He closed his eyes, only to open them when he felt the knife being pulled out of his leg once more. It almost didn’t hurt anymore. Blood pooled under his ass on the chair, and Valentino knew he was in deep shit.
“Tell me and this stops,” the man said almost gently.
“I don’t know,” Valentino whispered.
“Wrong answer,” the insane asshole said.
Then the pain came from Valentino’s shoulder. His head lolling to the side, he saw the hilt of the knife inches from his face, sticking out of his upper arm.
“Where is she?” the man asked as he ever so slowly pulled the knife out of his flesh once more.
“I don’t know!” Valentino said more forcefully. “After the news conference, I never saw her again!”
“You have to know something,” the man insisted. “Did you overhear her talking to anyone from the corporate office? Did she call anyone? She couldn’t have just disappeared. Tell me what you fucking know.”
Valentino wracked his brain. He needed to come up with something to give this guy, otherwise he was going to continue to be tortured. The pain wouldn’t stop.
Then something he’d all but forgotten flashed to his mind.
“The number!” he shouted.
“What number? You better start talking, or the next thing I’m gonna cut is your dick.”
“I tried to catch her alone in the laundry room.” Valentino almost tripped over his words, trying to get them out before this lunatic chopped off his cock. “She ran off, but there was a piece of paper. She dropped it! Must’ve come out of her pants pocket or something. It was a number.”
“What kind of fucking number?” his torturer said, then punched him in the face for good measure.
Valentino could feel blood dripping off his chin but had no idea where it was coming from. His nose? Cuts on his face? His mouth? He felt around his mouth with his tongue and realized he was missing a couple of teeth. Shit, he’d always had perfectly straight teeth, and he hadn’t even needed braces to get them.
“Damn, you’re either stupid or fucking stupid,” the man muttered, then leaned down in front of him.
Valentino had no idea what he was doing—until the most excruciating pain yet radiated up from his foot.
The man stood and triumphantly held up one of Valentino’s toes.
“This little piggy went to market…” he singsonged, then threw the toe to the ground as if it had offended him in some way. “Talk,” he ordered.
Valentino’s gaze locked on that digit as it finally sank in that he wasn’t going to live through this. This guy was certifiably crazy, and it was obvious the longer it took for him to get the information, the more he’d enjoy torturing him.
“A phone number. I don’t remember all of it, but the area code was eight zero eight. That damn Navy SEAL gave it to her. There were some threes in the number, and a one, I think. I was gonna give it back to her but decided not to because she was being a fucking bitch.”
Valentino spoke quickly, not caring that he was throwing Rachel under the bus. She’d rejected him. He had no idea who this guy was, or why he wanted the dumb bitch, but he could have her. It was her fault he was in so much pain. He’d tell this guy everything he wanted to know if it would just end the torture.
“She was upset about it. When someone asked why she was all mopey, she said she’d washed an important piece of paper that must’ve been in the pocket of her jeans. But she didn’t wash it; I burned the fucking thing to a crisp,” Valentino said, his voice slurring even more now.
“Eight oh eight, huh?” the man asked.
Valentino nodded.
“And it belonged to a Navy SEAL?”
“Uh-huh. One of the guys who came onboard to take out the pirates. She had the hots for him, wanted in his pants, and I guess the feeling was mutual. If she had more time, I bet she would’ve fucked him right then and there, but he had to go back to his ship, and we had to go into port.”
Valentino sagged in relief when the man stood up and took a step away from him.
“You aren’t lying to me, are you?” he asked.
Valentino shook his head as vigorously as he could. “No!”
“You know what? I believe you.”
“Thank God.”
“Since you were finally smart and told me what I wanted to know, I’m gonna kill you quickly.”
Valentino opened his mouth to beg for his life, but didn’t get the chance to say anything before the man lunged at him and sank the blade into his upper left chest.
Looking down, he saw the hilt vibrating back and forth, and he coughed.
“Right in the heart. You’ll bleed out in a few seconds. Don’t fight it,” the man told him as he removed the blade from his flesh.
Valentino wanted to cry. Wanted to scream at the injustice of what was happening to him. But he didn’t have the energy. His head slowly sank forward and his eyes closed as his heart stopped beating in his chest.
Andrew grimaced as he did his best to clean up the room. He hated this part. He much preferred torturing people then leaving the mopping to his soldiers. But he had to dispose of this asshole’s body where the Tunisian police wouldn’t find it. He’d arranged for a father and son to take the body out into the sea and mix it in with the chum they used to bait sharks.
Valentino Russo would disappear off the face of the earth as so many others before him had done. The ocean, thanks to the creatures that dwelled within it, was an amazing way to make shit disappear.
Making sure the man’s toe was included in the plastic wrapping, Andrew mulled over what Valentino had told him. Elodie had taken a fancy to a Navy SEAL, and it sounded like the attraction had been mutual. She didn’t have the paper with his number, since Valentino had destroyed it, but she could’ve memorized it. It sucked that Andrew didn’t have it either, but there were only so many places Navy SEALs were stationed, at least that was what he thought. He didn’t know shit about the military. Hadn’t ever been interested in the government having that much control over what he could say and do, or how he could live. But knowing the area code would give him a huge leg up on locating the guy. And if he knew what city he lived in, he’d go and see what he could find.
Andrew had no proof Elodie was with one of the SEALs, but there had literally been no other sign of her anywhere. She was probably using another fake name, but narrowing down where she might’ve gone was a huge step.
He couldn’t wait to get back to New York and do some research. Paul was gonna be fucking thrilled. And Andrew was sick of being a mere capo. He wanted to move up in the organization, maybe become Paul’s consigliere. If he could be his advisor, he’d have a lot more power and respect amongst the other capos and fucking Jerry. The underboss was itching to move into Paul’s spot—and if that happened, Andrew knew he’d have no chance of being anything other than what he was…a glorified gopher for the family.
Smiling as he recalled Valentino’s cries of pain, he sealed the ends of the plastic he’d wrapped around the man’s body. Andrew loved seeing others suffer. It fed his soul.
If he hadn’t found the Columbus family, he’d most likely be a serial killer. But now he could kill in the name of family and duty. He’d never felt better about what he did than right this moment.