BOW DOWN: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Barone Crime Family) (40 page)

T
he warehouse was pretty fucking
bleak as I walked around the outer edge. I couldn’t hear a thing from the inside, though I knew it was probably packed with wise guys. I stopped outside the side door and knocked a quick pattern.

It opened a crack.

“Who’s that?”

“It’s fucking Rafa. Open up.”

The door moved open a bit more. The guy looking at me was Ryan something or other, one of Ernesto’s boys.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Vince isn’t around.”

“I know. He sent me. Open the fuck up.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Ernesto didn’t say anything about this.”

I stepped up to him, annoyed. “You’re going to move now, or I’m going to beat your ass. Then when you bitch and cry about it to your boss, I’ll beat your ass again. Move.”

He stared me down for half a second and then stepped aside.

I strode past him and into the abandoned building. The door shut behind me.

Up ahead, the hallway ended at a T-junction. I turned right and kept going. I could hear voices bouncing off the old metal walls as I got closer and closer to the action.

I pushed open a door at the end of the hall and stepped into a wide and deep room. It was lit with only a single bright spotlight dangling from the ceiling.

Sitting under that light was a pretty girl strapped to a chair. Standing around were a bunch of wise guys, men I recognized. Leaning against the back wall was Ernesto.

I ignored the girl. I walked over to him, and he nodded as I approached.

“I was wondering when you’d show.”

“Vince sent me.”

“No shit.”

“Is that her?”

He nodded. “That’s her.”

“She talk yet?”

“Not a fucking word.”

“How hard have you worked her?”

“Not hard. Giving her a little break now before Lonnie goes back to work.”

I shuddered but kept it off my face. Lonnie was the mafia’s torturer, more or less. He was a brutal fucking guy but looked like any other middle-aged dad. I glanced around the room and spotted him standing next to a little table where he had his instruments arrayed in neat lines. He was balding, pale, and thin, and he wore a long sleeve T-shirt tucked into khaki shorts and boat shoes. He looked like he just came from the fucking golf course.

I looked back to Ernesto. “What’s next?”

“Like I said, Lonnie gets to work. She’ll break eventually.”

Just then, Lonnie walked back over to the girl. The whole room went silent and somber, and I forced myself not to look away. That would be weakness, and everyone else would take note of it.

But I didn’t want to fucking watch this. Nobody wanted to watch it. Still, the least we could do was at least watch what we were doing to this poor fucking girl. She was my enemy, but I didn’t wish Lonnie on anybody, not fucking ever.

He started with a pair of pliers. He asked her a simple question, waited for her to answer, and then yanked out one of her fingernails. The woman screamed and struggled, but she didn’t say a single word.

That went on for both hands. Every single nail was torn off. Blood was dripping down the chair, and her face was drawn, pained, but she didn’t speak.

I was impressed. Not many people lasted that long. Lonnie was unflappable, though. He simply gave her a short rest before returning to work.

The mood in the room was grim. These were violent criminals, men who were used to killing and fighting, but watching this was something else. Lonnie returned to her with a contraption that looked like pliers, but each side was a razor sharp blade, like a cigar cutter.

He slid her pinky finger into the tool.

“What is your name?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

He cut off her finger at the first knuckle.

She screamed, and he waited patiently for her to finish. He slid the contraption onto her next knuckle.

“What is your name?” he asked again.

Again, no response.

Again, he cut off her finger to the next knuckle.

I clenched my jaw.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Dasha,” the girl said, sobbing. “My name is Dasha.”

“Good. It’s nice to meet you, Dasha.”

She spit at him. He wiped it off before sliding the contraption to the end of her pinky finger.

“Who do you work for?”

“Fuck you.”

He cut the remaining bit of her pinky off.

She screamed.

“Who do you work for?”

“The Spiders,” she sobbed. “The fucking Spiders.”

“How did they know about that whorehouse?”

She shook her head. “Go to hell, you fucking sick bastards. You rapists. You sick fucking rapists.”

He took her ring finger. He repeated the procedure until her ring finger was gone.

“How did they know?” he asked, starting on the middle finger.

“A journalist,” she sobbed. “A girl named Cassidy. Oh god, please, leave her out of this.”

Lonnie nodded to Ernesto.

“First good bit of information,” Ernesto said.

“You believe her? Look at the fucking girl.”

“Lonnie believes her. I do too then.” Ernesto looked at me. “Go follow up on this.”

“We only have a first name.”

Lonnie looked at Dasha. “Where does she live?”

“I only have a phone number.”

“Give it to me.”

She recited it. Ernesto shrugged and looked at me. “Is that enough?”

“That’s enough.”

“Take care of this journalist. Find out what she knows and then kill her.”

“Fine,” I said.

“Go.”

I quickly left the room. Dasha’s eyes followed me as I went, and I knew she was in for a lot more pain before the night was through.

I got out my phone and called Vince. He answered right away.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Brutal,” I said.

“What’s she like?”

“She’s just a fucking girl. Strong and stubborn, but Lonnie is breaking her.”

