Chapter 4

The fourth video cut straight to my first day in The Abyss.

I knelt in the mud, screaming, begging Don Carlo to take me home. "Godfather, please! Don't leave me here!"

"I'll change! I'll do whatever you want!"

But Don Carlo showed zero mercy. He rolled up his window without looking back, leaving me to be dragged away by the guards.

Later, they muzzled me like an animal.

In utter darkness and silence, I was shoved into a freezing iron cage.

Fear swallowed me whole. I curled up in the corner, shivering violently.

I don't know how much time passed before blinding spotlights flooded the darkness.

As my eyes adjusted, I saw masked, crazed billionaires surrounding the cage from all sides.

"What is this place? It's terrifying!"

"Looks like a gladiator arena! Who built this?"

"These people look insane... what are they going to do to Cassius?"

The chat erupted. The audience had never witnessed anything so horrific.

Watching the video again brought all that terror rushing back. Even as a weightless spirit, I couldn't stop shaking.

Soon, I was dragged out of the cage, stripped to the waist, and forced to fight a frenzied beast bare-handed.

I ran for my life, but the beast chased me endlessly, trying to tear my throat out.

Absolute terror unlocked my survival instinct. I fought back like a cornered animal. I didn't know how much blood I lost. By the time the beast finally fell, there wasn't a patch of skin on my body left unscathed.

I won.

But the torment didn't end.

I was injected with a tranquilizer and passed out.

When I woke up, I was chained to an auction block. Bottles of vintage liquor were arranged around me, as if I were a delicate piece of art.

My fingers, my toes—everything was positioned for display.

A fat, greasy politician lifted my chin with a spiked riding crop.

He won the bid. He even demanded to brand his name onto my collarbone.

I was drowning in humiliation, trying to thrash, but my limbs were completely numb from the drugs.

"This lone wolf has a nice bite to him," the politician licked his lips. "A bit wild, though."

"But the ones who dropped him off said he's untouched. Nice and clean. He'll taste amazing once his spirit is broken."

I felt violently sick. The tears wouldn't stop falling.

They looked at me as a toy. As meat.

The degradation was worse than death.

The footage that followed was too graphic. Vivienne stopped the video.

Those filthy photos that later reached Vivienne were taken when they tried to break my mind.

If I fought back, the torture only got worse.

The agony I endured there was a hundred times worse than what anyone saw on screen.

After the video stopped, the chat exploded. "My God! This is The Abyss?! It's literally hell!"

"The Russos are monsters! Even if he's adopted, how could they do this!"

"Poor Cassius! Where is he now? Is he still alive?!"

"Call the FBI right now! Arrest the Russos! Save Cassius!"

Save?

I smiled bitterly. I was already dead. They probably wouldn't even find my body.

Carmela collapsed to the floor in shock. "Impossible! He didn't have his phone!"

She was right. They were supposed to have taken my phone. But a guard whose family I had once helped had secretly returned it. When they dragged me away, the phone was already tucked in my chest pocket, recording everything. I had originally just wanted to record the route out, never imagining what it would capture instead.

Julian was trembling violently. It took him a long time to fake his composure. "Vivienne, Cassius is doing perfectly fine abroad. Someone made this with special effects! Don't believe it!"

I watched his pathetic lies coldly, pure hatred boiling in my soul.

Vivienne slowly looked up. "I'm not saving him."

My heart dropped. Was she really disgusted by me?

Someone in the crowd spoke up for me: "Cassius was with you for five years! How can you be so heartless?!"

"Fake or not, you have to look into it! What if it's real..."

Vivienne's voice was ice. "He's beyond saving."

Wait...

Did she know I was dead?

Impossible. No one ever came looking for me. No one could know.

Carmela immediately seized the opening, pointing at the crowd. "This is Family business! Mind your own damn business!"

"Vivienne already said he's beyond saving! Are you deaf?!"

Before she could finish, Vivienne tapped the next video.

"You're wrong."

"I meant you are beyond saving."