43. EPILOGUE - Rob
Salvo texted fifteen minutes ago to say they had another guy down in Damiano’s workshop. I wasn’t kidding when I told them to grab every fucker we could get our hands on until we figure out who killed those brothers my dad’s getting blamed for.
Dom’s workshop is not my favorite place to go. It creeps me the fuck out. It’s a weird fucking glimpse inside Damiano’s head, and that’s not somewhere anyone should want to be inside.
I jog down the first short flight of steps to a landing. Hard left turn to a steep ramp down, then another hard turn. Then it’s up a few uneven, wooden steps that creak and threaten to snap under my weight, only to go back down a few more.
The hallway narrows as I go. This part is brightly lit. The next hall is almost pitch black but smells like fresh-baked cookies. The one after this has its own air-conditioning unit dialed down for a blast of sharp, subzero air.
Damiano likes his ‘guests’ to come down this twisting, demented path up and down and around again, like a fun house hall of mirrors, pain, torment, and destruction. A mindfuck before things start to hurt.
There’s a shortcut entrance that goes directly from the garage into a perfectly normal elevator straight into his workshop, but Damiano set the passcode on that door’s keypad to 17-17-17, that motherfucker. Seventeen just happens to be the unluckiest number to Italians, basically meaning that death is right around the corner. Fitting for his workshop—but it’s also a number my superstitious-as-fuck mom drilled into me as a kid to stay the hell away from.
So I go the long, twisty, fucked-up way unless someone else is with me to enter the code.
I enter the dull-green tiled workshop, expecting today’s ‘session’ to be well underway.
But it’s not.
There’s a guy tied to a wooden chair looking like he’s going to piss himself, which I expect. And Salvo’s sitting off to the side, texting on his phone, which I expect.
But Damiano isn’t busy at work, as expected. Instead, he’s off in the corner, watering his fucking plants .
The guy keeps a couple racks of eucalyptus plants down here under artificial grow lights. He claims the plants are here so their fragrance covers up the residual smell of sweat, piss, and blood, all of which gets washed away after each session with industrial-strength hydrogen peroxide from tanks Damiano had installed.
But I think they’re more of him fucking with his guests. Case in point—the ‘Hang In There’ poster with the little kitten dangling from a rope that’s on the wall opposite from where this guy is tied up. Right at eye level with the chair.
Something is definitely up with Dom since he hasn’t gotten started yet. This is probably the real reason Salvo texted me to get down here. Must be my turn to deal with Damiano’s recent mood swings.
“Damiano, man, your plants are looking good.” I ease into the conversation.
“Thanks, Rob.” He pinches a leaf between his fingers then smells them, smiles. “You want a few branches to take home, brighten up the loft?” He takes the big-ass dagger off the clip on his belt and saws off a branch, reaches for another.
“I don’t know, Dom. These plants have seen some shit.”
He smiles.
I lean against the corner of the table next to the junkie. Arms crossed, ankles crossed. Relaxed and cool as a cucumber. The table is covered with various tools that aren’t currently in use.
“Can I ask you something?” I wait for Dom to give me his full attention.
He turns toward me, leans his shoulder against the plant rack. “Of course. Yeah.”
I’m trying to remain calm, which is a major fucking undertaking given that my dad is still rotting in a jail cell and we don’t have a single fucking lead on who killed those guys or who’s setting him up or whether it’s the same people or whether the killings just created an opportunity for someone else to fuck with us.
“So I’m wondering, man, how come this fucker is sitting over here with all his fingers still attached, with all his teeth still in his mouth, and with all the fucking information I need still in his completely intact skull?”
Dom looks over at the kid, looks him up and down like he’s confirming the guy is still in one piece. He lets out a long breath. “Can we talk for a minute? Over here.” He motions toward the corner he’s standing in.
The room isn’t that big, so even though I’m stepping away from the guy, we’re only a few away from him.