“She picked the wrong business, Rafa. Don’t forget what they’ve done to our people.”

“I haven’t forgotten.” I knew men the Spiders had killed, men who weren’t bad guys.

“What’s happening now?”

“Ernesto got a lead he wants me to follow up on.”

“Worth doing?”

“Yeah. I need a number ran.”

“Fine.” I recited him the number.

“Got it.”

“That’s some journalist who gave the Spiders the location of our whorehouse, apparently.”

“All right. I’ll text you the name and address in a few minutes.”

“Got it.”

I hung up the phone and headed back out of the warehouse. Ryan stood tough as I walked passed, but I wasn’t in the mood for a pissing contest. I pushed out into the night and walked over to my car, leaning up against the hood.

That woman’s screams echoed in my mind. I was a violent thug. I killed men, I hurt men, I did things normal people wouldn’t be too happy about. This was my job, though. This was what I was. Violence and destruction was how I lived.

But torturing a fucking girl was not my idea of fun. I was glad to be out of there. I could have stood in there and toughed it out, because I wasn’t weak. Given the choice, though, I wouldn’t want to watch someone get their fingers cut off bit by bit.

Finally, my phone buzzed with an address. Cassidy Andrews lived downtown. I got into my car and headed over, speeding through the streets.

I shot Ernesto a message. “Got the address. Visiting the girl.” He answered a few minutes later. “Good. Spider is breaking. Dumb bitch.”

I frowned and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.

I had no clue what I was going to do with this journalist, but I had to check into it. I figured I’d be able to intimidate her into talking, and if she really knew too much, I was going to have to kill her.

Although I didn’t want to do that. I might be able to buy her silence, or maybe extort something out of her to use as blackmail. There were a lot of ways to keep someone in line, and killing wasn’t my preferred method.

I pulled up outside her apartment building and got out of my car. It was the kind of place where you needed to be buzzed up, so I just hung around and waited for someone to come in or out. Ten minutes dripped by until finally an older woman came toward the door, unlocking it. Acting as a polite, helpful gentleman, I pulled the door open for her, smiling, and followed her in.

I headed up the stairs. Cassidy lived on the third floor. I walked down her hall and stopped in front of her door.

I didn’t feel nervous. I never felt nervous. I felt excited, elated. I lived for this sort of thing. I didn’t feel great threatening women, but I liked doing my job and was fucking good at it.

I knocked. I knocked again. Finally, the door opened up, the chain still connected.

I nearly fell over when she looked out at me.

It was her. It was Jessica. I knew she’d been lying about some things, but holy fucking shit.

“Hey there, Cassidy,” I said, trying to mask my horror and shock.

She stared at me, clearly just as surprised as I was. I grinned, trying to play it cool, but inwardly I was fucked up.

It was really her, the girl I couldn’t keep my mind off of. I had known she was probably bad news, but a fucking journalist? I never would have guessed she’d be so fucking stupid as to go to that bar alone as a fucking journalist.

“Going to let me in, Cassidy, or are we doing this the hard way?” I asked.

She continued to stare at me before softly shutting the door. I heard the chain rattle, and then the door opened up again. She stepped aside, letting me into her apartment.

I stepped in, my heart hammering in my chest.

What the fuck was I going to do?

This whole situation had been fucked before, but now it had just reached a whole new level.

“
W
hat are you doing here
?” I asked him.

He walked into my apartment like he owned the place, and I shut the door behind him. He looked around, not answering me right away. I crossed my arms, my nerves on fire. I felt like I should do something, maybe run out the front door screaming my head off, or maybe call the police. I knew this was bad if he knew my real name, but I had no clue how bad.

Maybe that was all he knew. Maybe he didn’t know I was involved with the human trafficking story. Maybe he had just figured out my real identity and was unhappy about it.

But he had mentioned “the hard way.”

He finally looked at me. “Why did you lie to me about your name?”

“I was afraid,” I said honestly.

“You should be afraid.” He sighed and sat down at my kitchen table. “Got a drink?”

I blinked, surprised. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Whisky if you got it.”

I went into the kitchen and found an old bottle in the back of the cabinet. I grabbed two glasses, brought it all over to the table, and poured two drinks. He took his, smashed it back, and then poured himself another. I sipped mine, grateful and hoping that it would help calm my nerves a bit.

Finally, I sat down and he just stared at me.

“You’re a journalist,” he said finally.

“Freelance.”

“For who?”

“The Chicago Daily.”

“Shit paper.”

“Yeah. Pays the bills.”

“What were you doing in that bar that night?”

“Research,” I admitted.

“For what kind of story?”

“About the mob.”

He nodded, his face cool and impassive. I couldn’t read him one bit.

“What do you want to know about the mob, Jessica?” He paused and smiled. “Sorry. I mean Cassidy.”

“I don’t know. Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me. You wanted to find something out. Go ahead, ask me.”

“What do you know about human trafficking?” I blurted out.

