Chapter 36 THIS MAN.
\~~~RAINA.
“L… lies?” I swallowed the lump in my throat as I glanced at the man in the middle of the room before I averted my gaze back to him.
“That man there, sunshine, committed a very heinous crime,” Luciano started as he circled me slowly.
“W… what did he…” I cleared my throat.
“What did he do?”
“He lied.”
Wait… that man is tied up because he… lied?
I mean, he just said something that wasn’t the truth?!
My eyes widened, I asked. “Are you shitting me?”
“He lied, sunshine, he betrayed the very little trust I have in him.”
Luciano’s voice was soft, too soft in fact. It was like the kind a person used when they were holding back something far darker. He didn’t shout, he didn’t even look angry. He looked… bored.
Which was worse.
I forced myself to look at the man again. He looked older than I expected. Maybe late forties, or early fifties. His shirt was torn and blood was drying on his jaw. His chest rose and fell with small, uneven breaths.
His eyes were swollen, but the moment he noticed me looking, he jerked his head up.
“Madam, please! Please tell him… tell him I didn’t…”
A sharp whistle cut through the air. Luciano didn’t even look at the man but Viktor moved instead. He stepped forward and gripped the man’s hair so tightly his scream echoed through the high, metal ceiling.
“Do not address her.” Viktor hissed into his ear.
I flinched so hard my hand flew to cover my mouth and Luciano chuckled.
“Sunshine,” he stepped behind me again, his hands reaching for my shoulder.
I flinched away, but he grabbed me anyway, pulling me back flush into his chest.
“He lied,” he repeated, as if that explained everything. “And in my world… one lie can cost hundreds of lives.”
My brows pulled together. “So… so you kill people just because they say something you don’t like?”
A dark laugh slipped from him and it was quiet, and mocking.
“Oh, no, baby,” he leaned down until his mouth brushed the shell of my ear. “If I killed people for saying things I don’t like, some people would have died months ago.”
My breath froze.
He was not talking about my family and me, right?
I mean, there’s no way he knows about us, right?
This man meant his words, I could hear it in his tone.
Luciano stepped around me, walking toward the man tied to the chair.
The men standing around the warehouse parted for him instantly with their heads bowed, and shoulders rigid. Even Viktor took a step back.
Luciano didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t threaten him, and he didn’t posture like villains in movies.
He simply crouched in front of the man, his fingers gripping his jaw with an ease that made phlegm rise in my throat.
“You had one job,” he said quietly. “One.”
“Boss, please… they… they forced me… my family…”
“Ah,” Luciano’s smile sharpened. “So, you lied again.”
I felt dizzy. This was… this was insane.
This wasn’t one of the mafia stories I had seen on Netflix.
This was real, and it was crazy.
Luciano stood upright, dusting off his hands as if the man disgusted him.
Then, he turned to me.
“Sunshine,” his voice dropped an octave, smooth and terrifying. “Do you know the worst kind of liar?”
I shook my head slowly.
“The kind who thinks he can outsmart me. I love playing their games so much.”
He snapped his fingers, and instantly, two of his men broke formation from the line near the wall. They didn’t say a word as their boots thudded against the metal floor as they walked toward the tied man.
One man moved behind the prisoner and the other bent in front of him.
“Please…please, no!” the man begged, his voice already shaking.
The guard behind him fisted a hand in his hair and yanked his head back, exposing his throat.
The other man grabbed the prisoner’s jaw, forcing it open just as the first pressed a thumb into the man’s shoulder right over a fresh knife wound I hadn’t noticed before.
The reaction was instant.
A raw, animalistic scream tore through the warehouse, echoing off concrete, and vibrating through the metal beams overhead. I felt it in my ribs, like the sound punched straight through me.
The other men around the room didn’t flinch.
None of them felt bothered by this bullshit, fuck!
They just stood straighter, silent and disciplined, their eyes fixed ahead.
This was too normal to them.
Luciano finally stepped beside me, lowering his voice to a whisper near my ear.
“That,” he murmured, “was mercy.”
“Luciano!” I gasped, stepping back until my spine hit the railing behind me. “Stop. Stop! At least… at least let him explain!”
He raised a brow at me. “Explain?”
“Yes!” I cried. “People make mistakes! You can’t just… You can’t just kill them because…”
“Because?” he repeated.
My heart thudded violently.
“Because they are human.”
There was dead, and heavy silence.
Then, Luciano smiled at me.
A slow, chilling smile that felt like cold was crawling up my neck.
“Oh, babygirl,” he murmured. “You still think mercy exists here?”
He snapped his fingers again.
This time… the screaming didn’t stop.
Terrified, I realized, with my breath shaking, and my stomach twisting, that I didn’t know this man at all.
Not even a little.