I threaten her before we both shove her into the back seat of Michael’s two-door Maserati coupe. She won’t be scrambling out the door and the windows are tinted super dark. Once we’re back in the front seat, I turn around and point at weapon at the girl, who seems to think we want to rape or rob her. Clearly, she can’t tell that this car costs way more than double her annual rent.
“You make one sound, I’ll blow your brains out, princess,” I growl at her, keeping my semi-automatic pistol pointed at her face. No bullets, but she doesn’t know that. She just sobs quietly and stammers to herself in shock as she works out why the fuck this is happening to her as well as her status with the guy upstairs.
I sense Michael’s annoyance with her emotional state. He disobeys traffic laws with even more brazenness than the situation requires and cuts down our time crossing town by at least four minutes, which takes some doing. By this point, Lorena’s loud emotional explosions fade into much weaker but still persistent soft sobs.
She hasn’t once mentioned in any of her emotional stammering anything close to the reason why we’ve brought her here. Michael and I lead her to Gino’s ground floor apartment. He’s staying with Leandro while he’s out on bond until the end of the trial. The boss gets paranoid whenever a member of the family ends up in court and he keeps a close watch on every aspect of the unfolding legal drama.
We have the one bedroom apartment to ourselves for questioning this wimpy twenty-two-year old, who seems more like a girl than a woman, and not just because of her size. Once inside, Michael offers her a glass of water which she accepts with a hoarse voice. She doesn’t think twice before scarfing it down.
“Any clue why we’ve brought you here?”
Lorena looks up at him with slightly hooded, espresso-colored eyes, nestled deep beneath a plump monolid. Her off-centered nosering drives me insane with the impulsive urge to adjust it. I can’t imagine this waif being a criminal mastermind.
“To rape and kill me,” she answers Michael somberly, sending a shiver of disgust straight through me. I would never lay my hands on any woman with those vicious intentions, especially not a scrawny, sniveling green-haired brat like thisone. She’s half my age, and the thought of touching anyone except Aricia sickens me.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Michael answers, although I’m just as capable of handling this brat as he is.
“We have good intelligence thatyouwent around slipping drugs into drinks around two months ago when you worked atBelladonna’s.”
Her body stiffens. Michael and I don’t have to say anything to each other to become deeply aware of the tension now surging through Lorena’s body. Deception? Perhaps yes. Perhaps not yet. Our instincts as truth-hunters are well-honed. If one tactic doesn’t work, another will. This little pipsqueak will crack eventually.
“I don’t work at Belladonna’s anymore,” she says, betraying a possible source of the tension. “I got fired for vaping in the bathroom.”
“Uh huh,” Michael says, clearly unimpressed (if not outright livid).
“And sending Snapchats,” Lorena adds.
“Do you think this is a joke, little girl?”
“I don’t.”
“Surely, you remember me at least,” I tell her, bluffing through my teeth and staring straight into her naïve eyes, that might be young but clearly still hold the potential to deceive. “I remember you.”
She betrays herself with a slight smirk and speaks with a heavy Upstate accent. “I never seen you before.”
Michael presses her. “Is that so?”
“I swear.”
Lying brat.
“Interesting,” Michael says, his voice remaining steady, even as I detect the quiet shift in his mannerisms as his frustration heightens. He doesn’t have enough coffee in his body right nowto tolerate games. If this green-haired girl doesn’t fear us…she should.
Michael clears his throat and continues. “If you don’t remember, I would be happy to help.” He fishes into his back pocket for a small, black leather booklet. Lorena, perhaps thinking he would pull out a gun, keeps her eyes totally glued to Michael. He opens the booklet and she flinches backwards as Michael reveals an array of torture devices.
Scalpels. A large fishhook. Small knives with long blades.
“Peter, where do you want to carve her up for what she did to you?”
I meet her terrified gaze, feeling a flicker of satisfaction that I can cause this little creature as much torment as she caused Aricia. Unlike my brother or my cousins, I have absolutely no mercy in my bones. I would kill for Aricia before I struggled at diplomacy. I might have to kill now and I definitely know exactly what I want to carve up on this escaped subway rat.
“I’ll take her eye out,” I respond calmly to Michael, who himself has one eye due to an accident long ago. The girl probably can’t tell because he has the false one in, but the long scar over Michael’s face from when it happened is hopefully enough to signal to Lorena that this mistake will cost her in blood.
Michael reaches for a scalpel with a blade that has a scooping element to it, perhaps intended to perform this sort of task on a sheep or another farm animal. Once my finger wraps around the blade handle, the pipsqueak shrieks.
“My boyfriend made me do it!” She yells, sitting all the way back in the chair and nearly causing it to tip. “He’s an asshole!”
We can agree there. Michael gives her a sharp look as if to saykeep fucking talking.
