Chapter Twenty-Two #2
That made me think. From my research on Sarah, there was no man in her life. She hadn’t talked about Alexis’s father. I wondered what kind of man he was, if he’d willingly walk away from a woman like her and that sweet little girl.
I knew what Maxim was saying, but the notion of even pretending that I would hurt Sarah or Alexis made my stomach turn. I wouldn’t scare Sarah, even to save my own ass.
“That’s not happening,” I said, my tone hard enough to make it clear that the topic wasn’t up for discussion.
“Fine,” Maxim said, raising his hands in surrender. “You know what I don’t understand? Why is the DA pursuing this case?”
“What do you mean?”
“Historically, the district attorney has declined to file charges in cases unless he’s confident he has a good chance of winning in court.
But this case? It seems risky. There’s no real evidence against you.
Even the connection between you and the men you sent to threaten Henry Moss isn’t much in the way of proof.
It just seems strange to me that the DA agreed to take this case to court.
Unless he somehow knew Sarah’s testimony was going to change in a way that would help his case. ”
I thought about what Maxim was saying as we pulled into the garage at the safehouse.
It was a two-story dwelling in a low-income neighborhood.
It looked like any other single-family home in the area, but there was a state-of-the-art security system and surveillance cameras set up in every room.
We had minimal furniture in the place because it wasn’t set up for comfort.
It was a place for my men to hide or recover from injury if needed.
Except for the basement. That was where we held people prisoner.
I killed the engine, but before we went inside, I turned to Maxim. “You make a very good point about the district attorney. If he is trying this case against me with the belief that he’ll win due to Sarah’s false testimony, he must be in the Italians’ pockets.”
“That’s my suspicion.”
“Look into it,” I said. “Get Nikolay to help if you need to but keep it quiet otherwise.”
Maxim gave a curt nod, and we got out of the car. Entering through the garage had us stepping into the kitchen, were one of my men was standing in front of the refrigerator, sipping from a bottle of beer.
“Status update?” I asked.
He quickly put down the beer and straightened. “The man is secured downstairs. There’s been no other activity.”
The door to the basement was just off the kitchen, and I headed there, feeling the rage I’d been suppressing all afternoon rising inside me.
The bastard downstairs tried to take Alexis.
I didn’t know where he was going to take her, but I doubted it would have been somewhere safe and warm and fun.
Would he have hurt her? Held his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet as he slipped out of the gym with her? Hit her if she cried in fear?
Those images in my mind made my heart pound in my ears and my hands were fisted at my sides as I reached the bottom basement step.
The man from the gym was tied to a chair on the far side of the dimly lit space.
The basement was a bare room with black walls and a concrete floor with a drain in the middle.
There was a utility sink with an attached hose and a cabinet filled with torture devices, tarps, and cleaning supplies.
Everything we needed to extract information or teach a lesson.
It was cold in the basement, and not just naturally. The air conditioning was always set low in this room, meant to keep anyone held down here uncomfortable.
The man in the chair tried to yell when he saw us, but he’d been gagged so I couldn’t make out his words.
The basement was soundproof, so the gag was unnecessary.
I could have just untied it, but I wanted to scare him, so I pulled out a switchblade and approached him with a wicked smile on my face.
The man’s eyes grew wide with fear, and he struggled against his binds as I lifted the knife to his face.
When I cut through the gag, letting it fall into his lap, he immediately started yelling.
“What the fuck am I doing here? Let me go! You can’t do this to me. It’s illegal.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You mean like kidnapping a child?”
“Fuck off!”
I turned away from him, heading to the cabinet in the corner of the room.
Opening it, I ignored the man’s continued shouts about how I couldn’t hold him there and that I’d be sorry.
He might have been delusional. I couldn’t imagine why else he would have thought he was in any position to threaten me.
I grabbed a screwdriver from the assortment of tools.
There were plenty of horrifying things in there that were known to break a man, including a blow torch and pliers.
But I doubted it would take much to get this man to talk.
He might have tried to take Alexis, but I could tell he was no hardened criminal.
