Burgundy Ladders of Rivalry

“Talk.” I commanded as soon as I dropped the metal pipe on the ground.

I sat in front of the man fighting for his life out of my face. Eyes are half-closed, broken nose, shattered lips, and almost a cracked skull.

And it was even more satisfying when he coughed blood and attempted to spit it to me.

But he could not even open his mouth to the fullest, which made me chuckle amidst his misery.

“Either you’ll run your mouth or break yourself open, mijo. Your choice,” Sinistre calmly whispered to the man tied on the chair, while pulling his hair as if removing his entire head from that wounded body.

His screams echoed in the room when Sinistre pressed his open wounds with the gun’s mouth, pushing it to the deepest core.

I stared at the man for a few more seconds while watching his eyes get wet, not only from that nasty red liquid coming out from his cuts, but also from the clear tears flowing in his cheeks.

The blood, sweat, and tears all over his damn face.

But he chose it for himself—when he decided to pick the wrong side of the court, thinking that he had the advantage.

In annoyance, I closed my eyes and the next thing I know, another series of screams echoed together with the slam of the cold steel on his bare skin.

“Stop! I’ll tell you what I know!” he shouted before another blow landed on his body, now laid flat on the floor while still tied on the chair.

I kept the pipe in my hands, as I stared at him intently while meeting his pleading eyes.

With a simple nudge of my foot on his body, I made him face me from the ground.

I smiled, full of mockery. “Whenever you are ready.”

Sinistre effortlessly pulled him up and arranged his seat to level my line of vision. I once again sat in front of him, waiting for his next words.

“Francisco Talianzo,” he said almost like a whisper. “He killed his wife to take over her inheritance. Alyana’s wealth was all he ever wanted.”

Still keeping my mouth shut, I glanced at Sinistre whose face immediately turned red as soon as he heard that thing again. That name again.

Turning on my earpiece, I uttered a command. “Take Nightshade out of the room now.”

Seconds only passed, Snapdragon entered the room and tried to pull Sinistre from this interrogation.

He only paid one last look at me with his evidently aching and sore eyes as if telling me something, before storming himself out with Bellafiore.

Looking back to whom we identified as Levi, Franscisco Talianzo’s middleman, and the one who also cleans after his boss, all mercy I have left eventually faded in seconds.

Alyana was a good person, and they killed her mercilessly.

“Where is he heading to?”

He looked at me with fear drawn all over his face, and worry evident from the orbs of his eyes. I can see his contemplation, whether to betray the hand that feeds him or save everything he’s got.

“I can’t, please. He will kill my family,” he pleaded once again with tears flowing from his cheeks. “Please, let me go. I have to get to my family.”

And he begged over and over again.

I inched the gap between us and deeply looked at him for a few seconds.

Even when I have my mask on, I made sure to pierce him right through his soul, entering the deepest conscience lurking inside him.

His mouth automatically closed, his eyes focused on mine. I clutched every remaining sanity he had, every bit of what was working in his body. I took all of it, and made him look like a mad man.

“You will tell me where Francisco Talianzo is heading to, what more he wants to get from Alyana, and everything you know about his plan,” I paused and touched his chin to match my face. “And I’ll guarantee the safe lives of your wife and child.”

“Get his wife on the line,” I heard Bellafiore’s voice from my earpiece.

Levi shook his head with overwhelming fear. “You don’t know him!”

“And you don’t know us,” I said as I stood up, preparing to warm my pipe up again.

The fact that he tried to save Francisco first before minding his family says a lot. He was a middleman before he became a husband and a father.

That is so messed up.

His beseeching words started to fill up the entire room again. But before I could even land a hit on his leg, another voice infiltrated our one-on-one talk through a speaker.

“Levi?” a woman’s voice can be heard from the line.

His face immediately softened, his eyes cried a river from that one word echoing from the speaker.

I rolled my eyes in annoyance and threw the metal pipe on another side, as I calmly listened to them.

“Levi, where are you?” she started to stutter as her voice rattle. “A woman came into our house. She said that you are not coming home tonight, and you are in some sort of danger. Where are you?”

But he remained quiet, as his flaming eyes locked into mine. He knows what it means, I am sure of it.

Levi cleared his throat before speaking. “Trish? Where’s our little bean?”

“She’s sleeping, Levi. Where are you? Why are you not coming home yet? Please, you’re making me damn worried!” Trisha sounded like she was clutching the phone from the other side.

Levi’s eyes did not leave mine, as I did the same.

“I am fine. I’ll be there tomorrow morning. I just need to get some things done, and I’ll come home to you, to our little bean, okay?” Levi tried his best not to falter while talking with his wife.

“Are you sure?” she asked from the other line, finally calming her voice down. “Come home, Levi.”

“I will.”

“I’ll hide you and your family from Talianzo’s men until you are safe,” I said as soon as the line ended. “You just have to choose.”

Just as I was about to leave the room, his decision stopped me from going out.