The Fake Lunatic: I Played Crazy To Bury My Brother

For three years, I was locked inside a mafia black site, enduring daily electroshock therapy and forced chemical cocktails.

I truly believed I was losing my mind, until my fingers brushed against a hidden wiretap taped beneath the treatment table.

The recorded voices belonged to my husband and my biological brother.

"Turn her into a mindless vegetable before Friday, so I can legally seize her proxy votes."

It turned out I was never sick.

My late father, the legendary Don, had left me a controlling stake in the syndicate, locked in an offshore trust that would thaw in exactly seven days.

To steal my inheritance, the two men I trusted most conspired to fry my brain into a wet pulp.

My husband even let his secret mistress parade through the asylum, mocking my emaciated, scar-covered body.

They dragged me back to the family estate, starving me in a damp storage room and threatening to bring the shock machines to my bedroom if I didn't sign over the territories.

Every time I had fought back over the years, they used my agony as irrefutable proof of my insanity, strapping me down tighter and turning the dial higher.

They didn't want to cure me; they wanted to completely erase me.

But my father had foreseen their bottomless greed and built an untouchable legal fortress for me.

Looking at the jagged date branded into my wrist, I knew exactly what I had to do.

I dropped to my knees, slapped my own face hard, and played the perfect, broken lunatic.

I just had to survive the next seven days, and then I would take back my throne and bury them all.

Chapter 1

Three years into my confinement within the bare walls of a mafia black site, my fingers found a wiretap secured with medical tape to the iron skeleton of the electroshock table.

The recorded voices belonged to my husband and my brother: "Have her brain fried to a wet pulp by Friday, or we forfeit the fifty-one percent controlling interest in the Falcone holdings."

If I failed to persuade the two most unforgiving men in the New York underworld of my complete and irreversible lunacy, I would not survive to see my late father's secret trust mature in precisely seven days.

A sharp, metallic tang, the taste of my own blood, coated my tongue.

My jaw muscles burned from the pressure of a rubber bite block, removed only moments ago.

A residual current hummed beneath my skin, a phantom from the machine, forcing my fingers to twitch against the cold linoleum of the floor.

Dr. Vance had just left the treatment room to answer a telephone, leaving the steel door ajar.

The cartilage in my knees scraped rawly against the floor as I pushed myself upward; the muscles in my thighs, having endured the current for so long, fell into an uncontrollable spasm that sent the hem of my thin hospital gown rustling.

As I shifted my weight, the back of my hand brushed the underside of the steel table.

I had overheard Vance on the phone three times this past week-his voice pitched low, conspiratorial, a tone that had nothing to do with medical consultation. I knew he was communicating with someone outside. If evidence existed, it would be here, in the room where he conducted his dirtiest work.

My fingertips snagged on a hard, square of plastic taped near one of the heavy iron legs.

I pulled it loose.

It was a small, black digital recorder.

I thumbed the playback button, the air catching in my lungs as a hiss of static gave way to speech.

The first voice was Julian's-my husband of three years, the Underboss of the Romano faction.

His tone possessed the same silken, lethal cadence that directed a thousand armed men on the city streets.

"I need her permanently incapacitated, Victor," Julian said on the recording.

The second voice belonged to Dante, my biological brother and the acting Boss of our family.

"Turn the voltage up," Dante ordered, his words clipped and devoid of heat.

"The old man left a failsafe. An offshore protective trust holds her controlling stake in the syndicate. It thaws in exactly seven days."

"If she's lucid enough to claim it, we're both dead men. Turn her into a mindless vegetable before then so I can legally seize her proxy votes."

A third voice chimed in, a shrill note laced with venom.

"I never want to see her face again, Julian."

It was Chloe-a low-level associate, Julian's secret mistress, and the woman who had spent the last three years parading through this asylum for the sole purpose of my torment.

"Make sure she forgets her own name," Julian murmured back to her, his voice dripping with a sickening, distorted affection.

My heart began to beat against my ribs with the frantic, irregular rhythm of a trapped bird.

For three years, I had believed I was losing my mind.

I thought the chemical cocktails and the unsparing voltage were meant to cure a sickness I could not understand.

Every time I fought back, they used my violent outbursts as irrefutable proof of my insanity-strapping me down tighter, turning the dial another notch higher.

They did not want to cure me.

They wanted to erase me.

