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Sonny was right. Like my father, Enzo favored torture over death. It was hard to get something out of someone when they were no longer breathing. On the other hand, I preferred to get it over with. If someone ended up on my shit list, it was with good reason. I hated baggage. The dead couldn’t retaliate, they couldn’t come back years later for revenge.
“Were you in there with anyone else?”
He shook his head with his mouth full of food. “Nah. Just me.” Sonny licked mustard from the corner of his lips and shoved the rest of the sandwich into his mouth, chomping louder with each bite. “A guy came in with food and water once a day. I never got a good look at him. Dark hair, tan skin, and black clothes were all I noticed. He could have been anyone. But he was well dressed. Probably connected.”
“How about scars, tats, anything that stuck out about him?”
He slurped down the rest of his soda. “I wish. He opened the door, slid the tray right next to it, and closed it before I could even get up. We never spoke a word. It was a basement—damp, dark, full of spiders and mold. There was nothing out of the ordinary. I couldn’t hear anything outside. No cars, people, not a sound.”
“The church Enzo used was out of the suburbs, hidden in the woods. Do you remember it?”
Sonny stuffed another sandwich into his mouth. “Kinda. It’s been a long time.”
With each second that passed, Sonny filled his empty stomach, his face slowly returning to normal. He was beginning to look like my oldest friend, apart from the blood and dirt all over his body.
“How did they take you?” I pounded the rest of the soda and crushed it in my hand. “Walk me through that night.”
Sonny dropped his food to the plate and rubbed his hands together. “Gia asked me to make her some popcorn and grab her a soda. We were going to watch the new Saw movie on Pay-Per-View.”
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “She loves scary movies.”
He nodded. “So, I went downstairs to the kitchen. I was waiting for the popcorn to finish up in the microwave, with my back turned away from the door, when someone came up from behind me and jammed a needle in my neck. I didn’t even have time to fight them off before I was out like a light. They must’ve shot me up with horse tranquilizers. Whatever it was that shit was strong. I woke up, I don’t know how many hours or days later, still high on that shit. They probably dosed Gia with the same thing.”
The thought of Gia being drugged and thrown into a dirty basement like Sonny made my stomach churn. I wanted to kill whoever was responsible for taking her away from me. Revenge was the only thing I could understand.
“That was it? You were in Gia’s house and then woke up in the basement?”
“Yeah. I wish I had something more useful to help us track her down.”
“How did you get out? How did you get back here?”
“They drugged me again. Instead of a needle, they put something in my water. All I remember was drinking from a bottle of Aquafina, and a few minutes later I was tired as fuck. I passed out by the door to the room and woke up in a back alley a few blocks over from here. They dumped my ass smack dab in a pile of trash bags.”
I laughed. “Maybe they were sending us a message after all. Enzo was taking out the trash.”
Sonny smirked. “Don’t be a dick.”
“If he wanted to send us a message, he would have dumped you somewhere more significant like the parking lot at Scores or even out front of our house. But he left you somewhere he knew no one would find you. He must’ve figured you would wake up and walk home from there.”
“Maybe he thought you would finish me off.”
“I almost did. Consider yourself lucky I didn’t shoot you at least once.”
“Who would help you find Gia? You can’t trust anyone, not even your brothers. We have no idea who was involved with all this and what game they’re running.”
“Marco and Pete helped me find Carlo. I still have to pick up Fig, Dom, and Sal.”
“What did you do with Carlo?”
“Smashed in his skull with a baseball bat.”
Sonny laughed. “You always had a good arm.”
“It doesn’t take much to swing a bat.”
“So, where do we go from here?” Sonny finished the rest of his food and set the plate in the sink. “Do you want to go after Dom and his guys or check out the church?”
“The church. Maybe it will give us a lead on where they’re keeping Gia.”
