Chapter 5 Chapter 5

Adriano De Costa

The dungeon light is dim, and the air smells of rust and blood. A man is tied to a chair, his face bruised, blood running from his nose.

“The consignment was mine. It had my mark, and it crossed borders it should not have crossed. It reached another man.”

My voice echoes off the walls. That alone is unforgivable.

The man does not meet my eyes. He already knows who I am.

“Tell me who redirected it,” I say.

Silence.

I grab a chair and sit in front of him. I pull a knife from my pocket and wrap my hand around his fingers. Without warning, I cut off his index finger.

His scream rips through the room. It is raw and animal, scraping against the walls. Blood hits the floor, dark against the concrete. He thrashes in the chair, chains rattling, breath breaking into jagged pieces.

I lean closer.

“I need the fucking name,” I say, my voice steady, almost bored.

I chop off his middle finger. The finger rests in my hand as he struggles. His scream collapses into a broken growl. His body shakes, shoulders jerking as pain strips him down to instinct. He is not brave anymore. He is not loyal. He is just a man trying not to drown in his own suffering.

“Please… Adriano… please,” he sobs.

I bend in front of him, close enough for him to see there is no mercy in my eyes.

“You do not get to say my name unless you earn it,” I tell him quietly. “Now speak.”

He gasps, tears spilling freely, words tearing themselves out of his throat.

“Zahmir Petrov,” he cries. “It was Zahmir Petrov. He took it.”

Zahmir Petrov.

Good.

I straighten my cuffs, already finished with the man in the chair.

“You see,” I say over my shoulder, “this would have ended much faster if you had respected me from the beginning.”

I walk away.

Behind me, his screams continue. Not because of the pain anymore, but because he finally understands the truth.

Uncle Cosimo waits by the entrance with several men.

“Release him and let him go,” Cosimo says calmly. “People need to know what happens when they try to mess with Adriano De Costa.”

__

When I arrive at the Bellagio, night has already settled over the city. The lights outside glow gold and sharp, reflecting power and money. I do not stop to admire it. I go straight to my suite.

The elevator closes behind me, sealing the silence. The room smells clean and expensive, nothing like the dungeon I left behind. I walk to the minibar and pour myself a glass of whiskey. The liquid burns as it goes down, grounding me.

I sit on the couch, loosening my cuffs, letting my head fall back for a moment. My body is calm, but my mind is still sharp, still restless. Violence always leaves something behind. A tension that does not fade easily.

I take out my phone and type a short message to Lucia.

If you are free, come to my suite.

I stare at the screen for a second before locking the phone. Tonight, I need distraction. Something human to satisfy me.  After what I did to that man, silence is not enough.

I sit alone in the Bellagio suite, the Vegas skyline bruised lavender through the triple-glazed glass, and the last of a GlenDronach eighteen-year trickles over my tongue while ice knocks once against enamel. Amber light fractures across the rings on my knuckles, inked grins of wolves and Latin vows, promises broken long before they were burned into flesh. I don’t bother with the lamp; dusk itself is enough, a thin haze that hides the blood under my fingernails from the day’s negotiations. Across the marble coffee table, three burner phones lie dark. Silent. Obedient. Like everything should be.

The elevator dings open and Lucia glides in, ponytail slicing air. She moves like a scalpel—swift, surgical, her white mini dress and apron starched to armor brightness against my gloom. The corridor hallway frames her for a second: a pale, vengeful angel on wages. She closes the door softly, but the latch still sounds like a verdict.

Her dark eyes sweep the room, cataloguing lowball glasses, stray cufflinks, the shattered crystal tumbler I hurled at lunch. The corner of her mouth twitches—approval or condemnation, impossible to tell, but my pulse answers either way. She steps closer, flats whispering over the carpet, and folds her hands in front of the apron bow. The posture is formal, but the lack of personal space is intimate.

“Can I do anything?” she asks.

Her voice is smoke at midnight, the accent of south-side Chicago clipped by a lifetime of pretending she belongs anywhere but. She watches me watch her, and the air compresses. She knows the parameters of this job—order, discretion, invisibility—yet here she is volunteering, twenty minutes after Bridget disappeared. The offer hums like a wire between us.

I swirl the last sip, let it burn, and place the glass down with a chink that echoes too loud. My thighs are spread, ankles crossed. The shadow between my legs is hers if she wants it. I open my mouth, taste the word before I say it.

“Suck me.”

For half a heartbeat the room could shatter; then Lucia’s pupils widen with a predator’s delight. No pretense of shock—only the flash of triumph she thinks I won’t notice. She lowers herself, knees kissing the plush area rug, palms sliding up the rough wool of my slacks. Her nails graze the inside seam, a scalpel turned feather. My muscles contract involuntarily, cock already thickening under slate-gray fabric.

She meets my gaze again, a slow dare, and unbuckles the slim Ferragamo belt. The leather hisses free; she lays it across the ottoman with anal precision, then snaps the button, draws down the zipper. My erection lifts, heavy, ridged veins mapping the route to ruin. Our breath is the only sound.

Lucia wraps her hand around the base—cool fingers, furnace intentions—and drags her thumb up the underside, collecting the bead of pre-cum that wells at the tip. She studies it like evidence before smearing it across her bottom lip, gloss doubled, shine for shine. A filthy thank-you I never asked for.

Then she bends.

Hot mouth seals over me—no gentle kiss, she dives, swallowing until her nose grazes the coarse shadow hair at my root. My head kicks back, spine bowing. Velvet throat contracts; she hums, a satisfied little note vibrating down my shaft. She pulls back slowly, suction deliberate, and I feel the pop when my crown escapes.

