Chapter 2 Bastard Daughter

• Van Dyke’s POV
• Today was one of those days, everything had been going wrong, from the missing shipments and weapons to finding out that one of my high-ranked men had fucking betrayed me.
• The traitor was bound to the chair in front of me, his breathing ragged from the beating he had received. His swollen lips quivered as he tried to speak, spitting blood with each word.
• “Please believe me boss, I didn't mean to w-work with the enemy!”
• My hand flexed around the hilt of my double-edged blade. My most recent acquisition, which was made from the finest steel.
• It was what I loved the most about blades, the beautiful sparkle, how something so pure could easily be stained with blood.
• Guns were for a quick death. Fists were for amateurs. But a blade. . . It peels back the mask and showed me exactly what a man is made of. It delivered death in the most torturous ways.
• “Boss, He threatened me, Don Piccolo forced me…”
• My fingers stilled on the sharp end of my blade.
• That name.
• It was a fucking curse, it sounded like a rotting disease in my ear, and to hear it spoken in my domain, from the lips of this rat was unforgivable.
• “Piccolo forced you?” I repeated, taking a slow drag of my tobacco pipe, the smoke curling lazily in the stale air was calm against the violence that was coiling beneath my skin.
• “You insult me further with your excuses. Do you know why betrayal disgusts me more than anything else, Anthony?”
• He shook his head, still trembling in his chair.
• My voice was calm as I caressed his hair softly, after all, he was once a face I trusted the most.
• “Because betrayal doesn’t come from an enemy. It comes from inside and it wears my colors, breathes my air and eats at my table. And then it thinks it can spit in my face and crawl away alive.”
• I tilted my knife toward his chest and sliced slowly across his ribs.
• He jerked against the rope, but he couldn't escape from the binds as I sliced deeper.
• The warm blood coating my knife was like a painter’s dream. Beautiful.
• “B-Boss please…”
• “You thought yourself untouchable.” I raised my eyes to the circle of my men watching me punish this traitor.
• “Tell me, boys, are any of you untouchable?”
• “No, Boss,” They chorused.
• I met the snitch’s frightened eyes once again as he continued to plead for a mercy that would never come.
• “I should carve you myself. But tonight… the young ones need a lesson.”
• My eyes darted to my youngest recruits, their hands still shook when they held steel. They needed to learn.
• I pointed my weapon at the smallest one. He was twenty, his body was shaking even before I spoke.
• “Come forward.”
• He stiffened, but knew not to hesitate.
• I placed the knife in his hand and his fingers closed around it reluctantly, his face pale.
• “Tonight, you carve out this lesson. You will cut open this man’s chest. And you will rip out his heart.” I gave him the order, patting his shoulder encouragingly.
• A small gasp rippled in the warehouse and the boy stared at me in horror. “Boss… I don’t know how…”
• I seized his chin, forcing his eyes to mine. I let him see it, the madness burning there, the hunger.
• My smile widened, soft and terrifying.
• “If you can’t cut him, boy, I will cut you. And the next one will carve your heart instead. Do you understand?”
• He nodded frantically, his body was still trembling, but he knelt before the traitor who was thrashing and begging now.
• “Boss, no, please, please! I’ll fix it, I’ll make it right…”
• I laughed, taking another drag of my tobacco “You can’t fix betrayal, Anthony. You cut it out. Do it now boy!”
• The knife went in and the boy sobbed while the man who had fucking betrayed me screamed, blood poured over the blade, hot and thick, splattering everywhere.
• He almost dropped the knife, but my hand tightened on his shoulder.
• “Deeper, feel it tearing. Listen to the sound. That is loyalty breaking.” I whispered, revelling in the sound of the blade sawing against bone.
• Fuck.
• This was turning me on.
• “Good,” I murmured, my lips curling as Anthony convulsed, choking on his own blood as his chest was carved open.
• “Now spread. Dig. Take what belongs to me.” I commanded the trembling boy, his hand plunged inside the torn chest. His scream joined Anthony’s as his fingers closed around the beating heart.
