“What the hell is this? ‘Bring your wifey to work’ day?” he says.
“It’s not your problem,” Armani snaps. “Let’s finish this.”
Clayton sighs, clearly unhappy, and ushers us through the door.
We’re in the vast underground room, the catacomb. The scent of sweat and blood hangs in the air, the bare bulbs overhead shining harsh light all around. My eyes dart to the folding chair I saw last time, and my stomach bottoms out to find a shirtless man sitting in it, his hands cuffed behind him. His blonde head slumps to one side and his back is to me, but I don’t need to see his face to know who it is. It’s the man with the tattoos, from Vegas.
Clayton must have brought him here. Probably tied up in the trunk of a car. Which means he’s worth more to the Bellantis alive than dead, presumably because he can provide information. He has to be the Bruno soldier who was sent to ambush Armani in the setup that Juliana mentioned. I feel a flicker of relief that the man wasn’t killed, but it’s quickly replaced by the sickening realization that he may not be alive for long.
I’m pushed against the wall that’s farthest from the door and told not to move. Once Armani walks away from me, I notice a metal wire hanging down from a ring bolted into the ceiling, leading to the prisoner’s neck. I inch a little closer, my eyes following the line of the wire. It’s wrapped around the tattooed man’s throat, around and around again, almost like a necklace made of steel. They’ve been choking him during his interrogation.
That’s not all. One of his eyes is swollen shut, ringed in purple bruises, his nose looks broken, and there’s dried blood running from his face down his chest. Angry red marks—burns?—mar his pecs and torso. My stomach rolls, and I have to turn my head away.
All of this is Armani’s doing. Whatever was supposed to happen in Vegas clearly went sideways for the Brunos, resulting in the kidnapping of their tattooed operative. But how the hell did Armani figure out the Brunos’ plan? How is he always two steps ahead of everyone?
“I wasn’t sure you’d be back today, considering how many hours you spent down here already,” Clayton says to Armani, strolling nonchalantly toward the prisoner.
“Is our little canary still having trouble singing?” Armani asks.
“You might need to coax him a bit more,” Clayton says. “You have the gift of persuasion. I may have been too…blunt, in my methods. All I got out of him was screams.”
He gestures to a wheeled cart with a steel tray on top. The tray holds an assortment of metal tools spattered with dark drops. I don’t try to look more closely.
Armani joins Clayton in front of the tattooed man, smiles, and then looks over at me as if I’m expected to join them. But I stay rooted to my spot. I don’t want any part of this. I was warned not to throw up, but I might just pass out instead.
Except I need to be strong and get through this. And then I need to find a way to warn Juliana that everything has gone horribly wrong. I don’t know how deep this goes, but Armani might have already unleashed an entire hidden arsenal on the Brunos, and I don’t want Juliana mixed up in Armani’s revenge schemes. Even if I’m not very happy with her right now.
Because she sent me to war without a rifle. This Bruno-Bellanti feud has nothing to do with me. Surely I could have been a good friend without going undercover in the household of the men who killed her mother. But, as usual, Juliana had me wrapped around her finger.
She’s always had a way of talking me into anything and everything, making it all seem reasonable…until, for instance, the police are marching us across campus at two a.m. in our underwear, dripping wet from the memorial fountain that Jules convinced me we had to swim in after we snuck out of a lame frat party. Or that time she begged me to be her “getaway driver” when she slashed the tires on her ex’s car, but he came out of his house with a damn gun in his hand and we barely got away. The stakes were lower back then, though. Look where I am now.
The more I think about it, the angrier I get. Yes, I willingly involved myself when I agreed to help her out. That was my mistake. But I never expected to end up in a literal torture chamber.
I glance up. Armani’s readying himself to “interrogate” the tattooed man now. He picks up something that looks like a sharpened hook and looks it over appraisingly, then tucks it casually in his pocket. The threat is clear, but there’s no need to bring the pain just yet.
First, he leans close to the prisoner’s ear and says something that I can’t hear, obviously giving the man a chance to talk before the agony comes raining down on him.
The conversation must be going poorly, because Armani suddenly gets louder.
“If there’s any chance of you walking out of here alive today, you need to tell me what I want to know,” he roars.
“I can’t help you.” The man’s voice is scratchy, thick with pain.
“But you can. You just don’t want to.” Armani looks over at Clayton and tells him, “I think it’s time for our birdy to fly.”
Clayton nods and steps on a button set into the floor that I didn’t notice before. A square outline appears in the concrete floor just in front of the chair and starts to lower, leaving a black hole…no, a trapdoor. If the chair were to fall into that hole, it would leave the tattooed man suspended from the ceiling by that wire noose around his neck.
That’s when I understand that they’re going to hang him. Or at least threaten to do so.
Armani paces in front of the prisoner and says, “Listen closely, because I’m only going to ask each question once. If you don’t answer expediently and truthfully, there will be consequences. Do you understand?”
The tattooed man says nothing. Armani sighs.
“Clearly you’re not going to have much fun playing this game if you can’t even understand the rules,” he tells the prisoner, nodding at Clayton.
Clayton moves behind the prisoner and kicks the chair, nudging it toward the trapdoor. The wire noose pulls a little more taut around the tattooed man’s throat, making him cough.
“This is the situation,” Armani says tersely. “The ambush your boss set for me in Vegas didn’t go to plan. As a result, here you are. My prey. A bound, helpless bird waiting for a much larger, hungrier bird to rip it apart for its supper. But you can prevent that if you cooperate.”
