The Dungeon

“Selena... run...” Enzo whispered those words from his torn, blood-stained lips. His voice was extremely weak, almost drowned out by the ringing in my ears from Papa's harsh slap.

However, that single word felt like a sledgehammer hitting my chest.

Run? How could I run and leave him in a state like this?

Before I could answer, a rough pull on my hair made me scream. My scalp felt as if it were about to be peeled off.

“Stand up!” Papa snapped with a thunderous voice, a voice that until now I had only heard when he passed death sentences on his enemies.

“Papa, please! Let me go, Papa! It hurts!” I wailed, tears streaming down my burning cheeks.

Instead of letting go, Papa tightened his grip on my hair and dragged me down the corridor.

My expensive silk dress dragged along the cold marble floor. I struggled, pounding his arm with what strength I had left, but to a man who had built a mafia empire on a pile of corpses, my resistance was no more than the fluttering of a butterfly's wings trapped in a spiderweb.

“You think you're smart, Selena? Huh?!” Papa growled, dragging me toward the end of the mansion's west wing. “You think you can play games with me in my own house? Making eyes at a traitorous dog behind my back?!”

“Papa, please listen to me first! It wasn't like—”

“Shut up!” he snapped, slamming my body against the wall as we arrived in front of a thick iron door that was always kept firmly locked.

That door led to the basement. Ever since I was little, I was strictly forbidden from going near this place. The servants referred to it as the 'Slaughterhouse'. No sound could escape from there, and no life ever returned intact after entering it.

The smell of rust, salt, and the metallic stench of drying blood immediately stung my nose as soon as two heavily-built guards opened the iron door.

The air around me plummeted drastically, making the hair on my neck stand on end. The darkness in the stone staircase passage gaped wide open, ready to swallow me alive.

“Take her down,” Papa ordered coldly to his two guards.

The two giant men grabbed my right and left arms, lifting my body easily as if I were merely a rag doll.

They carried me down the slick, damp stone steps. Every step we took echoed, creating a symphony of death that made my heart beat painfully.

At the bottom of the stairs, a spacious room with gray brick walls opened up. The room was lit by dim, flickering yellow incandescent bulbs. Various torture tools, ranging from spiked leather whips to iron pliers and rusted chains, hung neatly on the wall. But my eyes were not fixed on those terrifying tools.

My eyes were locked onto a figure that had just been dragged in from another corridor and was now tied up in the middle of the room.

“Enzo!” I screamed, struggling with all my might against the guards' grip.

Enzo was pushed roughly until he knelt on the dirty stone floor. Both of his hands were spread apart and handcuffed to two thick chains dangling from the ceiling.

His white shirt was torn here and there, revealing the bandage on his back that was now seeping fresh blood once again.

The punishment given to him last night was nothing compared to his gruesome condition right now.

Two guards kicked the backs of his knees, ensuring the man could not stand upright.

Papa walked casually down the last step, then stopped right in front of Enzo. In his hand, he was still holding a piece of a secret letter that I had written to Enzo.

“Twelve years,” Papa's voice echoed, quiet yet filled with lethal poison. “Twelve years I fed you, clothed you, gave you shelter from the pursuit of your foolish father's enemies. I raised you from the gutter and made you into my valuable sword.”

Enzo looked up. Even though his face was covered in bruises and blood dripped from his temple, his blue eyes did not dim at all. His gaze was still as sharp and as cold as an icy lake.

He stared at Papa with his jaw tightly clenched, not begging for mercy, let alone weeping.

“But this is what I receive in return...” Papa stepped forward, then with lightning speed, kicked Enzo in the stomach with the steel-toe of his leather shoe.

“Ugh!” Enzo coughed, spitting a glob of blood onto the floor, but he refused to fall flat on his face.

The chains on his wrists clanked loudly as he forced himself to remain kneeling upright.

“NO! Stop it!” I shouted hysterically, tears blurring my vision. “Papa, please! Stop! This is my fault! I forced him! I seduced him first! Please, don't hurt him!”

Papa turned slowly toward me. His eyes, which used to always look at me with full affection, were now empty and lifeless. He gestured to the guards holding me.

Roughly, the guard released me, pushing my body so that I fell flat onto the cold stone floor, exactly three steps away from where Enzo was bound.

My knees hit the floor hard, triggering a sharp pain, but I didn't care. I crawled forward wanting to touch Enzo, to release the chains binding his wrists until they were scraped and bloody.

“Don't come any closer, Selena, or I will order them to cut off his hands right now,” Papa threatened casually.

My movement stopped instantly. My hand hung in the air, only a few inches away from Enzo's face.

Enzo looked at me. In the middle of the pain that must have been tormenting him, he looked at me with a gentleness that was in stark contrast to this hellish situation.

He shook his head slowly, so slowly that it was almost invisible. Don't fight him, Selena. Stay away from me, that was what I heard from his pair of blue eyes.

“Give me the whip,” Papa ordered one of the executioners standing in the corner of the room.