Chapter 3 #2
I make sure that Meggie is settled in the main bedroom and sleeping soundly, instruct the nurses to let me know the instant she opens her eyes, and join Bruno in the underground bunker.
All thoughts of Armageddon vanish when I enter the locked room where Enzo and one of Bruno’s bodyguards are holding the guppy.
This room might’ve been constructed to withstand the end of the world and all its horrors, but it was created with something sinister and twisted in the mind of the designer.
The prisoner is hanging from iron cuffs attached to the ceiling.
His ankles have been cuffed to the stone floor.
But it’s the array of torture weapons that makes my gut twist as Bruno closes the door behind us.
Whips, chains, paddles, electrical units with clips for attaching to various parts of the body, ropes, latex gimp masks. It resembles a Dominatrix’s dungeon rather than a practical bunker, and I glance at Enzo who reciprocates with a lopsided grin and a shrug.
I’m glad that Demi didn’t accompany him this far, not only because of what we’re about to do.
I pull a seat out from under a table loaded with sex toys, turn it around, and sit in front of the prisoner. He is olive-skinned, his thick dark hair tipped with silver; he’s wiry, with a scar that makes his upper lip curl. He meets my gaze, weighing up his options, which are few.
“Where is The Fish?” I keep my tone neutral until I know which direction this is going to take.
His top lip curls away from his gums to reveal a gold front tooth. “What are going to do if I don’t tell you? Fuck me with one of your toys?” His eyes slide to the table behind me.
In a flash, Bruno crosses the room and slices off the little finger on his right hand.
The man sucks in a deep breath, his gaze never wavering from me, even when Bruno stands in front of him and inspects the severed finger closely.
He produces a glob of spit and aims it at Bruno’s feet.
Bruno produces a dagger seemingly from nowhere, moves behind the prisoner, and presses the blade against his throat. The man’s Adam’s apple bobs painfully, but otherwise, he doesn’t move.
I take my time before repeating the question. “Where is The Fish?”
His dark eyes remain cold. He knows how this is going to go; it comes with the territory. As does honor, loyalty, and bravery. Men like him choose their side and stick with it till the end.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” His accent is strong. Perhaps he was brought in specifically for this job.
“You entered the hospital tonight with the intention of murdering an innocent young woman. Do you even know her name?”
A hint of a smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “I don’t get acquainted with my victims. It’s easier that way.”
“Did The Fish tell you that he kidnapped his own daughter?” I watch his reaction closely. “She’s five years old. The woman you were supposed to kill tonight is her sister.”
His eyelids flicker. It’s a small tell, and one that he recovers from quickly. He didn’t know. Would he have accepted the contract if he did? Probably. Refusal would almost certainly have resulted in his own death. But it was Amber’s age that got to him.
He might be a mafia hitman, but they don’t target children.
“No?” I continue at his silence. “Tell me where the child is, and we’ll end this now.”
“How would I know where—”
The blade moves so quickly it’s a blur. But I hear the dull thud of the little finger from his left hand as it hits the floor.
His eyes become little more than slits. “You can take all my fingers, but I cannot tell you what I don’t know.” He sniffs loudly.
“But you know he kidnapped her.”
His blood is dripping down his wrists and staining his sweater red. He doesn’t answer.
“Okay, let’s make this a simple yes-no quiz. Is she still alive?”
He holds my gaze, testing how far he can push me before I snap.
Bruno saunters over to the dungeon wall, snatches a whip from its stand, and lashes out at the prisoner’s face. Livid weals line his cheek, and his left eye is already beginning to swell.
“Is she still alive?”
“Yes.”
Thank fuck! To my right, I hear Enzo release a sigh.
“Is she still in the country?”
No answer.
The whip attacks the other side of his face. Bruno stands back and stares at a fixed spot on the wall; he is barely getting started.
“Is she still in the country?”
“Yes.”
I need to narrow it down. “Is she still in Vermont?”
