Chapter 21 #2
I reach a heavy steel door, tucked into an alcove. It’s slightly ajar, a sliver of harsh, flickering white light spilling onto the floor. The light is clinical, neon-cold, vibrating with a low hum that grates against my nerves. Through the crack, the stench is absolute.
My lungs refuse to take another full breath, as if they know the air inside that room is poisoned.
I shouldn’t be here, I think, but my hand is already moving, pushing the door wider.
Once I see what the room holds, I know for certain that I should NOT be here.
The room is a nightmare. Concrete floors, a single drain in the center, and a man tied to a heavy wooden chair. It’s Fredo. One of the men who usually eats breakfast in the kitchen.
His face is a ruin. One eye is swollen shut, a purple-black knot of flesh. His lip is split so deeply I can see the white of his teeth through the blood. He’s slumped forward, his breath coming in shallow, gurgling rasps.
Oh God, Fredo. He gave me coffee two days ago.
My chest is hollowing out, a cold, jagged vacuum of pure terror.
And then there is Rafael.
He has his jacket off. His white shirt is ruined, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, revealing the corded muscle of his forearms. He is splattered with red—fine mists across his chest, a dark smear on his jaw.
He doesn't look angry. He doesn't look like a man in a rage.
He looks like a man doing his taxes.
He’s holding a pair of heavy pliers in one hand. With the other, he reaches out and grabs Fredo’s chin, forcing the man’s head up. Rafael’s face is a mask of cold, clinical detachment.
"I’m going to ask you again, Fredo," Rafael says, his voice a low, terrifying rumble that fills the small room. "And I want you to think very carefully about your answer. Because you have ten fingers, and we’ve only accounted for two of them."
Fredo sobs, a spray of red hitting the floor. "I-I didn't... I swear... I don't know who... please..."
"Wrong answer," Rafael sighs.
He doesn't hesitate. He moves with the economical precision of a surgeon. He grips Fredo’s hand, pinning it to the arm of the chair. The pliers find the nail of the middle finger.
I want to look away. I need to look away. But I am paralyzed, my feet rooted to the cold stone of the hallway.
Rafael twists.
The sound is a sickening, wet crunch followed by a shriek that shatters the silence of the basement.
Fredo’s body spasms, the chair rattling against the concrete.
Rafael doesn't flinch. He watches the nail come away, the raw, red bed of the finger weeping fresh blood.
He tosses the piece of keratin onto a small metal tray.
Clink.
The sound of that nail hitting the tray is echoing inside my skull. He’s skinning a man like a piece of fruit. This is the man who kissed my neck. This is the hand that held my zipper. He’s a monster. A beautiful, methodical monster, and I am the one who gave him the reason to do this.
"That’s three," Rafael says, his voice flat. "Do you want to go for four, or are we going to talk about the phone call you made from the east boundary?"
"It wasn't... it wasn't for the O'Rourkes..." Fredo gasps, his head lolling. "My sister... she’s sick... I needed the money..."
"Money is a reason," Rafael says, leaning in until he’s inches from Fredo’s ruined face. "But it isn't an excuse. You sold my men for a payout. You put my wife’s life at risk. Do you know what I do to people who threaten what is mine?"
Rafael reaches for a thin, serrated blade on the table beside him. He doesn't go for a vital organ. He goes for the thigh. He drives the blade in, slow and deep, and then he turns it.
The sound of the blade grating against bone makes my stomach turn over. I clamp a hand over my mouth to keep from vomiting. The gore is everywhere—on Rafael’s hands, on his face, pooling around the drain in the center of the floor.
"One more time," Rafael whispers, his hand steady on the hilt of the knife. "Who gave you the contact? Who told you the window was twelve minutes?"
Fredo’s eyes roll back in his head. "The... the g... the master of the Ghost..."
My heart stops.
Rafael freezes. The stillness in the room becomes absolute. He pulls the knife out with a wet schlick and stands up slowly. He turns his head, his nostrils flaring as he catches a scent that doesn't belong in this chamber of horrors.
He looks toward the door.
He looks directly at me.
The green of his eyes is gone, replaced by a dark, predatory void. His face is splattered with Fredo’s blood. He looks like a demon climbed out of the earth in an Italian suit.
He doesn't say a word. He just stands there, the bloody knife in his hand, watching me.
His eyes... oh God, his eyes. He looks right through me. He knows. He has to know. The predator has caught the scent of the rat and I have nowhere left to run.
I can't move. I can't breathe. I am staring at the man I’m falling for, and all I can see is the blood of the men I’ve already killed on his hands.
But underneath the terror, something else is waking up, a traitorous, liquid heat pooling in my core, sliding down my thighs shamelessly.
It’s sick, it’s twisted, but seeing him like this is doing something to my body that logic can’t touch.
My pulse isn't just racing from fear; it’s thrumming with a dark, desperate need to be claimed by that monster.
"Gia," he says, and my name sounds like a death sentence.
A death sentence I suddenly want to earn.
Oh shit.