What the fuck happened to them? Whose legs and feet were under the sides of beef? Were we short a man? Two? I couldn’t keep count, even with their names.
“Moooo,” a voice screamed out. “Mooo. Enough. He has had enough. You are killing him! Paaaapà!”
I shook my head. Was thatmooornoo? I looked to my left and then to my right. The beef was talking to me or screaming at me. I blinked, trying to focus. The entire truck shimmied, but hard enough that it tightened the shackles. As it did, I struggled against them.
The harder my heart seemed to pound, though, the lighter my head became.
“Walk, you motherfucker.”
I thought I was. The shackles and chains were still attached, and I was shuffling along.
Where the fuck was I before?
Sunlight burned my eyes and skin, but I could feel coolness seeping off my clothes, reacting to the heat. Even though it wasn’t all that hot.
Then I was led into a place of darkness. A hell of sorts. It was so hot and humid that my clothes seemed to stick to me as soon as I was in.
It was like a dungeon. It even smelled like it. Water ran down the walls. Even the stone, or whatever it was, was sweating. My eyes were having trouble adjusting to the darkness, even though torches burned, only adding to the stifling heat.
My body was having a reaction—like throwing a freezing cold glass into boiling water. I felt like my skin cracked and then exploded into thousands of pieces.
The motherfucker behind me had to kick my legs out from beneath me to get me on the ground. With the help of another man, they shackled my hands behind my back. It made me lean forward, my weight pulling against my muscles, stretching them. I groaned from the pressure.
Or I thought I did.
When I looked to my left, my old man was in the same position. Vincenzo next to him. Nino and Oscar to the right of me. Feet were shackled, too. We were on our knees, legs spread, but leaning forward.
Oscar was fighting against his chains, trying to get to Nino, who I wasn’t even sure was Nino. His face was unrecognizable. Blood dripped to the stone floor from the numerous wounds he had. It was creating a puddle underneath him.
A puddle that glistened like rubies in the glow of the fires.
My wife’s feet. Her eyes wide. Gazing up at me. Panicked.
“Kill me,” her voice danced in my head with razor-sharp pointes. “Please. If you love me, you will kill me.Rio. Rio. Rio!”
“No!” I roared, and it echoed inside of my head—or maybe it was this place. I could feel the panic, like acid, like a race again time, surge through my veins. It was making my heart pump faster and my vision swim.
“Saverio.”
“Don’t,” I said through clenched teeth. “Don’t you dare fucking ask that of me again.”
Green. Green eyes. Pleading. Filling with blood.
“Saverio!”
My head snapped to the left.
“Look at me, son,” my old man said in Italian. “Look at me.”
I blinked. Blinked. Blinked. As if that would make me open my eyes.
“Open your eyes!” he roared, but his voice caught on the last word.
At the command, I did.
“They gave us something. That drug. Keep your mind on straight. Think past it. Think about things that you know are true.”
“I can’t,” I said in a moment of sharp lucidness. “I keep going in and out. They had us in a truck with beef?” The thought suddenly came to me, and it slid right out of my mouth.