“You show off,” I grunt, reaching to gather that platinum tail. The silk knots around my fist like a whip. She only opens wider when I tug, eyes watering yet gleaming with power. I yank her down again, setting the pace, rough, relentless. Saliva spills, glistening down her chin, spotting the apron she bleached this morning.

Ruination made visible; both of us get off on that evidence.

I feel the itch at the base of my spine, that warm fuse coaxing me to finish down her throat, but tonight I crave more chaos, more territory. I twist my wrist, jerking her free. She gasps, lipstick erased, cheeks blotched crimson and white.

I’m already moving.

Fingers bite into her shoulders; I pivot, shove her forward until her palms hit the couch cushion. Her dress rides up instantly—white cotton stretched across an ass shaped by a thousand judgmental squats. No underwear; the outline of her cunt lips wedges beneath the hem, curved and ready. A smear of cream betrays her; the brat came to work wet.

“Stay,” I growl, though she already kneels, vertebrae fragile under my spread palm. I spit once, a deliberate thread that lands hot across the tiny rosette of her asshole. She jolts, breath hissing.

“Boss please…” she taunts, voice shredded but defiant.

Spite is foreplay. I slap her ass with the full flat of my hand—compressed sound, blooming crimson print. She arches, offers more.

I line up behind her, grip my cock slick from her mouth, and press the head against that tight seam. Resistance burns deliciously—my crown pops through the first ring and her curse ricochets off Italian leather. She digs her nails into throw pillows, knuckles blanching.

I drive forward in one merciless lunge until my hips press flesh to flesh. The air leaves her lungs; mine follows. I hold, let her feel the stretch, the claim, the pulsing vein running along my shaft that says I’m alive and lethal. Then I fuck her.

Hard.

My hand finds the ponytail again, reins of a thoroughbred; I wrench her head back and piston, the slap of skin on skin a metronome for every unsaid threat between employer and maid. She grinds back to meet me—calculating, fierce—murmuring obscenities that scrape my ears raw.

“Fuck, Daddy…split me—use this hole…”

I lean over, teeth closing on the shell of her ear. “You want to come, little witch? Ask pretty.”

She sobs, thighs quivering. “Please…Adriano…”

I snake a hand beneath her hips, circle her clit with ruthless pressure. Once, twice, counter-rhythm to my cock destroying her ass. The strain cinches my balls; she convulses around me, channel clenching so tight my vision tunnels white.

A single chime—delicate, dissonant—cuts through our animal duet. Elevator arrival.

Time stalls. Lucia snaps her head toward the foyer and gasps, but the motion only sheathes me deeper. I turn, sweating, cock still buried, and there stands Bridget.

The corridor light frames her in reverse silhouette—black hair loose, black shirt clinging to the slim architecture of her ribs, skinny denim soaked at the cuffs from casino fountain mist. Her black heels dangle in her left hand; she must have run. Eyes wide, she absorbs the tableau: Lucia arched, apron askew, my inked forearm branding her hip, my hips welded to her ass.

Bridget’s lips part, a weapon loading. Her cheeks flood scarlet that spreads to throat and collarbone, flushing cheeks, flaring so bright even the shadows step back. For a pulse she meets my gaze—shock, hunger, devastated pride swirl like smoke—and then she pivots, heel squeaking on marble.

“I’m waiting downstairs. Tell me when you’re done,” she says instantly and get in the elevator. The door shuts before Lucia’s broken moan even finishes leaving her throat.

Exit light clicks off; we’re left with the afterburn of Bridget’s silhouette, an afterimage branded on my optic nerves. My heart jackhammers so loud I’m certain the Strip three floors down can feel the bass.

Lucia exhales a tremor. “Keep going,” she whispers, contracting deliberately around my cock. “Finish what you paid for.”

Rage, desire, shame, whatever this cocktail is called, rockets through me. I drag out slow, eyes locked on the elevator door Bridget vanished through. I slam back in, fuck Lucia until the couch skids inches across parquet, until tears stripe mascara down the curve of her nose, until my throat tastes copper. My orgasm detonates so hard I black out a second; I spurt thick and endless, muscle memory emptying inside her clenched, sore ass. Pulse after pulse of ownership confused with grief. I stay locked there, hips jerking in the aftermath, ears buzzing like sirens.

Silence gapes. My hands open; Lucia collapses forward, legs visibly twitching. The rug drinks my cum as she stands on unstable knees, rearranging uniform, smoothing apron, re-tying defiled ribbons. Her gaze flicks to the elevator, then to me, a question neither of us wants answered tonight.

“You’ll clean the suite,” I mutter, voice foreign, wiping sweat from my beard.

Lucia nods, mechanical again, the scalpel back in its velvet case. “Including the evidence,” she answers, hoarse. She scoops the soaked hem of her dress between two fingers and disappears toward the kitchen corridor, hips still swaying though speed and purpose mitigate the tremor. The door hisses shut.

I fix my pants, buckle, pocket the whiskey-stiff belt. My chest heaves with breath I cannot settle, heartbeat drumming Bridget’s name. I taste her absence more acutely than I tasted Lucia’s mouth.

Darkness outside is total now, neon stars the only constellations Vegas grants. Downstairs, floor level two, Bridget waits—I feel her pulse as if we share an artery. I retrieve the revolver from the side table drawer, check the chamber out of habit, click it shut. Then I pocket my key card, step into the foyer, finger hovering over the elevator call.