Chapter 131 - (Hundred)

The bleak expression on Leo's face remained unscathed, like a murky shadow tinged on his face. A mask of difference, the same one that he commonly used. One he chose to use today because showing the rage he felt would incur him to kill Fabio off before he actually got anything useful. Leo needed Raphael's whereabouts and he had a firm hunch that Fabio knew something, if not everything. 

Seconds trickled by in silence. Two men facing each other, both sitting. One the prisoner, the other a captor. One clean, the other bloody.

" I'm not here to play games, Fabio." Leo's voice still came out cold, icy, despite the rage consuming him, charring him. That rage somehow bled out of him, clawing painfully at the prisoner, Fabio, who seemed to have sprouted balls of steel.

" It's just so hard to take you seriously when you are on that chair." Fabio said, trying to chuckle but the pain eating up the life in his body, morphed it into a groan. A hoarse, agonizing one, and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. He almost passed out.

Leo's eyes tempered, fueling his animosity for Fabio and for that damn wheelchair. He would make sure to set that horrid seat on fire once he makes a full recovery. The only thing truly stopping him from doing it now was Becca. She would get upset if he does that, his violence might make her scared, disturbed even. He just couldn't risk it.

" Where is Raphael?" Leo's spine-chilling voice sounded again in the bleak, gloomy room, resembling the look he had on his face.

" How am I supposed to know? And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you."

Wrong answer. Fabio was trudging into troubled waters. His betrayal was his first mistake.

" I will ask you again, Fabio. Don't be an idiot. Where is Raphael?"

" Go to hell." Fabio hissed.

With all the things Leo had done in his life, he already knew he was going to hell but one thing was for sure and it was that he would send anyone that crossed him there first. 

Leo let out a sigh. As infuriating as the matter was, it was also really boring and he hated things that were boring. It was why he always switched up his torture methods.

" Do you know what I don't understand here? The fact that you were willing to join forces with Raphael to seek vengeance for his father's death when you didn't even like Lazzaro. You wanted him dead, just as much as I did. Why the sudden change of heart?" 

" I can't really." Fabio winced as he flashed a toothy grin. " Like they say. Snitches end up with stitches."

Leo's indifference lagged on. " Traitors get more stitches with Leonardo." 

Fabio, despite the striking red flags, still had about as much sense as the average goat. Stupid. Stubborn but for some reason, Leo found himself admiring the guts of that bastard. Fabio, of all people, knew what the mad king was capable of but yet at the face of death, he still chose to be loyal to the one person who couldn't even free him from that situation.

Leo stared at the blood trickling down from the cut on Fabio's left temple, gliding down, mixing with the more blood and salty sweat cascading his other cuts. Dark strands of hair stuck to his sweating face and Leo could just imagine how much it must hurt, how much it burnt. Leo didn't have to imagine, he remembered even when he did want to. He knew the feeling of sweat on a fresh wound, horrible but familiar. It had been more than twelve years but the memories followed him, haunted him. Tortured him.

" What did Raphael promise you?" Leo asked. It was similar to the last one he asked but at the same time different. Very different. Leo sighed. " After everything I have done for you and your family. For your son. This is how you chose to repay my kindness." 

" Kindness?" Fabio tried to chuckle but it once again came out as a groan. " You and your so-called kindness can burn in hell. There is nothing kind about you, Leonardo. All you did for me, all the things you made me believe you did were nothing but mind games. You didn't didn't want an ally, you wanted a lap dog, for me to gravel at your feet and follow your every command." 

" Why are you acting so sentimental about it, like you aren't even a player in the game or a part of the world we survive in." 

Well, he survived Leo, Fabio would be dead soon.

Leo clutched onto his mask of indifference but in reality, the anger was soaring, slowly clawing its way to the surface where it would be free to wreak havoc, only this time, Leo wasn't interested in the idea of idea of wasting his time responding to petty provocation when there were bigger things to handle. Fabio should have been grateful Leo had that type of mindset, grateful that he was no more than a measly bug in Leo's eyes. Things would have been way worse if it hadn't been the case.

" Is that what you tell yourself to validate all the crimes you have committed?"

