A Sinner’s Truth (De Bellis Crime Family Book 5)
A Sinner’s Truth: Chapter 5

Two months later

Leaning my back against the wall, I stare at the two men currently hanging from rusty chains that are slung over the roof rafters. I enjoy this way too fucking much. The torture, the pain, their screams and pleas for mercy.

It’s a high I didn’t know I needed before. When Shelli was around, I didn’t embrace the life as much. I lived on the edge of right and wrong. Now, I’m fully immersed in the shadows, where wrong has never been so fucking right.

Gio and I have spent the last few months rounding up every fucker we could track down, everyone involved with that fucking house of horrors, every asshole who abused our little brother. The thought of what Vin went through all those years makes me physically ill. And the fact our own father did that? I didn’t think the old bastard could lower the bar any more than he already had.

“There’s a special place in hell for sick fucks like you,” I tell them, not leaving my spot against the wall. The two men are bleeding out of various places. They’re sporting burn marks, cuts, and I can see Gio is getting the reciprocating saw ready. That only means one thing: Body parts are going to be dropping.

“Fuck you,” one of them hisses. He’s obviously reached the point of no return. They all get brave when they realise this really is the end. They’re not going to make it out of here without some fucking divine miracle, and we all know that shit doesn’t exist.

“I’m not your type. No, your type is helpless little boys, isn’t it?” I growl, and the fucker’s face pales. Yeah, mate, I know your dirty fucking secrets. “What? Nothing to say?” I push off the wall.

My entire body is being overtaken by rage. Unleashed rage. It isn’t going away. No matter how many of these fuckers Gio and I kill, this thirst for blood won’t fucking leave me.

I take the saw from Gio’s hands. I need to do this. I need to feel the terror emanating from their every pore. I want to hear their screams echo off the walls. The light above us flickers on and off. Someone’s fucking with it. One of my brother’s men—dramatics and all that shit. I power on the saw and the sound is like a symphony, but it’s missing something.

“Hold his arm,” I tell Gio. My brother eyes me for a second before complying. His way of checking in with me.

I reach for the guy’s pinkie finger, stretch it out, and place the blades just above his knuckle. Blood squirts out in every direction. But it isn’t until I finally hit bone that I realise what I was missing. The sound of metal severing tendons. It’s the sound of justice. For Vin.

“Feel that?” I ask as I drop the now-removed pinkie to the floor and stomp on it with my boot. “That’s just the beginning. You’ve got ten digits to go.”

It takes a minute, but it finally registers with him what lucky number ten is going to be. And it’s not a fucking toe.

“Just fucking kill me now,” the arsehole pleads.

“What? And miss all this fun?” I line up the blade with his index finger and slice it right off, letting it plop onto the concrete floor.

The guy bucks his body around, and Gio throws an elbow into his face. The crunching of bone can be heard over the fucker’s screams. “Fucking stay still,” Gio growls.

“Fuck you! Fuck all of you!” he spits while continuing to thrash against us.

“Sounds like he wants to get fucked,” I tell Gio, who smirks. Sinister fucker. I can’t say I love this part of the routine, but I do love what it does to them. They deserve so much more than a few hours of pain.

Gio drops the guy’s arm and walks over to the bench that houses all the tools of the trade, so to speak. I set the saw on the ground and retrieve my knife from my ankle before walking behind the fucker in front of me. I slice through his trousers, careful not to get any skin. I don’t need him bleeding and lubing himself up.

Gio hands me the next device in our arsenal. Fucker Number Two now has full view of what’s about to happen to him next. “What the fuck, man?” he asks.

“Enjoy the show, mate. It’ll be your turn before you know it.” I wink at him and laugh. There is nothing funny about this, and honestly I hate doing it. But it’s not about me. It’s about what they did to those kids and what they deserve in return.

It’s not enough, though. It’s never enough. I need more. So much fucking more.

“I’m going to make you suffer in ways far worse than what you did to my brother. You sealed your fate the day you chose to target little boys,” I tell the guy before I shove the wooden dildo that’s been fashioned with pointy nails sticking out from all sides right up his ass.

He screams far louder than when I was removing his fingers. Blood drips from his puckered hole as I pull the dildo out and shove it in farther.

“Stop. Oh God, please.” This comes from the guy watching, not the one having his intestines turned into minced meat.

“You think God is going to save you? You’re in the devil’s hands now, fucker,” I tell him. “But don’t worry. Once I’m done with both of you, I’ll give you back to your families. Piece by fucking piece. Every fucking person you loved is going to find out what kind of sick fuck they were harbouring. And if I get wind that any of them knew what you were doing, well, they’ll be the next body hanging in this room.”

“Where are you going?” Gio asks when I jump out of his car and head for the garage.

“Out. I need a fucking drink,” I tell him without a glance backwards.

It only takes me twenty minutes before I reach my destination. I sit down at the foot of the monument Gio commissioned for Shelli and pull the lid off the bottle before tipping it towards the stone figure.

“I could really use a chat right now, Shelli,” I say as I bring the bottle to my mouth and swallow as much as I can take in one gulp.

The bottle is half-empty when she finally makes an appearance. “What are you doing, Santo?”

It’s the way she says my name that has me doubting it’s really her. She only called me Santo when I was in trouble or pissed her off somehow. Which honestly wasn’t often. Maybe she’s mad at me for not saving her. I sure as fuck am mad at myself.

“Looking for you,” I tell her.

“You found me,” she says, sitting down in front of me.

“Why?” I ask her the same thing I ask every time. “Why did you leave?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” she repeats the same answer.

“I’m not talking about you dying, Shelli. When did you stop loving me?” The question has been playing on my mind. Memories of the months leading up to the wedding have started to show things in a different light. I didn’t see it at the time, but I’m beginning to.

Shelli wasn’t nervous about the wedding. It was something else. Whatever this secret is she wants me to dig up.

“I never stopped loving you,” she says.

“Bullshit. What’s the secret? What were you keeping from me?”

“I can’t tell you that. You need to find it, Santo. It will give you the truth,” she tells me.

“What am I looking for? How can I find something when I don’t even know what the fuck I’m looking for, Shelli?” I yell. The bottle hits the monument, and glass shatters before littering the ground. The remnants of golden liquid stain the white stone.

I turn back to look at her, and she’s gone.

“Fuck,” I curse out under my breath. My head drops into my hands and I let the tears fall. It’s the only time I let myself be vulnerable. In the dark. Alone.

My lungs struggle to draw in air. I feel like I’m drowning. I can’t keep fucking doing this, but I don’t have a choice. She won’t tell me what to look for. Whatever she was hiding, maybe it’s best that it fucking stays hidden.