Luciano | Book I ✓

Chapter Thirty-Seven

posted on may 26 @ 1:56 pm (eastern standard time)

- - - -

Peter Corinelli's home that night was at a standstill. Televisions were muted; the music was turned down as far as it could go without also being muted. Men lined the hallways, peering their heads out of doors as four heavily armed guards walked by with their prisoner in tow. AK-47's were strapped to their backs and submachine guns rested in their hands. Their faces remained neutral, as if carrying a submachine gun was as normal as walking around a house with a glass of water.

Their boots hit the wood floor in unison, making their arrival well known. The guards' eyes were trained on the door ahead of them, their destination near. The noise that they caused drifted down the hallway and the rare whisper of a man drowned out the sound of Rosalie's cries, her sobs echoing from the back of her throat. She was left in the dark, literally, with a blindfold tied tightly around her head. Her small hands were bound together at her wrists with a metal wire; a wire that had slowly begun to pierce her flesh, rubbing it raw.

She let out a heartbreaking cry as she stumbled through the hall, nearly falling until a hand clasps around her shoulder, to keep her balanced. "Liam, where's Liam?" She let out another cry as a door was thrown open, drowning out her constant pleas for her brother. "I want Liam." No one heard and if someone did, no one would have cared.

The little girl was thrown to the floor the minute they stepped into Peter Corinelli's office. Her forearms broke her fall, but it also jarred the waterworks. Rosie's body ached as she lay on the cold, wooden floor, tears flooding out of her eyes and rolling down her already tear stained cheeks. Her legs, arms, and hands were cut up as she had tried to run from the men earlier that night; she had failed, but what she had succeeded in was hurting herself. Dried blood was smeared across her forehead, along with dirt. Blood that had ran from a collection of small cuts on her arms and legs had also dried.

Her constant sobs were disregarded in a room full of men three times her height and four times her weight. That wasn't the reason why she was scared; Rosie had grown up understanding that her stepfather and brother dealt with men like this all the time. There wasn't a meeting she hadn't crashed that involved large men with even larger guns; but what scared her, what petrified her, was that her source of comfort was not in this room. Liam. The same man whose lap she would sit on, whose arm would wrap around her tiny waist as he spoke with the foreign men across the room, was not there.

Multitudes of men spoke all around her, their accents similar to the people that she loved, but their underlining tone was different; it was evil, something she wasn't used to. Liam's friendly laugh and teasing words were nowhere near her, frightening her even more.

"Good job gentlemen," Peter Corinelli stood from his seat, a suit still hugging his figure even at this late hour. Smoke drifted out his mouth as a cigar rested lazily between his lips. His dress shoes made an eerie, chill-inducing sound as he marched towards the little girl that still sat on the ground, unable to find the strength to push herself back to her feet. She couldn't see him, but the fear that his words caused her was evident.

"Stand up," The man commanded her. Rosie's sobs was the only response she gave him. The little girl struggled to her feet, but when she had, Peter shoved her again, causing the seven year old to fall back to the ground. Heartless laughter erupted from the mouths of the four guards and Peter.

Pain ricocheted through her body at the second blow she received from falling to the ground. Rosalie didn't even attempt to stand back up; instead, she rested her cheek against the floor and cried. Her shoulders shook as her cries were drowned out by the boisterous laughter and talking of the men that stood around the room.