AN So yeah I'm alive, and I just... dunno what happened. I'm stuck between baking and doing shit and studying for entrance exams. I hope you all like it! heheheh. Unbeta'd and self edited. I can't remember if I got back to you all who reviewed, favourited, anything-ed this story, but I'd just like to say thank you and I love you all. =D
TO AVENGE
Chapter II
For Mercy
Cesare was indignant.
"You kept me here…" he said, laughing weakly. "…to make me, Cesare Borgia, beg?"
Ezio nodded, a criminal gleam in his eye. Cesare was too preoccupied with his latest train of thought.
"Fool," spat Cesare. "No one… no one… ever makes me beg. I make others beg."
"You think I can't do the same to you, Cesare?" said Ezio, fisting Cesare's shirt in his hand, pulling him close. "You think me a fool?" He looked him straight in the eye, neither refusing to look away or even blink.
"Yes, just in case you couldn't comprehend." Cesare almost laughed; he was a ruthless conqueror. He knew political and military strategies like the back of his hand. He took what he wanted, when he wanted, as he wanted. He exercised his power at will. He never surrendered.
"Well, messere," said Ezio with a sardonic grin. His other hand, ungloved, loosed its grip on the fisted cloth, slowly trailing up to Cesare's vulnerable forearm. "Let's not forget that you are my prisoner. And you have been for a week," Ezio tightened the grip his hand around the exposed forearm. He moved closer to Cesare's ear, speaking low. A bare whisper, just the slightest hint of heat: "And nobody's found you."
Suddenly Cesare was in searing pain; the bastard had jerked his arm forward, hard, sending thousands of burning daggers of pain from his wrists to up his shoulders. He could not help but glance murderously at the Auditore as he tried to take back that loud, ugly, echoing cry of pain that had come out of his throat when he was thrashed against his bindings. And the Auditore could not help but look back at him, devilishly grinning.
"I am quite sure that I can make you beg," he said, returning his angry stare. "I've solicited a sound from your mouth. It was beautiful. Now, let us turn those sounds into words…" he trailed off, backing up slightly, to observe Cesare's crumpled form—well, as crumpled as he could be. He had crouched to the side, cradling his abused hand to his chest.
"Never," said Cesare through his teeth.
"Ah, well, then," he said, slowly stepping backwards. He paused, raising his hand to his chin in thought. "I suppose you won't beg for your sister?" At this the Spaniard straightened up. Fresh, hot anger flared in his eyes, and his hands turned to white-knucked fists at his sides.
"What have you done to Lucrezia?" he demanded. He rose forward, rattling his bindings, straining his ankles and wrists. "What did you do to her?"
Ezio let out a small chuckle, then quickly replaced his expression with disgust. "Humour me first. Tell me, is it true that you love her?"
Cesare didn't say anything.
"Cesare, you're being no fun."
He still didn't say anything.
Ezio grunted. "I'll take your silence as a yes, then. And what I'd seen from that window, when you held Caterina in the Castello, I've got plenty to go on. And as such I will assume from here forth. As you apparently do not object at all to what I said, I do believe that it is fact as well that you-well, you compromised her-"
"Don't dare speak-"
"Were you saying something?"
"You fucking bastard-"
"What was that? Your sister fucks bastards?"
"I shall have your tongue cut out-"
"You can't do that now, Cesare, after all, I've got proof that the child she's carrying is yours and-"
"You will speak no ill of my sister!" growled Cesare through grit teeth. He held Ezio's stare for a moment before Ezio sighed, seemingly in defeat. Cesare's eyes were hazy with dirt and anger, and his vision flared red as Ezio dared to laugh in his face. "You piece of sh-"
"You don't get it."
"Don't get what, you stupid assassin?"
"I can do anything I want," said the Assassin, raising a hand to Cesare's shoulder. Fingers hovered over a whip wound that was raw and weeping and uglier than all his other wounds. It was beginning to close up-beginning to. "So I'm going to do whatever I want." And the Assassin's fingers pressed down hard on either side of the wound, spreading to stretch it further. A spurt of blood on Ezio's fingers and the sounds of the Spaniard's angry curses was all the confirmation he needed; this hurt and was not going to feel any better anytime soon. He smiled, taking pleasure in the other man's stunted gasps.
"You are mad, Ezio Auditore. I shall have you hung from the Castello, for all of Roma to see. I'm going to get out of this filthy circle of hell and I'm going to kill you myself." The words tumbled from Cesare's lips like swords unto stone. They could cut to the bone but they couldn't, really. Ezio was not falling for any of it.
The Assassin took hold of his sleeve, rolling it up to the elbow. Cesare could see something tied to his forearm, crossed over with twine, careful, deliberate knots at each intersection.
He knew the handiwork. It was Leonardo's.
"You must think I am going to be so easy to break," said Ezio as he removed the package from his arm, taking one end of a loose bit of twine and pulling it free. The package fell into his free hand, and Ezio removed the dried blood-stained canvas cloth that protected it. Each corner that fell away revealed a shiny silver thing that was minutely thin and filled with red liquid-at least he assumed it was liquid-and his knees felt weak. He'd seen men poisoned before. He was going to become one of them now, he was definitely sure.
In a swift, swooping movement, the Assassin was standing before him again, poison deliverer in his hand. He reaches back with his free hand to pull his grimy cowl back over his face. He has the ghost of a frown, or at least the shadow of one crossing his scarred lips; he adjusts the poison in his hand.
Cesare can feel Ezio's sour breath on his face, can feel it turning rancid as it travels through his lungs. He can feel the burn of Ezio in him; the tables have been turned against him. He can feel the powerlessness of not being able to do anything about this. He can't stop the Assassin as he approaches, the needle of the poison deliverer hovering above the still-bleeding, likely infected wound on his shoulder. When it broke through a layer of muscle he screamed so loud his voice reverberated throughout the dungeons, bounding off the walls and returning to his ears. His heart leapt to his throat as the Assassin withdrew the needle.
"You must think there's only one kind of torture," was the last thing Cesare heard. Being laid down on the floor, crumpled and dirty was the last thing he felt. He didn't know what was happening and he was drifting, drifting farther and farther away, past the blackness and the whiteness, mind floating to that once-home in Valencia…