82

                                    

                                          
FIVE
Six days Before Benji Yarrow met his end, Orlando Gianni found himself a captive in a twisted game.
The last he remembers was being hammered from the waves of alcohol he chugged in the club. Being Forty-nine shouldn't put a hold on livelihood. It should promote more amusement, more visits to places that fulfill the ego. If not now, then when? When he's finally hit menopause and has been confined to a wheelchair? Five will enjoy his life to the fullest.
But this particular trip ended in his doom. He was captured and stuffed into a car by some kidnapper whose identity isn't clear to him. He was careless. He knows he's a figure abhorred by many, which is why he regrets not dragging his bodyguard along with him.
When he first came to, he was in the backseat of a car. But that brief moment of consciousness was soon knocked out of him by a powerful punch to his face. Then he later opened his eyes only to find darkness. Eternal, perpetual darkness. At first, he thought his mind hadn't yet recovered from all the liquor, but his senses were perfectly fine. He'd been left alone to figure out his way in that broad darkness. 
Then he realized his movements were restricted. He'd tried standing, but was rejected by the ceiling. No, not the ceiling. It wasn't solid, and it seemed to have holes in between thin rods. Some sort of enclosure. Five frantically threw his hands around him to see if he truly was stuck, and when the reality finally hit him, he shrunk into a shell. He was in a cage. A cage with an enclosure around its perimeter. 
That was then. Hours pass with Five in that prison. His bladder has grown heavy from all the alcohol intake, which eventually thinned out his patience. He rattles the cage and calls out into a void. He needs to relieve himself. He will not be subjected to such inhumane conditions. 
"Do you know who you're fucking with?!" Five screams. But he is only greeted by an echo. This drives him even more insane. "When I find out who you are, I will personally carve out your heart, you hear me?" When his rant receives no answer, he frustratingly throws himself against the cage and begins hurling curses in Italian. 
Five still doesn't give up. The Verdonni family will find him. They will come for him. And he will put whoever is behind this madness to justice.
More hours pass. Five isn't sure what time it is or even what day. What he does know is his trousers have been soiled with urine. He eventually gave up and eased himself right then and there. By this point, the air has been stained with his filth and muck. He grovels on the grimy floor of the cage, still under the impression that he will be saved. He has no idea what's coming for him.
Much later, when Five has given up on calling out for help, the enclosure is finally removed. He's greeted by a sharp ring of sunlight which he gratefully accepts, and he thinks this is finally it. The Verdonnis have come for him. He will be saved. 
The first thing he picks up on is a light shade of . . . brown. Leaves. Tall, bare trees. The ground is toppled with those oak leaves, and the trees tell him he's far off from his usual territory. This isn't New York City. He's in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere. As far as he's concerned, he could be two states over. Now he begins to worry. The situation is much more dire than he'd first realized.
In the midst of scanning the environment, a figure moves into his line of vision. This must be who captured him. This must be the piece of shit who stuffed him in a cage of all things. Five is livid. He throws out some variations of "Did you do this?", "Do you know who I fucking am?!", all to which the figure ignores, as though he were a dog barking up a tree.
The figure squats down for Five to get a look, and he finds his captor is a woman no older than her mid-twenties. Short curly hair, cheekbones, mismatched eyes. Those eyes. He's seen them before. He's not sure where, but he has. And even if he can't remember much, he knows the situation now is more than just mere kidnapping.