Hooked on You

I'm in the Mafia

Dimitri led Scarlett down several staircases and through different hallways each darker than the last, to a secret section of the mansion she had not even known existed until now. 

As the pair stood before the large iron-plated door before them he turned to face her, brushing a strand of her long dark blonde hair out of her eye affectionally.

“This is it baby, no turning back now.” he spoke calmly, maintaining eye contact with the woman he was so fond of. 

“Once you go through this door all bets are off... You still game?”

Peering past him Scarlett had to admit that she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted to do this. 

She got a terrible feeling from this place and feared learning more about who Dimitri really was, what he did and why those two men had been dragged in by his men with black sacks over their heads. 

That there was an obvious hint on its own.

But she couldn’t help being curious… she had to know. 

If they had any real chance at maintaining some sort of healthy a relationship as husband and wife, she needed to know who she was marrying.

“Open the door Dimitri.” she spoke with her expression void of emotion.

With a quiet sigh he reached forward with a closed fist and banged three times on the iron door.

‘BANG, BANG, BANG’…

She could feel her pulse thumping over and over in her head now as she waited nervously beside her fiancé for whatever was behind it to appear. 

After a moment or two there was suddenly a ‘clanking’ sound and the iron door slowly creaked open with a high-pitched squeal revealing a familiar face.

“Gabrielle?” she asked with surprise.

“Boss, what’s she doing down here?” Dimitri’s second in command asked with a frown as he looked to Dimitri for answers.

“Scarlett here wants to know what it is that I do for a living. I thought it was time we showed her.” Dimitri explained with a small smirk.

“Seriously?” Gabrielle asked disbelievingly. 

“Uh, you sure about this boss? I mean, it’s not really something a lady should ever have to see, you know?”

Dimitri glanced sideways at his beautiful and clearly terrified fiancé as he replied. 

“Your concern is duly noted Gabrielle. Now stand aside.”

Keeping his grey eyes on Scarlett, Gabrielle slowly shook his head as he stepped back and opened the door wide enough for them to pass through as instructed. 

Reaching out Dimitri took her by the hand and began to lead her in through the doorway, his second in command closing the iron door behind them with a loud ‘clunk’.

Just inside of the iron door was yet another dark corridor which appeared to be lined with bright red fluorescent lights along both edges of the floor. 

The lights gave the corridor an ominous and horrifying feel and it led all the way up to yet another iron door, but this one had been painted red. 

Beside it was another door which led into a small adjoining room.

As they walked silently beside one another Scarlett flinched as the shrill sound of a terrified scream sounded from the other side of the red door in front of them. 

Dimitri could feel her hesitation as her hazel eyes went wide and her hand squeezed his. 

Then came the sound she could only describe as meat hitting something hard over and over, a repetitive thumping sound mixed with a squelch upon impact.

That couldn’t be anything good she deduced.

As they stopped before the red door Scarlett watched as her fiancé turned to the side and reached for the handle of the side door instead, then proceeding to push it open and revealing the small room inside with a large window running along one side of it. 

As he urged her inside with his hand placed at the lower of her back, she stepped up to the landscape window and her entire body suddenly froze in terror, her heart immediately skipped a beat at what she was now witnessing.

A man was currently being tortured!

Scarlett knew exactly what the mysterious repetitive thumping sound was as she watched on helplessly from behind an apparent two-way mirror. 

The adjoining room behind the red door appeared to be some kind of hidden torture chamber or something.

As she looked around the room Scarlett sucked in a sharp breath of air as her eyes fixated on the man she recognised as Diego, one of Dimitri’s best henchmen currently laying into another man who appeared to be cuffed to a steel chair by his wrists and ankles in the middle of the large darkened room. 

With his long white sleeves rolled up above his thick, muscular elbows you could clearly see all of his tattoos which ran down from his arm and across the top of his hand. 

Diego had his face scrunched up as he continued his round of brutal assault on the restrained captive who could do nothing but sit there and take everything he had to give, one thump after the next.

“Oh my god.” she whispered to herself, blinking in disbelief at what she was watching.

Tears pricked behind her eyes, threatening to form as her mouth remained wide open with horror at this incredible act of violence. 

Her breaths suddenly became more rapid and shallow as she tried to control her obvious panic and remain calm, for her fiancé’s sake.

“What the hell have you brought me down here to see Dimitri?” she turned to face her fiancé now, her eyes wide with shock and unanswered questions. 

“What is all of this?”

Dimitri shrugged his shoulders as he made his announcement to her.

“I’m in the Mafia, Scarlett.”

“What?”

“I’m a Crime Lord, or Mafia Boss if you’d like.” he gestured toward Gabrielle adding, “These men all work for me.”

She couldn’t breathe. 

As she blinked over and over, struggling to process what she had just been told Scarlett couldn’t say a single word in response as she looked to Gabrielle for confirmation. 

He merely shrugged his shoulders too with a frightening smile. 

She couldn’t believe it.

Swallowing hard she turned back around to face the two-way mirror and the scene of obvious torture being displayed before them on the other side of the thick glass. 

Now she wished she had refused to learn more about the man she thought she loved. 

How could she stay with him now, after learning something so disturbing, so sadistic? 

How could she condone such unnecessary acts of violence and look away willingly?

She wasn’t the type of person to let something like this slide.

As she stood there, silently processing everything she had been told and shown in the past ten minutes Scarlett could feel his sudden warmth as he moved in behind her and wrapped both of his arms around her as a gesture of his affection for her. 

Leaning in over her shoulder and pressing the side of his face against hers she could feel the brush of his stubble he spoke with his usual deepened tone.

“Now you know what I am, baby. Does it scare you?” he asked, squeezing tightly around her possessively.

“Yes…” she muttered softly as a tear rolled down her left cheek.

Scarlett couldn’t formulate a lie in her state of shock, replying almost immediately while she was forced to continue watching this pointless display of aggression play out before her very eyes.

“I… I don’t… understand… why are you doing this to him?” she asked desperately. 

“What could he have possibly done to warrant such a heinous act?”

“This one in particular…” he gestured with a nod of his chin. 

“He borrowed money from the wrong people, baby.”

“So he deserves to be beaten to death?” 

She turned her head to the side with furrowed brows, as if baffled by his logic. 

“Are you shitting me right now?”

Dimitri gave a small chuckle, shaking his head as he replied to her smoothly.

“No baby, just taught a lesson. Diego and Marco will probably break both his legs and then let him go soon anyway. Looks like we got here just in time to see the good stuff.”

She could hear as Gabrielle gave a small chuckle at his boss’ comment from where he stood beside Dimitri.

“Yeah, the other one didn’t last long before he passed out in shock… f*****g tosser.” the second in command added with a grin. 

“We’re hoping that this one lasts a little longer than his companion did. Those sons of bitches did a real number on us, luckily we caught them before they managed to flee the country.”

Turning her head back to face the mirror Scarlett felt her stomach roll as she realised the truth; her fiancé had a dark side which he had managed to successfully hide from her up until now. 

And it terrified her!

Then, just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, everything turned to s**t…