I mask my frustration with a glib shrug. “Fine. Your call. Let’s see how long it takes to burn down to the bone,da?”
“No, no! Fuck, no. Stop! Th-th-there is something.”
I stop the white-hot flame just inches from his right foot. Not close enough to burn but definitely to blister. “Talk.”
“The woman?—”
Rocco screams as I engulf one toe in fire. “Rina. Her name is Rina.”
“Yes,” he pants, tears cutting down florid cheeks. “Of course. Rina. There were rumors before the auction that someone had shown particular interest in her. Repeatedly. She—Rina—fit his type. Young, fair-haired, blue eyes.”
I grind my molars together, refusing to let Rocco’s words form a picture in my head. “That doesn’t sound like a unique description.”
“Virgin,” he spits out. “Rina was also a virgin.”
She was, at least at the time she was taken. But Rina never would’ve told him that. Not in a million years. Which means they must’ve checked. Rocco doesn’t know it yet, but he’s just earned himself a few more days in hell before I end his pathetic existence.
“And she was so fucking feisty. All teeth and claws, that bitch. Like my ugly cunt of a niece, but actually attractive. I’ve never enjoyed provoking a sweet piece of ass so mu—oomph.”
I crack him on the head, temporarily silencing him. The more he talks about Rina, the harder it becomes to not just kill the fucker. Or, at minimum, rip his tongue from his mouth.
You can’t,the saner part of my brain reminds.You still don’t know enough. You don’t know how to find her.
After a few seconds of the blowtorch incinerating his toes, Rocco Pagano gains consciousness with a howl. I leave theflame where it is for another three, four seconds, before giving the miserable shit time to catch his breath.
“Who was it, asshole? Who wanted her?”
“That fucking Albanian. Shkodra,” he forces out between bloodied lips. “Burim Shkodra.”
“I want an introduction.”
“Fat fucking chance.” Rocco twists his mangled mouth into a disgusting smirk. “The man is a ghost. Un-fucking-traceable. The he-calls-you type, never the other way around.”
I press the open flame directly against Rocco’s skin. He starts to convulse in pain, the smell of cooking flesh filling Cosenza’s abandoned restaurant. Rocco’s barely conscious when I click the blowtorch off. “No one is untraceable. Especially not someone who likes to buy virgins to use as personal fuck toys. You have a think, Rocco, and when I come back, I hope you have some ideas of how I can meet this Shkodra.”
Pagano has gone nearly cross-eyed with pain, but the fucker still tries to lob a wad of spit at me. It doesn’t come close to hitting his target, but that doesn’t stop me from slamming a fist into his nuts. Rocco blacks out on impact, his body calling it quits on our little conversation.
“Fuck you, Rocco Pagano,” I whisper in his ear. “I’ll be back soon.”
As soon as I step outside, I take my first deep breath in hours. After this session with Pagano, I should feel somewhat sated. Mildly satisfied, at minimum. I’m making actual progress and he’s experiencing excruciating pain. A win-win.
But instead of leaving the warehouse feeling relaxed, I’m beyond strung out, my blood crackling in my veins like electricity through live wires.
None of my regular decompression outlets are working. Drinking. Speeding. Jacking off. Slowly stripping someone of their will to live. I’m far too restless—reckless—after each and every one.
I rev the throttle on my motorcycle, turning too hard, taking a city corner too fast. The rubber burns, the wheels screeching on asphalt as the machine temporarily loses grip on the road. I squeeze the throbbing metal between my thighs, somehow keep the beast upright, and wait for the surge of relief that should come after a near miss. The instinctive warning to not push so hard next time.
But if my brain is trying to tell me anything, the message is lost to the unrelenting anticipation that’s building and building and building the closer I get to my apartment.
It’s been five nights since I last saw Marya. She’s there, in her room. Dr. Ruiz has confirmed it, seeing her patient once a day now. The tray of doctor-approved food I leave outside the door gets returned, plates empty. The computer and books I left the morning after her escape attempt were gone within hours. Two nights ago, I even heard what sounded like her laughing at something on the TV. She’s there, confined to what used to be my bedroom, the fallen mafia princess locked in a makeshift prison.
But knowing she’s there hasn’t stopped me from lingering outside her door like a creep just to catch a hint of noise. Or asking too many questions of the doctor after she’s finished an exam.
I told Marya to stay in that room. Ordered it. To prevent her from interfering with my business. From distracting me from the mission at hand. How was I supposed to know that by banishing her from sight, my need to see her would shoot through the fucking roof?
I take the final turn into the parking garage at top speed, leaving skid marks on the asphalt as I race down the ramp to my parking space. I’ve managed to lay low in this city for months, to work my way into the Pagano organization through the brutality and skill I’ve honed over decades, to finally pryinformation from Rocco that I’ve been trying to get my hands on for ages.
I’m as close as I’ve ever been to figuring out where Rina is and instead of my focus being locked on the one place it should, my brain is agonizingly split between the woman I’m trying to find and the one I’ve decided to keep captive in my own house.