Leo Gambino A Thousand Foes

"Come over tonight, babe… I want you desperately…"

Leonard received this message during his evening shift. It was from his girlfriend, Felicity, whom he had been dating for a year.

"I am finally getting lucky tonight," Leonard said to himself with a grin, changing out of his construction worker clothes.

For the past year, Leonard had helped his girlfriend build her supermodel career—filing agency applications and running petty errands. Thanks to him, she finally received a contract from Langford Enterprises last month.

The young man's biggest sacrifice was donating his bone marrow when Felicity was in the hospital.

Leonard reached her apartment with an affordable bouquet. As soon as he twisted the doorknob and pushed the door, a gaggle of gasps and moans hit his eardrums.

"Yes! Give it to me! Harder!"

Leonard froze, the world narrowing to those erotic noises.

"Don't slow down! Go faster!" The bouquet dropped from his hand.

The voice was unmistakable—it was Felicity!

Anger surged in him, almost blinding him as he stumbled to the bedroom entrance. The scene of betrayal hit him like a sledgehammer.

Felicity Slade, his girlfriend, was naked and sweaty, bouncing on another man's lap. The latter was none other than Victor Langford, heir to the Langford Trading Company, and her new boss.

Victor noticed his arrival but didn't even pause, shamelessly continuing to thrust his hips and plow into his girlfriend with a lazy, smug grin.

"If it isn't the lost puppy!" Felicity's voice rang out amidst moans, her slender arm still wrapped around her lover's athletic torso. "Don't you have manners, barging in uninvited?"

"Felicity…" Leonard snarled. "What is going on here…? I saw your message… and…"

Victor broke his silence with mocking laughter. He reached for a phone on the nightstand. "Oh, buddy, did you actually think Felicity would open her legs to you? I sent you that message."

He waved the phone tauntingly. "I must say, you ran here faster than my dogs when I throw leftovers at them."

Leonard's mind reeled, and his muscles tensed. "You sent that message? What is the meaning of all this?"

Victor's laughter boomed in the bedroom again. "I figured it'd be fun to lure you here, and wake you up to reality."

He slipped on a robe and sauntered closer, his eyes gleaming with cruelty. 

"You're that pathetic man she's been stringing along. The construction worker who dreamed of sleeping with a hot supermodel. I just wanted to see your clown face before she dumped you."

Felicity slid out of the bed, putting on a silk negligee. Her lips curled into an erotic sneer as she spoke. "Oh, Victor, you're so nasty. I love it!  You made the perfect ruse to kick out this runt from my life."

The room spun for Leonard. Disappointment and rage fueled him as he turned towards his cheating girlfriend.

"Felicity, why would you do something like this to me? I donated my bone marrow to save your life!

"You idiot!" his girlfriend fired back. "Did you really think I cared about you? I only kept you around because your bone marrow matched mine. Now that I'm cured, you can take a hike."

Felicity's words hit Leonard like a punch to the gut. "You–you used me…" 

"You bet I did! Ha! Just like toilet paper!" Her hurtful words of betrayal sliced the young man like serrated knives. Had she really faked her feelings all along?

Felicity stepped closer, her voice dripping with contempt. "But look on the bright side—at least some part of you went inside me. More than we can say for the rest!"

She took Victor's free hand and placed it over her glistening thigh. The man caressed it greedily. "See what you'll be missing?"

As Leonard looked from Felicity to her new lover, flashbacks assaulted him. The sterile hospital room where he had lain for hours with tubes snaking into his veins. The pain, the recovery—he had done it all without question, believing in her fake tears and false promises.

The woman he thought was his soulmate now felt like a stranger.

"You're right about one thing," he said coldly. "I was an idiot. An idiot to ever love someone like you!"

"Oh man, the look on his face!" Victor howled with laughter. "How pathetic!"

Felicity joined him, giggling cruelly. "It was really hilarious when he confessed his love to me… 'I love you, Felicity! I'd do anything for you!' Blah, blah, blah! Honestly, it took everything not to retch!

Leonard's blood boiled over, and his eyes burned. He glanced at Victor with disgust. The Langford heir's scandals filled tabloids—bribing government officials, burying the most heinous sex scandals, and making his rivals disappear.

"You chose Victor over me? His family is evil and corrupt!"

Felicity's laugh was sharp and venomous. "Are you kidding me? Victor has real power—money, estates, connections, and influence—you name it!"

"What do you have?" she hissed at him. "Nothing! You're a stray dog with nothing to your name! Even my silk panties are ten times your net worth!"

"Speaking of stray dogs," Victor chimed in. "Tell me again how his parents dumped him like trash."

"Goddamn orphan!" Felicity cursed through her teeth. She spat the word 'orphan' like it was phlegm, and Leonard's world tilted.

He had confided in her about his traumatic past—the grind of living in an orphanage, running away from foster homes, and the pointless search for his biological parents.

"You told him about my parents?" Leonard's voice was barely a silent whisper.

"Of course she did!" Victor spat. "It's hilarious! Maybe a gypsy psychic told your Mum and Dad that you'd grow up to be a pathetic excuse. They dumped the trash they created before it started smelling!

Something inside Leonard snapped. With a roar of blind rage, he lunged at Victor, his fist swinging with surprising speed. The punch landed squarely on the jaw, sending the man staggering back into a dresser.

Leonard was seeing blood. He grabbed Victor by the collar, slamming him against the wall with a force that made the framed pictures rattle.

"You think you can talk about my family like that?" Leonard growled.

Victor gasped with the impact, his eyes wide in shock, but he recovered quickly, swinging a wild retaliatory punch.

Leonard dodged it easily, countering with a brutal uppercut that sent his opponent sprawling to the floor.

For a moment, it looked like Leonard had the upper hand. Even he felt better after clocking Victor. Apparently, the rich boy had never been in a proper fight before.

But then, Leonard's body betrayed him. The blood rush brought him exhaustion like a tidal wave. His muscles trembled, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The bone marrow donation he'd made for Felicity had left him weaker than he realized.

Victor rose, wiping blood from his split lip, his eyes full of hurt pride. "What's the matter, orphan? Running out of steam already?"

Leonard tried to swing at him again, but his arm felt like it weighed a ton. Victor dodged the sluggish punch easily and landed a vicious blow to his ribs.

The young man staggered, pain shooting through his side. Before he could recover, Victor grabbed a heavy glass ashtray from the desk and smashed it against Leonard's head with a sickening crack.

"Take this, you piece of shit!"

The world spun for Leonard. His vision blurred, his legs buckling beneath him. There was blood in his eyes as he crumpled to the floor.

Consciousness slipped away as Felicity's bored voice echoed above him. "The mad dog appears to be dying. Let's dump him with others like himself."

Leonard felt himself being dragged across the floor, his body limp and unresponsive.

He regained consciousness to find himself in a locked cage, surrounded by savage dogs, their fangs bared, and their eyes gleaming in hunger.

They paced and circled Leonard's body, the scent of human blood telling them he was their dinner.

Leonard tried to move, but his body felt like lead. With his remaining energy, he awkwardly cradled his right hand, on which he wore a ring. 

It was an antique jewel made of tarnished silver, with strange etchings. It was precious to Leonard, left behind at the orphanage's doors when he was a baby.

The dying young man tried to polish the stone with his fingers, but ended up smearing it with his blood.

It was time. The wild dogs were ready to eat. The alpha hound lunged forward, its jaws snapping for his neck.

Suddenly, Leonard's ring glowed, and his drooping eyelids snapped wide open with eerie light.