If the Frenchman was dead, there was no reason for Gia to stay in my apartment. The man who had wanted to hunt her no longer posed a danger, so she no longer needed my protection. And yet it had just been about to get more interesting.
But instead of Emilio responding to my provocations as he usually did, he just took a step back from the balcony's parapet and looked at me with criticism in his eyes, before turning on his heel and heading inside to the villa, leaving me alone.
I twisted my mouth and looked after him, not very enthusiastic about the fact that he had avoided the confrontation. So there it went, my fun.
With a rumble in my chest, I leaned back against the railing, stared down at the garden, and pulled my smartphone out of my pocket to send Natale a message.Do we have anyone who needs an extra dose of love right now?
I could already imagine him rolling his eyes when he read the sentence. For reasons I couldn't quite understand, he didn't like it when I talked about love during outright torture.
* * *
With my head bowed,I climbed down the old stone stairs to enter the vaulted cellar. It had existed for centuries, because it was just as dusty. The smell of mustiness was in the air and made me keep my breaths to an absolute minimum. A little bit of air freshener might not have hurt. It wasn't enough to drown out the penetrating smell of blood and feces, but I was all about getting rid of the musty smell anyway. Not about beguiling the sense of smell of our prisoners.
Natale was leaning against a wall about five meters away, which was nothing short of a miracle, because in the entire basement you constantly felt like that the ceiling was about to fall on your head. It was not implausible, because the house to which the cellar belonged was more than dilapidated and had not been lived in for decades.
The perfect playground, then.
"Can you maybe tell me why I had to drive out here on my day off?"
"Because I feel like inflicting pain on someone," I replied good-humoredly, glancing around the corner.
Sometimes there were several inmates here, but most of the time it was limited to a single person. We didn't keep most of the people alive for long. As soon as they told us what we wanted to know, they were useless and just dead weight. You didn't carry that around with you any longer.
The Frenchman would have been a suitable candidate for our cellar. Unfortunately, he had died before he could enjoy it.
"So you didn't take the news well," Natale stated, nodding as if he had already suspected it. "I told Emilio you wouldn't."
I shrugged my shoulders. It was unnecessary to defend myself. Natale was right, even if he only knew part of the trigger for it.
"So are you going to let me work this guy now, or did you summon me here to lecture me?"
"I'm not in your way, am I?" he replied, raising both hands to show me I could do whatever I wanted. "Just tell me what bothered you so much about that guy trying to blow us up."
I heard what he said, but I was busy freeing the half unconscious guy from his shackles so that I could pull him by his still bound arms into the middle of the room, under the lamp, which was shining mercilessly into his eyes.
"I don't know. It's cheeky to either want the money or threaten to blow us up. He didn't even do it himself. Just kidnapping anyone and sending them to us under duress how creative. He’s a coward, if you ask me," I explained, swinging my foot out and kicking the already half-dead guy in the ribs.
I couldn't even remember why he had been given a ticket to our little chamber of horrors in the first place– and how long he had been sitting down here. If Natale hadn't intended to drive out here today, then he hadn't had a meal in a while, and the water coming out of the pipes down here was murky and wretched.
Either he died at our hands or from an infection he would contract down here.
A few seconds later, the heap of misery at my feet stirred and let out a pain-filled moan. His face was so swollen that I could not have identified him.
"Do we know everything we wanted to know about this one yet?"
"Yes. I decided to let him die down here. But I think he'll make a good punching bag for you, too." Something like amusement resonated in Natale's voice. "By the way, you shouldn't take it so much to heart that our enemies don't dare come near us. If they saw this, they might even wet their pants."
"Good," I growled, bending over the guy on the floor and pulling out the knife I carried. If I didn't have to make him talk anymore, I might as well cut his vocal cords, right?
Or let the knife dance across his skin until he screamed so long and loud that his voice gave out on its own? That would make the rest of his death much more pleasant. For me. For him. For all of us.
"Are you going to be okay here by yourself, or should I stay?"
"I just needed you to open the door for me," I replied, although I was already caught up in systematically torturing the guy at my feet and then putting him out of his misery. Alas. But there was no risk to be taken.
"You own a key, Dario.” I really didn't need that reminder. I knew that– only I had left my key in my apartment and didn't feel like facing Gia right now and telling her the news that there was nothing keeping her in my apartment anymore.
"Do you even want to go?" I growled and lifted my head. If so, Natale should decide fast. After all, I would not make the guy on the ground wait forever. That was rude.