“How the fuck—”
Bruno saunters past the prisoner, turns the dials on the electrical unit, and returns with a metal clip attached to the end of a cable. He lifts the man’s sweater and attaches the clip to his left nipple.
The prisoner’s breathing grows shallow. When Bruno goes back to the unit and sends an electrical impulse through to the clip, his legs buckle out from under him, and he issues a low, animalistic groan.
“Yes,” he spits, drool clinging to his bottom lip. “Yes, she’s still in Vermont, but that’s all I know.”
“He didn’t tell you where he’s holding her?”
“No. All I know is it’s somewhere safe. Somewhere she can’t escape.”
I can work with that. “Why now?”
His eyes almost disappear beneath his lowered brows. “What the fuck kind of question—”
Bruno cranks the dial up a notch.
The prisoner’s legs buckle again. When he has composed himself, he mumbles, “Someone paid him.”
“Who?” I glance at Bruno, and the prisoner doesn’t miss it.
“I don’t know.” Electricity pulses through his nipple a third time. “The queen. That’s all I know.” Spit foams at the corners of his mouth.
The queen?
“The queen paid him to find the princess.”
Enzo comes over and whispers in my ear, “Enough now.”
I hold the prisoner’s gaze; I have one more question. “What do you know about Ricardo Puccini?”
Another sniff. He knows about Ric. “The Fish killed his wife and son. Years ago. I always knew he’d come back for him one day. A man cannot forgive or forget.”
I stand up. I’ve heard enough.
With a nod at Bruno, I leave the dungeon and make my way outside, Enzo at my heels.
Outside, I suck in deep breaths of unpolluted air to cleanse my lungs of the bunker, the torture, the answers the man gave us.
Enzo stands beside me and peers up at the stars twinkling through the treetops. “The queen?”
I’m still trying to process this one. The queen and the princess. Someone with a vested interest in getting Amber away from Meggie.
“Or away from me.” I say the words out loud without realizing.
Enzo furrows his brow, his face cast in titanium with the moon’s glow.
“The queen paid him to take Amber.” Deep breath. “Away from Meggie or away from me?”
“Lucia?” Enzo shrugs. “I never did understand why you wanted to marry that woman. Have you seen the size of the bastardo she’s fucking around with in Texas?”
“I didn’t want to marry her. It was a contract.”
But it occurs to me now that perhaps Enzo didn’t have anything to do with Lucia’s surprise appearance. Perhaps she paid The Fish to kill Meggie and kidnap Amber to preserve our little arrangement. If so, I will have no qualms ending it, quickly and violently.
“I want you and Demi to find her.”
“And then what?” Enzo doesn’t question working alongside the young cop.
“I’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, I need you to stay with Meggie.”
“Where are you going?”
“There’s something I need to do.”
I drive back to the hospital. Alone. And park outside the morgue entrance.
I use the special pass allocated to me by Bruno’s contact when Meggie was admitted, and let myself into the morgue, my heart racing as the chill and the silence engulf me.
Checking out the files in the office takes a little longer, but the hospital still retains hard copies of all their records, which negates the need to hack into a computer. I find what I’m looking for and let myself into the storage room.
The tang of formaldehyde stings my nostrils and makes my eyes water. But I locate the compartment that I need and pull it out.
Ric’s corpse is swaddled inside a body bag.
I unzip the bag enough to reveal his cold gray face.
All those years, and I never knew about Ric’s wife and son.
It was his secret to keep, and I wish I’d known about it, wish I’d been able to help him, but I understand.
If someone killed Meggie and Amber, I would do exactly what Ric did.
I would harness that grief, and I would use it to end that person’s life, no matter how long it took.
Even if it was the last thing I did.
I feel the loss of his presence like a hole in my side. He will never smile again. He will never join me in the casino and share a bottle of brandy with me. He will never see me get married and settle down and raise a family of my own.
I lean closer and kiss his forehead. “I forgive you, mio amico.”