" You too have committed quite a lot, if I remember correctly."

Fabio tried to flex his wrist under the thick, burning metal chains binding his hands to the chair, bruising him just with how tight he was tied. It was a lost cause though, he couldn't even move. Trapped and waiting for his punishment to be served. Surely with a man as cruel as Leonardo, the sentence would be much more severe than a good beating.

" Don't compare the both of us, Leonardo. You always say the people you kill are always as bad as you or even worse, right? What about Lazzaro's whore? What did she do? What about Lazzaro? You knew he was innocent but you still killed him anyway."

" And that brings back my questions. Why do you care about Lazzaro's death when you were one of the people praying for him to kick the bucket. You would have killed him yourself if you had the balls to do so then and now that I finally did you all are coming at me with this shit. Perhaps I need to make another example of how people who cross me end up, of the consequences they will face. " 

Hypocrists. All of them. They all hated Lazzaro. They all silently prayed for his death but once Leo took the initiative to do so, all of them gang up on him like power-starved wolves. They were no better than he was. Savages. All of them.

" You have gone too far, Leonardo. You have supporters at your side when you calmed your mafia but at the rate you are going, you are no different from Dominic." 

Dominic.

Leo's body went frigid at the mere mention of that name, at the fact that he was being compared with that bastard. For the first time since their interaction began, an emotion flickered through Leo's eyes.

Rage.

Leo plunged his hand into his trousers pocket. Drawing out his phone, he sent a text.

The deafening silence continued, lacerating Fabio's ears. Leo was speaking anymore and he wondered if his time had finally come. As much as he hated to admit it, he was scared of what Leo was going to do to him. But it was too late for that now.

After staring long and hand, Leo meandered his wheelchair around and headed for the door, leaving Fabio alone. It was a complete waste of time coming here anyway. Leo emerged from the dim cell and stopped right in front of Martino.

" What do you want to do to him, boss?"

Leo tossed one last look at Fabio, scoffing. " Burn him."

The order was sent, the followers obeyed. Men surged into the cell as per Leo's command, unshackling Fabio and hauling him off his chair. He didn't fight back though. Even if he did, it would have been a waste of time. There were a lot of bodyguards and only one of him and if by some miracle, he managed to fight them all, the pains from his wounds wouldn't let him go far. 

He was dragged like a prisoner ready to be executed and perhaps in a way, he was. He was a prison and they were going to execute him but one thing was for sure, and it was he didn't regret turning against Leonardo. He didn't have any form of remorse for doing the one thing that he was being killed for. 

To him, and probably many others, Leo was a bastard who deserved nothing but a painful death, worse than the ones he gave people.

Fabio was taken out of the dungeon building to an open space, the exact spot Leo fed Lazzaro's man to his hound. They kicked Fabio to the ground He fell on his face and before he could make attempts to stand back up, Leo's men drizzled liquid all over him and from the smell spurting into his nostrils, he already guessed what it was.

Petrol.

Fabio raised his gaze from the dusty ground and stared straight at Leo whose lips tilted up slightly into a smirk. He was enjoying this. Seated just ten feet away, all eyes were fixed on him, Leo, waiting for the final order.

They all saw Leo give a nod of approval and before Fabio could register anything, pain jolted through him, burning him. He was lit up on fire. To burn. To die.

He screamed as he rolled on the floor, crying out as the fire kept consuming his flesh, only leaving a never ending trail of pain lingering all over him. This was it all along. This was how Leo planned to kill him. Burn him just like he burnt Lazzaro's body. This was how he was going to die, burnt by the devil himself.

More screams of anguish pierced the air, Leo relished them as he watched Fabio burn, knowing he probably used his last breath to curse him. 

The show was soon over— didn't last long enough— and Leo signaled Martino and the other bodyguards his way. They helped him into his car. Him alone on the backseat, Martino on the passenger's seat and another bodyguard on the driver's seat. They were headed back home.

" When Raphael is finally caught, I will give him the same fate."

The car reached home and Leo was once again helped out by his bodyguard. 

Useless. Weak. That was how their help always made him feel.. Just like what Fabio said, he was a joke and would never be taken seriously on that wheelchair— on that bondage.