Love is Pain

Chapter Sixty

Lord Erik

My phone rang. I picked it up and brought it to my ear. “Lord Erik ,” said a man. The voice was distantly familiar, but I couldn’t place it. The background noise suggested he was in a helicopter or small airplane.

“This is Rapehal. I’m calling to tell you we have your brother and we’re going to enjoy his screams like you enjoyed Bella ’s. Tell your men to set up a Darknet connection for later so you can watch as we tear him apart. I will enjoy slicing him into tiny pieces.” He hung up.

It took my brain a few moments to process the information. “Call the Sugar Trap and ask if Ibash ’s there,” I ordered.

My soldier frowned but did as he was told. “Is Ibash there?” he asked without a greeting. “Then ask her.”

“Lord Erik , what’s going on?” Ades asked carefully.

My phone beeped with an incoming message with detailed instructions for the connection.

I held it out to Ades , who took it from me, frowning. His mouth tightened when he read what the message said.

“He’s not there. Apparently he left last night. C.J. said he asked her to pretend she was with him because he wanted to join the race.”

I nodded, trying to ignore the way my chest kept constricting.

Ades didn’t say anything, only stared at me. Ades had fixed himself a drink and downed it in one gulp.

Eventually my soldier looked up from the phone. “We won’t be quick enough to save him.”

“There won’t be anything left of him to save when they’re done with him,” I got out, fury and a weaker emotion burning through my veins. Why couldn’t the kid have listened for once? Fuck it.

“Call the captain. Tell him to get the soldiers ready and on standby.”

My soldier nodded, and pressed the phone back to his ear as he walked back and forth in the room.

Ades ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck. We have to do something.”

“Bastard,” Fabiano muttered.

“I will soon make it his fucking fight. For this, I will declare war on him and the flicking Nirvana territory.” Do you want me to set up the connection?” The. Soldier sked quietly.

“Of course,” I growled. “If Ibash has to suffer, we will watch. We will suffer with him. Fuck it all!”

He didn’t move for a moment. Then he nodded slowly.

“We need to figure out where they are taking him,” I told Ades . He knew the Outfit better than any of us

.

“I assume honor dictates that they take him to Nirvana because that’s where her family lives. She wasn’t married to Rapehal yet or they would have taken Ibash to his city to dish out punishment there,” he said.

It would take us at least three hours to reach Nirvana and probably several more hours to figure out where they kept Ibash . The Darknet connection would begin in fifty minutes. I took my phone again and dialed Gabriel ’s number. He rejected the call.

“Fuck him,” I rasped. “Call our pilot. The plane better be ready in twenty minutes or I’ll kill him.”

The soldier made the call and we set out toward the airport.

The plane was ready on time, and we started almost immediately. I tried to call Gabriel again, but he didn’t pick up

.

“It’s his game this time,” Ades murmured after a while. Ades had his face buried in his hands.

“It is,” I agreed. “And he’ll win.”, his eyebrows raised his eyebrows.

“I’ll allow him to put me checkmate.”

“Lord Erik ,” he began, but I smiled grimly and indicated the laptop. “It’s time to turn this on.”

I pressed the blade against my palm when Ibash appeared on the screen. He was slumped forward on a chair.

When they started cutting him, Ibash ’s scream filled the airplane, blaring from the speakers mercilessly, and fuck, they were the first screams in forever that got under my skin.

The first since her screams. I cut into my palm, deep, drawing blood. Ades gripped the armrest of the seat, his arms shaking. My soldier was behind me, one hand digging into my shoulder.

Rapehal was next and took out a lighter. I jumped to my feet, shaking with rage ... so much rage, it threatened to rip me apart. Ibash ’s eyes widened. Fuck, he was a kid. He wasn’t like us. This was supposed to be me. I was supposed to burn for them.

Rapehal touched the flame to Ibash ’s skin, and his screams got louder. I reached for my phone again, knowing that Gabriel would reject my call like before and hating this fucking sense of helplessness. I was supposed to burn for them, for him, and I would.

“Enough!” a female voice rang out, and my eyes snapped back to the screen as Bella threw herself in front of my brother, protecting him. I froze, unable to trust my eyes, to believe that the woman who haunted my nights was really in front of me.

My soldiers and Ades stared at me, as if they waited for me to lose my shit completely.

“Fuck,” Ades murmured, shaking his head.

She hadn’t returned to me like I’d thought she would.

She hated me more than I’d expected, and yet she protected Ibash .

Because he wasn’t the one she wanted to see suffer. She wanted to see me bleed. She would get her wish.

“Lord Erik ?” Nino said in a cautious voice.

I raised the phone to my ear, waiting for the inevitable, but this time it didn’t come. He finally answered my call. “Gabriel , I’ll give you what you really want. Tomorrow morning I’ll be in Nirvana and exchange myself for Ibash .” He didn’t need to know we were already on our way, but maybe he did.

“Lord Erik ,” he said coolly. His eyes focused on the camera for a moment before the screen turned black and Bella and my brother disappeared from view.

“It’s me you want to see burn, not my brother, and you will get your chance.”

“Tomorrow morning, at eight. If you’re late, your brother won’t be recognizable as your brother anymore, understood?”

“Understood.”

“I’ll have someone send you the details, Lord Erik . I’m looking forward to meeting you again,” he said coldly.

I hung up.

“They will kill you, Lord Erik ,” Ades said.

“They will cut me, skin me, burn me, cut off my dick, and then maybe they’ll kill me,” I said quietly. And all I could wonder was if Bella would watch them do it.