6
Someone has told
I drowned my discomfort in the sixth glass of whiskey
Dante's bar was crowded with people, voices and laughter intertwining with my most self-destructive thoughts.
I hadn't heard from my wife in a week, and that was a very bad sign, especially after discovering the identity of the woman who slipped the drugged bottle of Mo?t into the villa.
Demi Vasileiou, twenty-five years old, a former prostitute, addicted to easy money. Currently a "freelance sex worker." Tired of prostituting since the age of fourteen in brothels, she had specialized in being a bait for human trafficking. She wasn't affiliated with any organized gang, selling her services to the highest bidder. She had complaints in several countries and a suspended arrest warrant hanging over her head.
She was a slippery woman whom we had lost track of. I was pulling all my contacts to find her, as only she knew the identity of the man accompanying her and knew who took my wife. Despite all my efforts to locate her, she seemed to have vanished into thin air, just like Nikita.
Thanks to the video kindly provided by the hotel director, we tracked her face with a program available to Segarra's police unit. Through his contacts, we located her face at the port of Fira, an hour after she left the hotel. She never reappeared, leading us to deduce that she was taken by boat and that Demi, along with her accomplice, might have fled on it as well.
The man with the towel cart remained a mystery.
He could have entered the building after stealing a laundry van. The driver was hit from behind, tied up, and locked in the back of it when he left the company for the hotel.
They had perfectly studied the schedules, and my departure from the villa gave them the ideal opportunity to take Nikita without any issues.
The man was impersonated by the one pushing the cart, who left the van abandoned at the port of Fira.
The port facility staff alerted the police as soon as they received notice that one of the laundry vehicles had been stolen. When the police arrived, they found the driver in the back with a nasty bump on his head.
The man couldn't provide any details about the features of the individual who hit him.
No one had said anything about my wife's kidnapping—not the Chinese, not rival mafias from the 'Ndrangheta, not even the damn Holy Spirit who must have been too busy screwing the Virgin Mary again.
We had the Chinese in our sights, it was the most likely scenario after we unmasked Cheng, although we couldn't rule out that it was a random issue unrelated to everyone and everything.
There was a remote possibility that Demi noticed her during our little vacation and, given my wife's spectacular beauty, wanted her to sell at some auction or to some mafia.
The idea of Nikita being drugged, raped, and abused tortured me.
The Albanian-Kosovars and the Chinese were experts in turning the most beautiful women into addicts of opium and heroin. They reduced them to babbling bodies that had no strength to refuse anything. They diminished their faculties so that the only thing they could do was spread their legs.
I drank again.
"Don't you think that's enough?" The one who threw the question was a redhead who had passed through my bed hundreds of times.
I didn't even look up from the glass.
"Leave me alone."
"Not a chance." She snatched the glass from me and downed it with a grimace. Irene wasn't a fan of whisky.
"Did you call her? Why?" I reproached Dante, who was serving a couple of mugs. He didn't need to answer. Irene did for him.
"Because you're a damn mess, and neither he nor I want what happened last time to happen again. Look at me, R." I lifted my head and turned. My friend looked worried. "You can't do this to yourself, or to us either. I understand that your wife's disappearance has you distressed, but I remind you that you have a son."
"Adriano is well taken care of," I commented grudgingly.
"He might be, I'm not going to doubt that, I know you adore him, but your state is visible and smellable. Do you want him to think you're an alcoholic? What example are you going to set?"
"Right now, that's the least of my concerns. Juliet keeps him entertained."
"You can't let all the burden fall on your sister. Come on, R, you're not like this. You have your men, your father's men, and Nikita's men looking for her everywhere. She'll turn up."
"And if she doesn't?" I asked somberly, turning on the stool.
She moved closer and hugged me. I buried my nose in her neck, defeated, embittered, aware that alcohol wasn't the right refuge, yet unable to do anything else to ease the suffocating pain.
I snuggled into the warm embrace. I felt so cold, damn it!