I looked at my left wrist.

Beneath the faded bruises was a jagged scar-a date branded into my flesh by my father with a heated silver needle, just before he died.

Next Friday.

The exact day the trust thawed.

My father had foreseen it all.

Even on his deathbed, the legendary Don of the Falcone Syndicate had understood the bottomless greed of the men around him.

He had built an untouchable fortress for me, locking the family holdings away until I was fit to take them.

And he had marked my own skin with the key-a secret calendar only I could read, hidden beneath the bruises they inflicted.

Now, I just had to survive the next seven days.

The sound of heavy-booted footfalls echoed from the corridor.

A surge of acid rose in my esophagus, and my heart was seized by a coarse, unforgiving hand.

In a desperate motion, I shoved the recorder deep into the hollow chest of a battered porcelain doll sitting on the nearby medical cart.

It was my mother's doll, the only personal possession Dr. Vance had allowed me to keep as a twisted comfort object.

A moment later, the heavy steel door swung open.

Julian and Dante walked in, their tailored Italian suits a jarring contrast to the sterile, blood-stained walls of the asylum.

The polished toe of Julian's bespoke shoe nudged the hem of my gown. His tall frame blocked the overhead lamp, pinning a severe and oppressive shadow across my face.

He narrowed his eyes, his gaze that of a man appraising a mispriced, defective article slated for destruction.

"Pack her things," Dante told the guards behind him. "We're discharging her."

"We need her back at the estate to sign the territory transfer documents before the end of the week."

Knowing the part I had to play, I dropped to my knees.

I raised my hands and slapped my own cheeks, hard, right in front of them.

"Bad girl," I mumbled, rocking back and forth on the linoleum. "Bad girl needs punishment."

Julian stepped forward, his polished leather shoe stopping inches from my bare knees.

He reached down and gripped my chin, tilting my head up.

His fingers dug into my jaw-a silent, lethal threat wrapped in a casual touch.

"Is she ready to sign?" Julian asked, not looking at me, but at Dr. Vance, who had just hurried back into the room.

"She is highly compliant but severely fragmented," Dr. Vance replied, wiping a film of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

The long drive back to the Falcone estate was a blur of suffocating terror.

I clutched the porcelain doll to my chest, feeling the hard square of the recorder hidden inside its cloth body.

When the heavy iron gates of my childhood home at last swung open, a wave of nausea rose in my throat.

Chloe was standing on the front steps.

She wore my mother's vintage silk robe and held a fluted glass of champagne, playing the undisputed lady of the house.

"Look what the cat dragged in," Chloe sneered as the guards pulled me from the car.

I shrank back, letting out a high-pitched, animalistic whimper.

I cowered behind one of the armed soldiers, acting as though Chloe's voice was a physical blow.

"Put her in the storage room near the waste disposal," Dante ordered, waving a dismissive hand.

"I don't want her dirtying the guest wing."

Two guards dragged me down a dark, damp corridor and threw me into a cramped room that held the cloying stench of bleach and rot.

Julian followed me inside.

He locked the heavy door behind him.

The click of the deadbolt sounded like a gunshot in the confined space.

"Let's get you out of this filthy hospital gown, Nia," Julian said, his tone dangerously soft.

He reached for the collar of my shirt.

I screamed.

I thrashed against the cold wall, kicking my legs, acting entirely feral.

"No machines!" I shrieked, scratching at my own arms until red welts rose on the skin. "No wires! Please, no wires!"

Julian stepped back, a look of profound disgust crossing his handsome features.

He wiped his hands on his expensive trousers as if the mere prospect of touching me had left a stain.

"Keep your voice down, you crazy bitch," he hissed.

He turned and walked out, and the draught from the corridor was sliced off as the door closed, the metallic click of the bolt shooting home magnified tenfold in the small confinement.

Left alone, I collapsed onto the thin mattress on the floor, gasping for air.

A moment later, through the thin walls, I heard Dante's voice approaching the hallway outside my room.

"We can't wait," Dante was saying to Julian.

"The notary is on standby."

"We force her signature on those transfer deeds tomorrow morning-even if you have to break her fingers to hold the pen."

I pressed my palm against the cold floor, feeling the tremors of their footsteps recede. Tomorrow morning. That was the new deadline. I had less than twenty-four hours to figure out how to delay them-and the only weapon I possessed was their belief that I was already broken.