Elena was provided one of the most luxurious rooms in the mansion. She figured it must belong to Raphael's previous victims and girlfriends. The room was furnished and decorated to a feminine taste, with expensive racks of shoes, clothes and bags of various sizes and designs arranged in the closet in a Barbie theme. Elena snatched a night dress from a row of elegant and luxurious clothes, ditched her clothes and eased into it. Surprisingly, it fits her perfectly.
She lay on the bed later, trying desperately to force herself to sleep when hushed noises of a commotion chased out any inkling of sleep from her eyes. She started immediately to her feet, crossing fast for the door.
The noise was coming from downstairs, she discovered. She moved fast to check it out, her feet slapping the tiles as she descended the stairs in a hurry. It sounded like they were beating somebody up, and she thought it was her father.
She gasped in much greater shock. Her hands gripped the cold metal of the staircase railing, as she realized Pete was actually the person being beaten up. She got over her shock quickly, and raced into the midst of the muscular men, squatting beside Pete. She shielded him from further assaults with her body as much as she could.
"Stop! Stop!" she yelled. "Stop beating him. He has done nothing wrong."
"Go away from here, signora", one of the men snatched her arm, jerking her to her feet and throwing her away from Pete, just as another man slammed his knee right into Pete's face. Pete wailed and thrashed around in pain, grabbing his injured and now bloodied nose. His fingers dripped with his own blood.
"Stop" Raphael yelled, and abruptly the punching and kicking stopped. The men withdrew and stepped back, away from Pete and Elena.
Raphael stood up from his seat and strode towards her. He picked her from the floor, checking her out for any injuries. His pretense of caring for her infuriated her, and she jerked her arms away from him, rushing towards Pete. She dropped to her knees beside him, shielding him with her body again. He was still wailing in pain.
"Next time, you don't push her away like that, Dante. You handle the Signora with care", Raphael yelled to the man that had thrown Elena away earlier. "She is not only my property, she is a lady, and you treat her with courtesy, Dante."
The man bowed his head. "I am sorry, El Capitan, it won't happen again" he stammered, keeping his head bowed. Elena watched Raphael fight the urge to discipline his men.
"Go. Just go all of you. I will call you in when I need you", Raphael commanded.
"Yes. El Capitan" the men said in unison, and bounced out of the room.
Elena waited for all the men to leave, escorting them out with hostility. She was sizzling with hate. "What did Pete do wrong that you have to beat him up this much," she yelled at Raphael. "Am I not what you want? Should you also abduct him and beat him up too, as you did my father? What kind of savage are you?"
Raphael completely disregarded her and ambled towards a door in the room, his hands buried in his pockets, his shoulders raised high in pride. Every step exuded pride and charisma, and was a stab at her fury. He disappeared through the door, and when he came out minutes later, all through which Elena's eyes never left the door, he had a bottle of wine in one hand and a wine glass in another. From the little peek Elena had at the darkness beyond the door before Raphael shut it close, it seemed to lead to an underground cellar.
She watched him, with murder in her eyes, as he made his way back into the room and dropped onto the sectional he had sat on earlier, whilst pouring himself a drink. He dropped the wine bottle on the floor after, and took a careful sip of the wine. Then he made an exaggerated exhalation, seeming to savour and relish the taste of the wine he was drinking.
Elena's nerves could no longer take it again, she could see he was deliberately toying with her. "I demand that you let Pete go, if you want our contract to still stand", she screamed at Raphael.
He grinned mischievously. "I am afraid I can't do that, Signora. Your boyfriend broke into my estate and I want to rough him up a little bit before handing him out to the police, along with the evidence that he forced his way into my estate. I have cameras hidden around the estate, and they had quite an impressive recording of him breaking into my property"
Raphael didn't seem to be lying about Pete breaking into the estate. She knew he could do so to rescue her and her father. Pete could be quite irrational sometimes. But she wished he hadn't, he had only complicated the whole situation for her.
Her tone dropped some shades lower as her fury eased a little. "How about you let him go and destroy the recordings of him breaking into your estate and I stop myself from reneging on the contract, playing my part to the best of my ability?"
Raphael took a long sip of his wine before he replied, he rowed his head indecisively for a couple of moments, then he said, looking a bit thoughtful. "I might be a Mafia Don, but I am also a businessman. Don't you feel that is an unfair proposition, one that I stand to gain nothing from? Besides, you can't renege on the promises you made when you signed the contract. Only I can. Just as only I reserve the right and power to terminate our contract"
"So what in hell do you want" Elena yelled, beginning to tremble with fury once again.
"Two extra years of fealty to me, and a signed promise to marry me, should I ask for it."
"Don't accept such ludicrous offers from this criminal, Elena. Don't" Pete yelled at her, before his words broke off in a string of incoherent nonsense. With her hands placed on his shoulders, she felt him tremble in much greater pain than before.
"No! That is outrageous. I won't ever accept such ludicrous offers or satisfy your sadistic whims for two extra years", Elena yelled at Raphael.
Raphael downed the rest of the wine in a single gulp. He rose to his feet then. His face creased in a sardonic grin. "Then, I am sorry, Signora. Your boyfriend would be handed over to the police, and he would end up in a prison cell. I can also arrange his stay in the prison, making sure he doesn't last even a week there. I bet you have never been to a prison before, Signora. I assure you that place could be quite deadly" Raphael said, pretending to shudder.
They both shifted in the direction of the door at the noise of a commotion. There was the noise of swinging arms and thuds of bodies. A blond-haired man emerged from the noises, pressing his shirt into his place with his palms.
"FBI" he announced.
Elena watched a wary look jump into Raphael's eyes, and for the first time, since today, she saw him lose his arrogance and cynicism a bit. His face crumbled in anger, as he yelled. "What are you doing here, Barry Moore?"