I put my hand on his shoulder, give him a light squeeze. Sometimes Dom needs reassurance, and I can be the guy to give it to him. Especially on the rare occasion he opens up enough to let me. “Yeah, man. What’s going on?”
He rubs the back of his neck, looks down at the ground. Clearly, he doesn’t want to tell me whatever he’s about to tell me. “Paige doesn’t want me torturing guys.”
This shit again? “I thought she agreed to look the other fucking way.” I told her that was a fucking requirement of being with him.
This is exactly why the Cat girls are so fucking overpaid—to keep my top guys completely satisfied. To keep my men from settling down with girls that make them question their priorities. “Your main job is torturing guys. You love your job.”
He nods. “I know, man. But Paige hates it.”
“And she asked you to stop?”
“No. But I can read her body language. When I get home from the gym, she’s friendly as fuck. When I get home from the workshop, she keeps her distance for a while. And if it bothers her, my heart won’t be in it.”
“Does your heart need to be in it? I’m good with you just using your hands, maybe an occasional boot to the nuts.”
He looks at me like I’ve got two heads. “Interrogations are an art, Rob. And like any art, it’s got to come from here.” He presses over his heart. “It’s got to be pure.”
For fuck’s sake. “Wherever the fuck you usually pull this”—I wave my arms around the room—“from, you’ve gotta find a way to make this happen, man.”
“It’s killing me. I want to do right by the Famiglia—you know I do. But Paige is all about saving lives, you know? She thinks I should try positive reinforcement to get what I want out of the guy.”
The dickwad strapped to the chair decides to join the conversation. “I agree with Paige.”
Dom’s head snaps toward him. In the blink of an eye, Dom’s dagger hurls through the air straight at the guy, planting firmly into the chair, right between the guy’s legs, ever so slightly pressing against his dick and balls.
“ What the hell? ” the guy screeches, four octaves higher than a minute ago.
“Say her name again and I’ll slice your tongue off, motherfucker.”
The guy struggles against the ropes to pull his dick back from the razor-sharp blade. “You just said your girl doesn’t want you torturing anyone. That includes me. You can’t hurt me and keep your girl happy.”
“Hurting you right now wouldn’t be torture. It would be punishment for you saying her name. Say it again, and see what happens.” Dom cracks his knuckles.
Hal-le-fucking-lujah. There’s what I need. I knew my most effective hurting machine hadn’t become a complete pussy. I put my hand on his shoulder to reassure him. “You know, Dom, you don’t have to torture this guy if Paige doesn’t want you to.”
“Really?” the guy and Dom ask at the same time, looking at me. Even Salvo looks up from his phone with a what-the-fuck expression.
“Really.” I walk over and tug his knife out of the chair. I’ll admit it, even I find Damiano’s crazy-ass dagger intimidating as fuck. I walk it over, hand it back to him. “Here’s how this is going to go. Instead of you torturing him to get him to tell us why the fuck he’s helping the police set up my dad, I’ll ask him some questions. Every time he gets one wrong, you’re going to punish him.”
“ That’s the same, that’s the same! That’s the exact same thing! ” the guy squeals, pulling against the ropes, spittle flying out of his mouth.
Damiano lights up. “No, yeah. That works, right? Torturing is to get him to talk. Future tense. Punishing him is because he didn’t talk. Past tense. It’s not the same.”
I smile. “It’s not even close, man. Right, Salvo?”
“Works for me,” Salvo adds, his attention focused back on his phone.
I nod. “You good with this?”
Dom has a glimmer in his eye. Bites his lip, smiles. He slowly nods. “Let’s test it. Ask him something really fucking hard.”
My number one hurting machine is back. Thank the fucking Lord. Now maybe we can figure out why the fuck my dad is in prison awaiting trial for a triple murder he had abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with.
Check out Rob ’ s Struggle (The Famiglia – Book 2)
to see just how far Rob is willing go to free his dad.