily, so quickly that it took everything coming to an end for my brain to finally catch up and for me to realise what was going on.. Whatever happens to me next.. At least she knows.. At least I got to tell her..
Maybe she felt it too..
Ha.
Guess I'll never know..
They've barely fed me a few bites of cold, sloppy oatmeal since bringing me to this underground shithole and chaining me up like a dog.. Rusted steel manacles tear at the raw skin around my ankles and throat.. I'm halfway to starvation, and the agony in my beaten broken ribs is a warning, reminding me that my insides may well be bleeding.. Though the cool of the concrete beneath my swollen cheek is somewhat soothing..
Ah..Any day now, they'll put me out of my misery.. It's only a matter of time..
-CLUNK-
The lock at the top of the stairs clunks and I twist my neck around to watch as two sets of legs descend the staircase.. One hostage, one hostage taker..
"Move your ass, bitch!" Grunts Marcus, the dumbest of Angelo's thugs as she shoves a black and blue beaten man down to the bottom of the stairs..
I can't recognise the guy for the bruises on his flesh and swollen eyes beneath a bloody mass of dark hair.. Judging by the look of him, theyd worked him over pretty good before bringing him down here..
Marcus drags the guy over to the structural steel post opposite me, several feet away, lashing the chains there around his ankles and fixing him with a similar collar to mine, padlock and all.. "W-why are you doing t-this?.. P-please.." He stutters in terrified fear..
"You know why." Spits Marcus as he squats before the guy, smacking him mockingly in his mouth.. "Now keep ya mouth shut, Roberto, or i'll stitch it up.."
I watch on silently, my cheek pressed to the slab, my breath slow and laboured..
"N--No.. You don't understand.. P--Please, I'm begging you.." My new chain mate 'Roberto' pleads, earning himself a swift barrage of squelching, smattering punches that has his head lolling side to side listless..
"Hey! HEY! Lay off the guy!" I strain in defence of the poor dude, coughing up blood and what feels like half my gizzards in the process..
I know it's useless.. Stupid even..
But I can't just watch and do nothing..
Marcus turns his frigid, black eyed glare on me.. "Oh, so now you're ready to talk, Narc?!"
"I'm not saying shit!" When his boot collides with my broken ribs an uncontrollable hollar of agony bursts from my lungs.. The fire that runs through me is a river of pain and I'm going to drown in it.. "MOTHERFUCKERRR!"
"Rat fuck.." Marcus spits and stomps away, heading back upstairs, leaving me sprawled out on the floor.. I writhe and groan myself through the waves of sharp stabbing pain..
After I don't know how long, I hear the rattling chains of Roberto coming to his senses..
"Oh fuck, oh fuck.." He begins to hyperventilate, shock taking control of him.. "Oh my god, are you o-okay?!"
If the mafia has him chained up like me, the man must know something, and since I'm not dead yet, I figure I might as well try to work out exactly what that is..
I drag myself back to my post, wincing as I haul myself upright to sit, leaning against the column for support.. "Yeah man.. I'm fucking awesome, same as you.."