RED 🥀

Scared.

C H A P T E R N I N E

The familiar baseline drumming into my skull woke me up, the porn soundtrack.

I was back at his club and he must've drugged me again to get me back here.

I didn't know how long he kept me away, I didn't remember anything that happened except Ace casually telling me that I had a bomb in my head while we shared dumplings.

My fingers grazed over the back of my neck, it had fully healed over. I couldn't feel anything but skin.

I got so drunk and confused, what if I imagined it all? Dreamed it all up? But what if I didn't?

I was scared.

Scared to move incase it went off, scared to go up against him incase he set it off and scared to try to have it removed myself. I didn't have a fighting chance at survival in this battle and that terrified me.

"Red!" Toni's voice penetrated my thoughts and my whole body shuddered thinking the bomb had exploded.

"What?" I asked, trying to calm myself down before he noticed anything unusual with me.

"They're getting ready to take your brother in a few hours."

Maybe I didn't have a bomb in my neck at all. Maybe that's just what he wanted me to think, to gaslight me. To distract me. It fucking worked, I could almost feel it ticking away under my skin. It was all I could think about.

"Red!" Toni shouted, again making me jump. "What the fuck is wrong with you today, you're spacey as shit?"

"Nothing." I replied, lightly breezing my fingers over the nape of my neck. I could feel a bump, like a small scar, I didn't have that before, did I?

"I think we underestimated him." I admitted, fixing my hair back in place. "He's clever and brutally violent." I didn't want to admit my failure to Toni or anyone. It was humiliating.

I always said I would die for the family, I just never expected to. Now that it was becoming a reality I was questioning my loyalty to the mafia.

I was my fathers hidden weapon all my life. But now Ace had turned me into his weapon. All he had to do was wait until I was in a room filled the Valentino's and the Petrovs then push the button. I would single handedly take out everyone in that room and Ace wouldn't even need to enter combat.

"Yeah Red, we know this. Why do you think so many people have failed in taking him down?" I touched my neck again, it felt hot but maybe that was in my imagination.

"I need to see him." Toni raised his hands submissively and I watched them carefully. Too wary of the people around me now.

"No way, he's in the office. You're not allowed in the office, he will slice you in two if you dare approach him. You're not important." I didn't even react to what he said, which was so unlike me but for good measure he added "to him, you're not important, to him."

"So, I'll take him a drink." I started fixing up a peppermint mojito just how he likes it and listened carefully outside the office door before knocking.

"Enter." His voice called out. I pushed the door open and he barely looked up at me from his sheet of blueprints.

"No." He spoke the word as a full sentence.

It was not an order, there was no negotiating or reasoning behind the word. It was just a simple 'no.'

"No?" I asked, feeling unusually timid.

"Not you, not right now. You send my anger levels through the roof and I need my mind clear. Leave." He returned his gaze back to his blueprints.

I didn't leave. I shifted awkwardly on my two feet, feeling incredibly cowardly but reminding myself to appear brave.

"Take it out of my neck." I demanded without a falter in confidence I portrayed through my voice.

"You've got T-minus ten seconds to leave this office before I blow your mother fucking brains out and you end up decorating my walls." He replied with a bored tone, not taking his eyes off the work in front of him.

"Then do it." I challenged, my stupidity shining through my bravery.

He looked up, genuinely pulled his eyes away from the papers on his desk. His eyes looked more green than blue today because his mask was an emerald colour and it reflected in his eyes. They were still beautiful, a lifetime worth of struggle behind the striking teal, one that had never been put into words.

Ace stood up, his nostrils flared ever so slightly and he appeared deathly mad. "You don't think I will?" He questioned.

I watched as he walked around his desk and neared me, stepping close enough so that I could smell the sweet leathery essence wafting from his charcoal suit.

"I think it would be pretty stupid of you to blow me up while you're standing in the same room. I think it would be pretty stupid to blow up your own establishment, your men, the girls, everything you ever worked for. Just to prove to me that you would, no?"

I believe I stumped him and I couldn't force my smile away. He grabbed my throat and my heart jittered, not wanting any sudden movements around my neck.

"Don't dare question me." He warned.

"I didn't, I was answering you." He gripped tighter, so tight I could no longer reply to him even if I wanted to.

"I don't have time to fuck around with your childish games, you're delaying me and I don't like it when things interfere with my work." He released my throat and I rubbed my collarbone.

"Take it out of my neck." I repeated, keeping a serious hold on my voice. He grabbed a gun from his belt and poked the spout into my stomach.

"I've had enough of you." By some miracle somebody knocked on the door. His eyes blazed with a burning fire of fury.

"Fuck off!" He shouted, not taking his eyes off of mine.

"Boss, we need to leave." A nervous voice shouted back.

A vision of clarity settled on his face and he ripped away from my body in the most unnatural way, like two magnets fighting against their pull.

"Come." He grabbed my wrist forcefully, gripping it hard with his large hands and then dragged me through the club, ignoring everybody's eye bulging stares. He pushed me into the passenger seat of a black town car and slipped in beside me.

"Where the fuck are you taking me?" I implored.

"I got business to attend to, you're low on my list of priorities right now Red. I will deal with you later."

Fuck, I knew exactly where we were going.
How did I even get myself into these situations?

I was on the way to kidnap my own brother.