Irene ran her nails through my hair. I lifted my head with empty eyes; she offered me a weak smile and lowered her mouth to mine.
It was a kiss that tasted of memories, of home, and of times when I didn't feel dead inside.
A call brought me back to reality. I pulled away from her lips and answered the phone.
"Yes?"
"Romeo, we've got a tip. We think we know where she is." I raised my eyes and fixed them on Irene's.
"Where?" The place didn't matter; I would go to the damned hell if necessary. I turned my attention to my friend. "Dante! Get me a fucking coffee with salt. I need my faculties intact to go somewhere."
Two hours and twenty minutes later, I was entering a damn drug den, located in the Las Tres Mil Viviendas neighborhood, specifically on Hermano Pablo Street; one of the most troubled areas of the neighborhood and all of Seville.
In Las Tres Mil Viviendas, they mainly dealt in bazuco, a cheap base paste of cocaine, sold to addicts. But they had other businesses ever since the two reigning clans had decided to diversify.
I kicked in the door, shooting without looking. I wanted to send a clear message to the man inside.
"What the fuck!" bellowed my target.
A true-blooded gypsy emerged half-naked, wearing a robe, from one of the rooms.
It was Juan Cortés, aka El Gordo, who gawked at me as I aimed the gun at his forehead.
A cloud of dust rose in the air, tainted by smoke.
I hadn't come alone. I wasn't stupid. My men aimed their pair of AK-47s at all the scum.
"You've smashed the fucking vase where my mother rested, you bastard!" he howled, looking at the shards of porcelain scattered over a mattress of ashes.
"What you should be worried about is not ending up in the same place as that vase. Your mother's ashes can be swept up with a broom and dustpan. " He clenched his fists tightly.
"Who the hell are you and where did you come from? Are you the new whore for the González? Tell that bunch of assholes not to come at me with this type of message." He tied his robe, which left a bulging belly and scant groin exposed.
"Here the only whore is the one who was sucking you off in that room, if she could even find it under all that lard."
"Did you come to my house to insult me? You have no fucking idea what you're doing!"
"You're the one who has no fucking idea," I commented, moving dangerously closer. His men drew their weapons. "Don't even think about it or I'll blow his brains out!" I threatened. El Gordo gestured to restrain them.
"You come into my house, smash the urn, threaten me... You're either a fucking lunatic looking to get killed, or you'd better have a good reason for all this."
"I heard you're doing business with some slant-eyed guys. You know, those yellow ones that look like they eat lemons." —He raised his eyebrows.
"And? You have a phobia of yellow or something?"
"No, what happens is you've opened an exclusive joint where new merchandise has come in, and they've been supplying you."
"Are we talking drugs or whores?"
"We're talking about my wife." I pulled out my phone and shoved a picture of Nikita in front of his eyes.
"She's got nice tits."
I pulled the phone away and disengaged the safety on my pistol.
"Don't you dare think about her in those terms." El Gordo raised his hands.
"I didn't mean any offense."
"She was kidnapped in Santorini a week ago. I got a tip she might be in your club."
"No idea, I haven't been there for a few days. I knew some new stock was coming in, but I don't know if your wife was among the new ones. If you send me the photo, I could send it to..."
"I'm not passing anything to you. You're coming with us right now and we're going to check it out."
"Or what?" I snapped my fingers with my left hand, and my men created new holes for his non-existent paintings. "Alright! Alright! Stop wrecking the place, damn it!"
"Don't worry about this; if you return what's mine, I'll write you a check for the inconvenience that could remodel the entire neighborhood. I'm a man of my word."
"Who the hell are you?" he wanted to know.
"R Capuleto. You haven't dealt with me, but I imagine my last name isn't unfamiliar to you."
"You could have started with that instead of setting up this whole circus. Give me five minutes to change, and we'll go. Oh! And tell your thugs to lower their assault rifles. My guys aren't going to shoot them."
He turned around and went back into the room.