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It took a long while before she calmed down.
Her sobs trailed off, and her breathing pattern turned regular and deep again.
I thought she was asleep when she whispered. “I don’t think he can get it up.”
My hand on her head paused, and I looked down at her face. “What?”
“I think he’s impotent. He just gets off on afflicting pain and watching. His face—it turns into this ugly grimace as if he isn’t really human.”
My whole body tightened, then exploded with rage.
I let out a breath, forced myself to relax—even though it did nothing to the storm raging inside of me. “You’re talking about…”
“The Ape.”
Fausto.
Fuck me.
“Was he the one who kidnapped you?”
She shook her head.
The small movement sent ripples through my chest.
“I don’t know. We were in this basement. It felt like an old castle or something. The walls were of stones, and instead of stairs, there was this strange kind of circular way up.”
I swallowed around the lump forming in my throat.
Stonewalls and a circular way up.
I knew the place—actually there was only one building I’d seen like that—my family’s home in Verona.
She’d been captured and held there.
In my family’s home.
Who did it? Cristo? Alessandro?
My father had always been against human trafficking. It was his golden rule, the moral high ground he wouldn’t budge on—absurd since he had no problems with drugs, weapons, extortion, or killing someone to send a message or increase his power.
“The girls got picked, one after the other. Then they picked Cara.”
“Cara?”
“My sister. I couldn’t let them take her.”
Her sister Cara. I needed to find her. “So, you volunteered?”
She nodded, then sniffed.
Fresh tears soaked my already wet shirt.
“That’s when I tried to disarm that guard—” Her voice broke.
“And almost shot yourself?”
I stroked her head and pressed her tighter against my body with my other hand.
