Chapitre 18: Bullying
Instead of waiting for Geremia to come back, Dante went out to look for him. He found him in his quarters. Geremia was surprised to see him.
"is it up to ten minutes already, I was just about to come back to the study" Geremia said.
"Don't bother, I needed to leave the study and stretch my legs too" Dante told him.
"Okay. I wanted to tell you about our new information on Valerie"
Dante immediately became alert. "Yes, what is it?" he asked urgently.
"The vehicle he was driving was found on the road, burnt beyond recognition, the firearms inside the car were also taken"
"And what about him, is he okay?" *"Yes, he is".
Geremia pointed to one of the large screens on the wall. A green light blinked steadily on the screen.
"That tracker reads his heartbeat, green means he is alive, red means he is in danger and when it stops blinking, he is dead"
"So he is alive?" Dante asked.
"Yes he is"
Dante sighed in relief. This was the first information he was getting about his brother since he left.
"Are you okay?" Geremia asked.
"Yes, I feel better after knowing his current state" Dante replied.
"You have to trust him, he will be fine"
Dante nodded in response.
"on a scale of one to ten, how mad were you at Camilla yesterday?" Geremia asked.
"At first, I was very mad but then I saw the funny side of the whole thing and I lost my anger"
"So why did you still punish her?" Geremia asked.
"because she needs to learn a lesson, she can't keep doing things without thinking. What if she had breached another territory yesterday? She would have gotten into a lot of trouble" Dante replied.
"So when are you planning on relieving her from domestic duty?" Geremia asked.
"Soon, but for now let her continue" Dante said.
The two remained quiet for a while, each of them lost in their respective thoughts.
"I just hope Dante is okay" Dante said.
"me too", Geremia replied.
...
Contrary to Dante and Geremia's wishes,Valerie wasn't having a great time at all.
First of all, his car tires had been shot at, which had made him swerve off the road and hit a tree. As if that wasn't enough, masked men had attacked him, took the parcel of firearms in his car. The firearms had been a ruse to convince his attackers that he had no ulterior motives.
One of them had held him up by his neck, almost crushing his throat. It was at this point, he had asked if they were the Vitale family.
He could see the shock on their faces when he had asked this question, they hadn't expected him to know about the Vitale family.
Asking this question had saved his life, they were curious about him, hence they spared him and brought him back to their base.
Currently he was in a cage with a dead decomposed body and he was hungry, thirsty and tired.
He heard footsteps approaching and craned his neck to see who was coming but to his disappointment he wasn't able to see a thing.
He saw a man stop in front of the cage, he looked up and saw his face. It took all of Valerie's self control not to gasp in wonder.
He was handsome, no handsome wasn't the word for it, he was beautiful. His beauty had a seductive, dangerous quality to it.
"So is this the man who asked about the Vitale family?" the man asked one of the masked men who stood close to him.
"Yes Master, none of the others have ever asked us a question. We thought it suspicious and decided to bring him to you instead of finishing him off"
"You did good by bringing him here, well done" he praised the masked man.
Valerie could see that the masked man was pleased by the praise as he almost preened.
"Bring him out to the trial room" the man ordered and walked away.
"Yes Master" the masked man replied.
The cage opened and Valerie was brought out of the cage and led to what he presumed was the trial room.
The room had four other men in addition to the man, Valerie had already seen.
"This man here knows about the Vitale family, so I brought him here to tell us what he knows?" the beautiful man told them.
They all looked at Valerie with interest when they heard this. The man gestured for Valerie to start talking.
Valerie knew he had to be composed to give them enough reason to keep him alive.
"First of all, I would like to know something, are you the Vitale family?" he asked them.
The man smiled in amusement, "I don't suppose it would hurt to tell you, yes we are the Vitale family, now are you going to tell me what you know about us?" he asked.
"You were a very powerful family in the past, you ruled this entire city. Any trade done had to he approved by you first. Your influence was so great that you could even influence business happening in other cities. Then all of a sudden you vanished from history and no one heard from you guys again and now you are back" Valerie said.
The beautiful man smiled, "It seems we have a little history prodigy on our hands" he said.
"I vote we kill him" One of the other men said.
The beautiful man waved him off with an elegant hand.
"tsk tsk, that's so boring, what fun will that serve" he said.
"he knows too much" the man argued.
"I won't kill him and that's the end I will hear about this matter".
He turned to Valerie, "What is your name?" he asked.
"Valerie"
"Now, Valerie, you are going to be my pet until I decide you are no longer useful to me and I kill you, is that understood?" he asked Valerie.
Valerie nodded in response.
"Any questions?" he asked Valerie.
"Please what may I address you as?" he asked.
"I am called Dracaryx but you are to call me Master, understood?"
"Yes Master" Valerie
answered obediently.
Dracaryx smiled at him. "You learn fast, what a good boy" he praised Valerie.
...…
Meanwhile, Camilla was definitely not been a good girl at the moment. She was furious at the madame who had saddled her with yet another stressful duty.
This afternoon she was to handwash the underwear of all the men on the grounds. The underwear had been stained with brown stains and milkish white stains and for her peace of mind, Camilla refused to think about where those stains had come from.
After traumatic hours of washing the underwears, she went back to the madame only to be told she was to help out with the cooking of lunch and the delivering of it.
After she was through, the madame informed her that lunch had finished and she would have to make herself something.
By noe, Camilla wasn't even surprised anymore. She knew that the madame didn't like her but why she didn't like her was a mystery. It couldn't just be the reason Maria had told her. She refused to believe that a grown woman would be that petty.
"What did I do to you?" she asked her.
"What do you mean?" the madame asked in an impassive voice.
"Ever since, Dante put me under you, you have been nothing but mean and cruel to me" Camilla complained.
Some of the other servants who were in the kitchen sniggered and gossiped behind them. Unknown to them, Maria was present and she took account of everything that was happening.
"What were you expecting? For me to coddle you? Look here Madame De Luca, you are no better than the rest of the servants here, you were bought for an exorbitant price and it's about time you earned your keep. Or do you want to be as useless as your unfortunate parents?" she asked.
At the mention of her parents, Camilla got furious and flared up. She raised a warning finger to the madame.
"You can insult me all you want but don't you ever talk about my parents" she warned the madame.
The madame slapped the finger in front of her. "get our of my face" she said as she moved past Camilla, shoving her with more force than needed.
Camilla's body was very weak, from the lack of food and the work she had done.
With a loud thud, her head hit the counter and she slid to the ground unconscious.
The madame and the other servants were quiet as they looked at Camilla unconscious body on the ground and the blood pooling on the ground, from the injury on her head.
Maria rushed forward and pressed a cloth to the wound to stop the bleeding.
"What is happening here. Dante asked as he walked into the kitchen..
Cadeaux
-- Cadeau
reçu État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone