Page 26 of Tainted Blood
Our degradation is to be a public spectacle here in Creepsville, Italy.
The next few minutes are the worst of my life. I count off every torturous meter as old men jeer at us from the doorways and women shout vile foreign words and slap and pinch our skin as we stumble past them. Their hate for us is tangible, but there’s not much of ‘us’ to warrant such animosity. Stripped of our underwear, our shoes, our families’ protection, we’re about as threatening as the lark from our window ledge.
“Why the fuck are they doing this?” Lola gasps, her face white with fear.
“We’re our father’s atonement,” Rosalia mutters. “Our families disgust them. We’re the reason why their harvests fail, or why their kids never make it into the right college… That’s what he tells them, anyway, and they revere him like a fucking god. He turns us into mafia scapegoats to justify what really goes on around here.”
“Are you talking about the guy in the courtyard?”
Before she can answer, she’s ducking to avoid a thrown bottle. It smashes next to us, and another girl cries out in pain as the broken pieces cut her feet to ribbons.
“They call him Il Re Nero, The Black King. But others call him by his birth name—Lorenzo Zaccaria. He sells our bodies to the highest bidder to fund his secret criminal organization. The men who pay the most get to take us into Il Labirinto and do whatever the hell they want with us.”
Holy shit.
“You mean—?”
“Silenzio,” growls a nearby guard again, giving me another rough shove that pitches me forward into the girl in front.
This time when I glance at my fellow captives, I do so with fresh eyes. Rosalia isn’t the only one here sporting whip marks and bruises, smashed up souls and burned-out courage. This is so much worse than being sold to one cruel bastard. We’re about to be trapped in a cycle of hell. We’re going to be used and abused until death is a mercy.
Find us Santi. Hurry.
Kill them all, pápa. Violently.
The grim procession continues into the next street.
Something wet and warm hits my bare shoulder. Did someone just spit at me? I stagger sideways in shock and, once again, Lola is there to steady me.
We didn’t need Rosalia’s warning. We’re smart enough not to react to the abuse. We swallow down our humiliation like it’s a bad meal, knowing we can puke it up later, but others in our group aren’t so restrained. One girl tries to break formation and she’s dragged back by her hair and beaten right in front of us, her screams and pleas prompting a round of applause.
What is this place?
Something unlocks inside me again as I watch the cobblestones run red with her blood.
With each new punch and kick, I feel that same shadow unfurling in the pit of my stomach. By the time we reach la piazza cittadina, the town square, I’m shaking from my efforts to contain it.
There’s a new crowd waiting for us here, one that reeks of a refined brutality that promises to crush us even more. No women. Just men, dressed like Il Re Nero—their black suits accessorized with black masquerade masks to conceal their own evil. There are more crimson key symbols on their lapels. Every house we passed had that same motif carved in stone above the doorways.
We’re led like cattle onto a wooden platform in the center of the square. Right away, I move to stand in front of Lola.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hisses, trying to pull me back.
“If anyone’s being chosen today, it’s me.”
“Bullshit!”
“Think of the baby, Lola,” I mutter, and her breath hitches sharply.
Before she can respond, Il Re Nero steps into the square. He’s not alone. There’s a man walking next to him, so short in comparison he’s barely a footnote, wearing a crumpled blue suit, black-rimmed glasses, and the same punchable, rat-like face that, once upon a time, I joked to my husband about.
No. It can’t be…
Lola’s seen him too, judging by all the angry Spanish going on behind me.
Monroe Spader.
Santi’s ex-business partner.