Rocco got me into the back seat of the Range Rover, and the guy who was already seated there put a blood pressure cuff on me and thenput the cold metal bell of the stethoscope to my chest as he listened to my heart.
I looked out the front window and watched the horror unfold.
The four men in the van had all of their limbs zip-tied before they all dropped on the cobblestone. Constantine’s men stood back, covered in bulletproof vests and carrying machine guns and shotguns.
I watched it all in the brightness of the headlights.
“Who did this to you?” Rocco asked.
I stared at him, unable to move my mouth.
“I know what they gave her.” The other guy opened a container, pulled out a vial and a syringe, and then injected it into my arm. “Give her a couple minutes, and she should be responsive.”
Rocco left my side, then walked to Constantine. He seemed to report what he’d just learned about me.
Constantine had a look on his face I’d never seen before. When he said his confrontation with Enzo was nothing, he meant it. Because it wasn’t just the wideness of his eyes that struck me, but the bloodlust. His neck was stiff, the veins underneath his skin strained so much they looked like they might snap. He held his body differently too, his shoulders squared like he was in a boxing match. He was the only one who didn’t carry a machine gun, so he must have handed that to someone else.
When Rocco finished the message, Constantine strolled over to one of the men on the ground, stared at him with a stone-cold expression for several seconds and, with lightning speed, raised his boot, then slammed down hard—snapping bone.
The guy on the ground shrieked more than he screamed.
Constantine continued his stroll to the next guy. “While we wait for the meds to kick in so she can tell me which one of you motherfuckers is responsible, we’ll play a game. See how many bones I can break in five minutes.”
My thoughts and reactions were still suppressed. Otherwise, I probably would have screamed in horror.
Constantine continued to walk and stopped near the next victim.
He trembled on the ground and waited for Constantine to strike.
Constantine remained still, watching the anxiety and fear cripple him without actually doing anything. Then he moved to the next guy and, without a moment’s notice, slammed his foot down onto his knee and snapped the socket.
“Ahhhhhh!”
Constantine went back to the man he tortured a second ago but didn’t draw it out. He just went for the ankle.
The guy screamed in horror when Constantine barreled down on him, screamed just as loud as the moment he’d snapped his ankle.
Then Constantine moved fast, going to each one and breaking another bone ... and then another bone. Stomping his boot down with enough force to shake the ancient cobblestones beneath us. It was the most violent thing I’d ever seen, all of the men screaming and crying as Constantine continued to pace and find something else to break.
The police never came. No one intervened.
Rocco addressed me again. “Which one, Aurelia?”
“Um ...” I couldn’t believe I could talk. I started to feel myself return. “Dirty-blond hair ... green eyes ... skinny.”
He left the Range Rover and walked over to the men who writhed on the ground.
Constantine took a break from the torture and let Rocco survey the sea of future corpses.
Rocco stopped at one and then motioned for the guys to lift him from the ground so I could see him clearly. “This the guy?”
“Yes,” I shouted from the back seat.
The guys immediately dropped him, and he slammed back to the cobblestone.
Rocco stepped aside so Constantine could finish.
“Get the gas,” Constantine ordered.
