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I can’t help crying out in pain. This fucker has punched in the exact same spot at least three times now. If he keeps hitting me there, he is going to crack a rib. It hurts to breathe, and my chest feels like it’s on fire from the inside out.
My face is soaking wet with tears and blood. I can feel it swelling from the many slaps he has given me while asking me the same damn thing over and over again. How many times do I have to tell him Suzie never told me a thing? And she sure as hell never gave me the stupid thumb drive they keep asking about. If I weren’t so fucking scared of the other guy using the knife he is holding—the one that looks too much like the one they ravaged my sister with—then I might snap and ask Ricca if he needed a hearing aid to understand the first fifty nothings I have already given him.
My tormentor delivers another punch to the same spot on my ribs again, and I scream out from the sharp spasm of agony it sends throughout my body.
“Tell me where she hid the thumb drive!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I scream helplessly. “Suzie told me nothing. She didn’t give me anything or tell me anything. I swear.”
I’m having trouble breathing because of how hard I’m sobbing and how much my ribs hurt. I haven’t heard or felt a crack, but there is a good chance he fractured something with that last jab.
I don’t know how long we have been here, but after being hit who knows how many times, I’m to the point of praying to God, promising to give him just about anything if Ethan would show up now and save me. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. It hurts to breathe, and I’m actually starting to pray for numbness to take over so I don’t have to endure the torment anymore.
I’ve learned the guy holding the knife is Vinny from all the yelling back and forth the two men do at each other. He leans against the wall, cleaning his nails with that knife, as he says indifferently, “Maybe Suzie didn’t tell her anything, cugino.” That statement lets me know he is probably the smarter of the two since it’s what I have been trying to tell them the entire time they have held me here.
Growling in frustration, Ricca steps away from me and starts yelling at Vinny in Italian. I’m sick and tired of the words I don’t understand. I have gathered that Ricca probably hasn’t been calling me anything nice with his “puttanas,” especially since it sounds too similar to the Spanish word “puta” that I know means whore. Plus, there is the fact that he has so nicely explained he is calling my sister a bitch when he calls her a “zocolla,” but somehow, I doubt Vinny’s constant use of “cugino” has any negative connotations. And doesn’t that just suck, because there is more than a few curse words I would like to call them both!
Right now, as they yell back and forth in rapid Italian, I have no idea what they are saying, but I really hope Ricca is telling the other man to take the knife and stick it in his own eye. Since I doubt I’m that lucky, I sit there and enjoy the break from Ricca’s fists.
His knuckles look pretty busted up from hitting me so much. There’s no telling how equally busted up I am. If the pain in my head is anything to go by, I know a slight concussion might be a possibility.
The two men raise their voices as they continue to fight about whatever the hell it is they are disagreeing on. I take the opportunity to discreetly glance around for some sort of help or a possible way out. There is not much to see besides a door in front of me, which Vinny has been standing by, and one tall, slender window on the wall behind me and to my left. There is no view out of the window, just a small alleyway and the brick wall that belongs to the next building. The only plus I can come up with is that I’m pretty sure we are on the ground floor.
“Why don’t you just shut the fuck up, Vinny, and lower your voice before someone hears us?”
This question from Ricca is ridiculous for two reasons. One, he just yelled at someone else for being loud when he is shouting the rooftop down himself. And two, if no one has heard my screams by now, I’m pretty sure no one will hear their argument. I don’t bother to point out either assessment, though.
The crashing of the door makes me flinch instinctively. Boots pound their way in as man after man files in with guns drawn and at the ready.
