I glance over my shoulder to ask the woman what her name is, but seeing she’s unconscious, that idea goes out the window.
As Raffaele drives away from the quiet airfield, he mentions, “We could go to the club where shit went down and see if we can get our hands on other Yakuza members.”
“Yeah. It’s worth a shot.”
When we pull up to the hospital, I have one of the guards take the woman inside. We don’t wait long for him to come running out of the building, and the second he jumps into the other SUV, we speed away. The last thing we need right now is to be arrested for assault in a foreign country.
“She knows who we are,” I say as we speed down the road.
Raffaele nods. “She’ll probably tell the police everything.”
I suck in a deep breath before letting it out in a huff. “Let’s lay low. I’ll ask Rosie to do some more digging on the Yakuza.”
“Back to the hotel?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I pull out my phone and dial Rosie's number.
“What’s up?” she answers the phone, then something crunches in my ear.
“What the hell are you eating?” I ask.
“Carrots.” I hear her take another bite, the sound of the vegetable snapping coming over the line.
“Turns out we didn’t have Ryo Tanaka. It was a body double.”
“Oh shit. That sucks,” Rosie says. “What do you need me to do?”
“See if you can find any more leads on the Yakuza.”
“On it.”
“Thanks, Rosie.”
I end the call, and glancing down at the red bruising around my knuckles, my thoughts turn to the woman.
“I’ve never hit a woman before,” I whisper.
“That makes two of us.” Raffaele shakes his head. “In our defence, we didn’t know she was female.” He glances at me. “They did a fucking good job of making her look like a man.”
Still. I spent the past couple of days beating the shit out of her. Up until today, she hasn’t begged for mercy. She never made any sounds.
“She’s fucking strong,” I say. “Bianca and Sienna wouldn’t survive a beating like that.”
“Yeah.”
I can hear the guilt in Raffaele’s voice, and wanting him to feel better, I say, “It’s all on me. I issued the order.”
Chapter 7
Augusto
While I’m waiting for Rosie to get back to me, I take a few minutes to shower and eat.
Sitting in my hotel room with a plate of sushi, my thoughts keep alternating between Riccardo, the Yakuza, and the woman we left at the hospital.
Knowing she’s getting medical care doesn’t do anything to ease the guilt that keeps growing in my chest.
My mother raised me to respect women. Even our enemies. There’s no reason to ever hit a woman. If my life is threatened by one, I’ll kill her, but I sure as fuck won’t torture her.