• He wrenched it free with a sickening rip.
• Anthony slumped dead, the organ pulsed once, twice, then died in the boy’s hands.
• The room was silent, and only the drip of blood hitting concrete echoed.
• I stepped forward, touching the heart with my fingertips, and my grin split wide.
• “This is the price of betrayal. The heart always belongs to me.” I whispered, lifting my bloodied hand for all of them to see.
• No one spoke. Not one breath dared disturb me, because tonight I carved a truth into them all.
• No one is above loyalty. Not a single one of them is untouchable.
• Not while I am Alexander Van Dyke.
• *
• *
• The ride back to my mansion was quiet. It was the kind of quiet I loved, the hum of the engine, and the night wind on my face, with the echo of screams still ringing sweetly in my ears.
• My hands smelt of smoke and blood, and I didn't wash them, not yet.
• Why should I?
• A man should wear his work like cologne.
• Killing that bastard wasn't enough to sate my anger, who knew how many of my men might be working with that Piccolo bastard?
• The large house was quiet, but I had always possessed the intuition to know whenever something was wrong.
• And then I heard it.
• A scream.
• Sharp, feminine, cutting through the house. My fingers clenched around my blade, there was only one possibility, my stupid nephew must have brought another whore into the house after I'd warned him the last time.
• If he didn't learn from my words, maybe my blade would do.
• I followed the sound of the female voice into the guestroom, and what I saw sent my blood boiling in my veins.
• It wasn't just Dante, he had brought his stupid friends along with him.
• They were about to gangbang a whore, did my house look like a fucking cunthouse to them?
• The sound of my gun exploded into the air and I threw my knife at whatever unfortunate target it would land on.
• This instantly earned their attention.
• I didn't bother to look at the whore, I marched over to my nephew by law with all the frustration of the day boiling through me.
• Dante stumbled at the sight of me, his body pressed against the wall as though it might save him.
• “Please, Uncle… I didn’t…”
• The sound of his sniveling voice sparked irritation through me and the word Uncle grated like broken glass in my ears.
• I grabbed his neck, hurling him across the room. His body crashed against the wall, folding like a rag doll.
• The others tried to scramble away, but they were too slow.
• Pathetic.
• Their bones cracked under my fists, their cries drowned by splintering wood.
• My eyes shifted to the girl who was backing away from the violence I had unleashed, her eyes were raw with fear and she was trying to cover her body with scraps of clothes.
• She looked familiar. Too familiar that my blood froze and all my movement stilled except for the frantic beating of my heart.
• I looked at her, stuck in a trancelike state.
• The cheekbones, the softness of her jaw. Everything about her face pulled at a memory I hated.
• Martina.
• Martina Piccolo.
• The poisonous little viper who had smiled at me, lured me in, then spat betrayal in my face.
• No. I blinked, grinding my teeth. Martina’s had been green, wicked with laughter, venom hiding behind every sparkle. This one’s eyes were brown, wide and trembling, like a deer before the kill.
• But still. The resemblance was enough to claw at me.
• “Who the fuck is this whore?” I snarled, my voice dripping with suspicion. My hand tangled in Dante’s hair, jerking him off the floor.
• He squealed, begged, whimpered. And I found every second of it disgusting and pathetic.
• “I…I thought you knew her,” He stuttered, panic flooding his voice as he gazed from me to the whore who had backed away to a corner. “Isn’t she Marti—”
• The slap I gave him echoed in the room, his cheek split red under my palm.
• “Idiot. Don’t you dare speak that name in front of me.”
• My hand still gripped Dante’s hair, but my eyes were locked on her.
• She made a sound then, it was barely a whisper, yet it struck me deeper than a scream.
• “I’m not a whore. I'm also not Martina Piccolo, I’m Roxanne, the bastard daughter of Don Piccolo"
• I watched in disbelief as her hand lifted to her hair, the blonde fell away to reveal dark curly hair that tumbled over her partially naked form.