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“He was my twin. When we were seventeen, someone kidnapped him and sold him to the Pits.”
A roar goes up from below, and I pause, standing by the rail to watch as an attendant checks the pulse of a combatant in the cage. After a second, he shakes his head, stands, and grabs the other man’s hand, raising it in a mark of victory. The winner’s chest, smeared with blood and sweat, rises and falls heavily. He doesn’t smile.
“He was killed down there.” I gesture sharply to the scene beneath us before pivoting and walking on. “Just like that.”
Behind me, Ronaldo makes a little sound, but I ignore it. I don’t need his sympathy. Sympathy is for the weak.
“I’ve been trying to figure out how to tear down this place since. Trying to figure out how Francis got here in the first place. It makes no sense that no one was ever caught and punished for killing the son of a Don, don’t you think?”
Silence.
I side-eye my guard. “That was not rhetorical.”
“Oh. No, ma’am. I mean, yes, ma’am. I mean—“
I wave off his fumbling. “Someone needs to be punished.”
My gaze glides over the room as I traverse the platform, headed toward the far end. It disappears into a shadowy alcove that begins a sloping descent into the lower part of the Pits, disappearing into a bottom story in much the same fashion as ramps work in a concrete parking garage.
I’ve been here before. I’ve always known what happened in the coliseum level of the Pits, but I’ve never been any lower.
That changes today.
My fingers drift to my necklace as I begin my descent. Is this where they kept Francis?
Further down, past the coliseum level, the noise fades, and the ramp is guarded by a couple of guys seated at a card table. From where I stand, I can see dim light below, but the rest of the view is blocked.
One of the guards stands, hitching his pants over a paunchy stomach. “Wrong way, sweetheart.”
“You must have me confused with someone else,” I say sweetly. “Now step aside.”
The seated man looks up with an amused expression. “I’d listen to her, Frank. She looks like a vicious little honeybee.”
Frank crosses a set of thick arms over his chest. “Don’t make me have to escort you, sweet—“
I hold up a hand, stilling the flow of words guaranteed to get him in trouble. “I’m not anyone’s sweetheart, honeybee, sugar pie, darling, or any other moronic endearment that might cross your mind. I’m Carina Scarpetta, and I’ll be on my way now, with or without your permission or even five whole fingers on each of your hands.Capisce?”
Frank swallows before stepping out of my way. He jostles the card table behind him, but Dumbass Number Two—I’ll call him Beans—barely blinks, his gaze wide on me as I sweep past with all the confidence I don’t feel.
I need that false bravado because as I round the corner and descend the final slanting loop of concrete pavement, the area widens into what can only be described as Hell.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. The lowermost level of the Pits is monstrous. People are in actual cages, hollow eyes staring out at me through iron bars with a kind of hopeless fury. Homeless people mill about, passing through food lines and gathering around barrels that flicker with flame. Filthy children huddle in corners, drawing into themselves and trying to go unnoticed.
It’s like a different world. The willing, the unwilling, and people with no other choice are all down here.
I make a slow circle, committing it all to memory. The drug use no one’s bothering to hide, the pimp at the far end watching his girl, the children with no adult in sight… I want to vomit.
“Who…” The question sticks in my throat, and I pause to clear it. There’s no clear indication of who is in charge. “Who’s responsible for this?”
Beside me, Ronaldo is wordless, lips clamped tight. He shakes his head.
“This is your job,” I tell him. “You find me answers.”
Turning on my heel, I start walking back upstairs. Back to square one. God, this place. Everywhere I look in this city, I find more shit to dig beneath.
It’s exhausting.
Frank and Beans don’t say anything when I pass them, a fact for which I’m grateful. In my current temper, I cannot be held responsible for anything I say or do.