His face broke for just an instant. He looked almost pained, like I had said the exact wrong thing in that moment. He quickly gathered himself together, though, and that moment passed.

He shook his head. “I don’t know much.”

“But your organization does it.”

“We do.”

“Why? Isn’t it wrong, even for you?”

“Yes,” he agreed, “it is. There’s a split in the mob. We’re not all interested in trafficking.”

“So why do it?”

“Because it brings money. And we’re not about to tear ourselves apart from the inside over it.”

“Why are you here?” I asked him.

He took a drink and sighed. For a second, I had the totally irrational desire to stand up and walk around the table. I wanted to sit in his lap and forget all of this, go back to being Jessica, go back to that moment in the alley. It had been a perfect moment, and I’d been thinking about it so much since then. We nearly got it back once, but now it looked like it was totally gone.

“Do you know a woman named Dasha?”

My heart nearly stopped.

I leaned back in my chair and then drank my whisky down. It burned my throat and nearly turned my stomach, but I took a deep breath and steadied myself.

“I do,” I said.

“Fuck.” He stared at me. “Dasha is currently in a warehouse on the edge of town, getting tortured for everything she knows. So far, she gave up your name.”

“Why?” I asked. “What?”

“We wanted to know how she knew about that whorehouse. She said a journalist named Cassidy told her. That’s you.”

I felt like my whole world was spiraling down around me.

I was in way over my head. I always had been, but now I knew it. Sitting across from this gangster, I realized that I didn’t really know him. This whole time he was just a stranger and all I’d wanted was to taste him. That was all it was between us.

But now Dasha was captured and she was getting tortured. Dasha, that strong woman I barely knew, the woman I wanted to be so badly.

Caught and tortured.

“How?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It wasn’t my group that caught her. But right now, Cassidy, you should be pretty fucking worried.”

“I’m just a journalist,” I blurted out. “I’m just chasing a story.”

“You’re sniffing around where you don’t belong.”

“These are real people, Rafa. I’m trying to do some good.”

“And I’m trying to do the same thing.” He sighed, shaking his head. “How did you know about that whorehouse?”

“I’ve been interviewing people. I just followed some leads until I found it. I didn’t know the mob owned it.”

“Well, we do. Or at least we did before the Spiders came and stole from us.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

“Whatever you intended, Cassidy, you’re in the middle of this now.”

“What’s going to happen to her?”

He shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”

Fear lanced through my body. If a woman like Dasha could get caught and tortured, then what was stopping them from taking me? I was way in over my head, and I had nobody to protect me. I wasn’t even a full-time employee at the paper; I just took whatever assignments they had lying around. I was working on this human trafficking story on my own.

Nobody could help me.

“What’s going to happen to me?”

“That’s a better question.” He topped off his drink and sipped it. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”

“Rafa, I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“But you did. You got involved in this. And now it’s my job to take care of you.”

I felt a catch in my throat. “Take care of me?”

“Relax,” he said. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”

I let out a breath.

“For now, at least,” he added. “But you need to make some promises.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Stop looking into this story,” he said. “Hell, stop looking into anything that could be remotely connected with the mob. Don’t call the cops. Don’t leave the city. Lie low and don’t make any sudden moves.”

“Okay,” I said. “Fine. I can do that.”

“I mean it, Cassidy. Don’t do a damn thing without checking with me first. And no more fucking lies.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding. I had no clue why he seemed like he was helping me, but if it meant not getting killed or tortured, I was going to go along with it. “I’ll do whatever you need. Just don’t hurt me.”

He sighed. “I’m not going to hurt you. Okay? I promise. But the men I work for, they fucking might, so you need to listen to me.”

“I will,” I said softly.

“If you go to the cops, you’ll die. If you leave town, you’ll die. If you do anything remotely stupid, you’ll die. So sit tight and do nothing.” He stood up and finished his drink. “Thanks for the whisky.”

“Sure,” I said, my mind a buzzing blank.

He walked over to the door, and I stood up to watch him go. As he pulled it open, he looked back at me.

“It’ll be fine. Just do what I say.”

“Okay.”

He gave me a short look and then disappeared back out into the hallway.

I stared at the closed door and then ran over to it. I locked every lock and then collapsed onto the floor, unable to stop the fear from overwhelming me.

I took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to be some blubbering idiot who needed to be rescued.

But then again, I did need to be rescued. The mob wanted me dead, all because I had poked my nose where it didn’t belong. I’d thought I could help save the city, but instead I put myself in danger.

I had no clue why Rafa seemed to be helping me. He had clearly been sent to my apartment to hurt me, but he didn’t want to. Maybe it was because of what had happened between us. Or maybe he was just scaring me until I told him everything I knew.

I had no clue what his endgame was, or if there even was an endgame. All I knew was that I wanted to survive this. Getting killed over a story had never been part of my plan.

I felt numb and confused. I was just a normal girl trying to do some good in the world. Now I’d been thrust into something way bigger than me, something I could barely understand.

I felt cast adrift, and I hoped Rafa could keep me from drowning.