Maxim watched from the bottom of the stairs as I strode back across the room and plunged the screwdriver into the man’s thigh without hesitation.
He howled in pain, and I stepped back to watch him bleed.
The satisfaction that I got from seeing him in pain might have made me a psychopath, but I didn’t care. He wouldn’t leave this basement alive after what he tried to do to Alexis today.
“What’s your name?” I asked curiously when he stopped shouting and cursing me long enough to take a shuddering breath.
“Fuck you, you asshole!”
Stepping forward, I punched him in the face, feeling another surge of satisfaction at the crunching sound that signified his nose breaking. This time the blood gushed over his lips, which quivered as he started to cry.
So weak.
But that was fine. It worked to my advantage.
“Fine,” I said. “Don’t tell me your name. It doesn’t matter anyway. What I really want to know is why you tried to take the girl.”
“I… I didn’t,” he lied, looking at me with terror in his eyes. All of the anger and spite had left him already. “It was a misunderstanding. I swear, I didn’t—”
His words cut off with a scream as I ripped the screwdriver out of his leg. The blood flow increased, but he wouldn’t bleed out. I knew what I was doing well enough to avoid any arteries that would end this too quickly. I needed answers.
“Oh God,” he cried as I lifted the screwdriver over my head. “Don’t! Please, don’t.”
I didn’t listen, and it ended up embedded in his other leg. This time, his eyes rolled back in his head as he screamed, and he passed out. Disgusted, I turned away, heading to the utility sink. As I picked up the attached hose, Maxim spoke up.
“If you keep going at him so hard, you’ll kill him before you learn anything.”
“He tried to take Alexis,” I snapped.
“What does this woman and her child mean to you?” he asked.
My hand tightened on the hose. “I don’t know. I just… I need to protect them.”
I knew that answer wasn’t satisfactory because it bothered me that I couldn’t explain my reasons too. But I wasn’t going to discuss this with my brother right now. I needed to deal with the trash first.
Turning on the hose, I aimed it at the kidnapper’s face, and the blast of cold water brought him back to consciousness quickly. He spluttered and shook his head, but it didn’t take long for the pain in his body to register and remind him of where he was.
“I’m sorry,” he blubbered. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Then, why did you try to kidnap Alexis?”
“They paid me,” he said, sniffing and then wincing at the pain of his broken nose. “These guys somehow knew she’d be at the gym today, and they gave me five grand to take the kid. All I had to do was grab her and run out the front door, and they were waiting in the parking lot.”
Damn it.
If Nikolay had realized that the men behind this were right outside the gym, he would have made sure to get a hold of them. The missed opportunity just pissed me off more.
“Who hired you?” My voice was deep with fury. I gripped the front of his shirt and yanked him toward me until the chair was tipped forward as I put my face right in front of his.
“I-I can’t. I can’t tell you. They’ll—”
“What? Kill you?” I flashed a cold smile at him. “Forget about that. The men who hired you to kidnap Alexis will never get their hands on you. I guarantee that.”
Because I was going to make sure he died here.
I shoved him back, and the chair tipped over with a loud crash. The man’s head banged into the concrete.
“It was a man named Marco Giordano. He used to date my sister. That’s why I’m the one they approached to do it.”
I recognized the surname. The Giordano family was part of the Italian mafia.
That was all the confirmation I needed to know that my suspicions were right.
The Italian mafia was behind all of this.
They framed me for murder and were trying to rig the trial against me.
In doing so, they were dragging Sarah into the whole mess. And her innocent daughter.
Those fuckers would pay.
Turning away from the sniveling man tied to the chair, I headed toward the stairs, pausing when I reached Maxim.
“Take care of him,” I said.
Maxim knew what that meant, and if he thought it was strange that I didn’t finish the man myself, he didn’t say anything.
I could’ve done it and probably taken perverse pleasure in it, but having confirmation that my greatest enemies had targeted the woman and child I was starting to greatly care about affected me more than I expected. I just wanted to get the hell out there, go home, and see them. I needed it.