Rafael laughs. "Haven't even started yet and she's already screaming. This should prove quite…arousing." His eyes meet mine, glittering with wicked delight. "Have you told your new friend who I am? The things I enjoy?" He looks from me to her, expectantly. When neither of us answers, he shrugs. "No matter. I'll find out what I wish to know, one way or another, and I'llhave fun in the process." He laughs, a dark, evil chuckle as he crouches in front of the woman in his white linen suit and pale blue silk shirt, wrinkle-free and pristine. "You won't enjoy this very much, I'm afraid. But I certainly will."
Breathing hard through clenched teeth, the woman is growling and keening, eyes wild. "Please…please. Please don't. Please don't."
"Does begging change my mind, Sophia?" he says, his voice a serpentine, slithering whisper.
I stay silent.
He sighs. "Sophia, you are being petty. It's a simple, innocent question." When I remain silent, he slips that same black knife from his pocket, flips it open, and taps the woman's nose with the flat. "It's not me you should plead with, you know. It's her. The second she tells me what I need to know, I'll send you home. Not in one piece, obviously, but alive. So, my dear, I really do encourage you to beg. Beg for your life. Beg her to tell me where my son is."
She considers it. I see it in her eyes, on her face. Her eyes go to mine, searching me. She spits in his face, then, perhaps hoping he'll merely kill her right then out of rage. Oh, my friend, how little you know the monster before you.
He rocks back on his heels, grinning as the gobbet of saliva trickles down his cheek. "I see. Well. I suppose I have my answer, then, don't I?" He whips a handkerchief out of his jacket's inside pocket, wipes his face with it, and then drops it over the woman's head so it covers her eyes. Mostly. Just enough to obscure her vision. So she can't anticipate what he does next.
He glances at the men. "Hold her, my friends. I don't want to tie her up if I don't have to. It's more fun this way."
She thrashes, dislodging the handkerchief, and one of the men grabs her by the hair, wrapping the long mass of it around his fist, and yanks her head backward, hard, and then forces itforward again. Replaces the handkerchief. Keeps a tight grip on her hair.
Rafael crouches in front of her again, knife in hand, and slices the blade up the front of her leggings, making sure to let the cutting edge slide along her skin, drawing a thin cut up her shin from ankle to knee, to thigh, to hip. He does the same to the other side, and then slices away her underwear. Her legs drip blood in root-like rivulets down her skin.
She thrashes again, fighting as hard as she can. She manages to get off a kick that catches Rafael under the chin, making his teeth clack together and knocking him on his ass.
He shoots to his feet, snarling. "I saidhold her, you useless shitstains!" He spits blood. "Made me bite my tongue, you whore. Chain her legs to the chair.Now.”
One of the thugs pulls a set of handcuffs from his pocket and secures her leg to the chair, and then produces another pair from the same pocket and does it to the other leg.
"Now hold the stupid bitch or I'll turn you into shark bait," Rafael says.
The men tighten their grip on her, fingers digging into her flesh.
Rafael crouches in front of her again, glancing back at me over his shoulder. "Sophia, please. I know you don't want to see this poor innocent woman suffer. I'm sure there's some silly sisterhood of mothers or some nonsense like that making you think you share a bond. But there is no bond. You will sit there and watch me slice her to pieces, Sophia. Her blood will be on your conscience."
I say nothing; it already is.
He sighs. "Very well. You always were far too stubborn for anyone’s good. I know I should just kill you and be done with it, but I too am stubborn, you see."
He wedges himself between her legs and carves the blade up her belly, slicing open her shirt, and then her bra, leaving her naked.
Her eyes go to mine, pleading—just for a moment. And then the blank stare takes over and she drops her gaze from mine.
What follows, over the next few hours, is a waking nightmare to rival those days in the cell. Worse, almost. I can endure pain. I can swallow agony and trauma. But watching Rafael slowly torture this woman by degrees? It's fucking awful.
I think of him—my son. Lorenzo—Little Ren. I think of him watching Pugli blow his mother's brains out. I think of his fear. He is safe—he's with Nick Harris and his men, hidden in a bunker on a private island in the Caribbean, guarded by some of the most fearsome operators on the planet—aside from my boys, I mean.
I think of him, and I know I cannot give him up. Not for this woman. Not for anything. Everything I’ve been through would be for nothing, if Rafael gets his hands on him now.
No.
I must endure.
I make myself watch.
Every cut. Every plucked fingernail. Every severed finger.
When hours have passed and I've not spoken a single word, Rafael finally loses his temper.
With a snarl of venomous rage, he drives the knife into the woman's thigh, low, near the knee, and begins twisting the blade until she screams.
"Tellme, Sophia," he hisses, his voice razor thin and dangerously quiet. "Tell me."
