“Men without tongues don’t talk either,” Hugo adds, typing something into his phone and tucking it into his pocket before moving to look through the drawers for something. I can guess what.
The man in the chair goes gray and literally pisses himself. I step back. “Christ, these are expensive clothes.”
“Please. Please!” Johnny begs as Hugo comes over with a steak knife.
“Your life in exchange for your tongue.”
The man is struggling against his bonds, and sobbing like a fucking pussy.
“Think of your family. Think how happy they’ll be to have you back. It’s just your tongue, after all.”
“Please.”
“Think about the boy. Look, we’ll even use a sharp knife. It’ll slice right through the meaty flesh.”
He whimpers, sobs, pleads.
I nod at the other soldier who’s been quiet. “I want to know what’s at this address. If he tells you before I find out myself, he lives, minus his tongue. If he doesn’t talk, cut off his tongue anyway then kill the bastard.”
“Yes, sir.”
I turn to the man in the chair. “You understand the importance of timing here, Johnny? It’s going to take me maybe an hour to get out to that address. You think about that.”
He mumbles something, but I turn to Hugo.
“Ready for breakfast?”
“Fuck, yeah.” He hands the knife off to the soldier who eagerly takes it.
“Let’s go.”
When I reach the door, I turn back to the soldier still inside. “Make sure if he does choose the first option, he doesn’t bleed out. That’d make a liar out of me.”
Hugo and I walk out the door, and the screaming stops the instant it closes behind us. I reach into my pocket and hand the address over to Vincent. “Get some men to this address. I want to know who’s out there.”
After breakfast, I head into one of the upstairs rooms for a meeting, where I’m tied up for most of the day. What I really want to do, though, is go back home. To see her. But Vincent hands me an envelope as soon as I get into the car.
“What is it?”
“Letter couriered to the girl’s house. Our man intercepted it.”
I open the rather bulky envelope and reach inside to retrieve another, smaller one. This one is good quality stationary, heavy, and specially made. I already recognize it. My blood boils.
I turn it over. It’s addressed to Emilia Larrea-Estrella. I guess he’s covering all his bases. That bulk I felt, it’s the wax seal. Fucking pompous, arrogant fool thinks he’s some kind of aristocracy with his fucking seal. I rip the envelope open.
Dearest Emilia,
Ghosts we think we killed and buried always lurk nearby, ready to snatch us back in time. Ready to smother us in darkness.
Do not trust my son. He will hurt you like he hurt her.
Be safe.
Your friend,
A.
I crumple the note but decide not to throw it away. I tuck it into my pocket instead.
“How in fuck’s name does he know about her?” I ask Vincent, although I know it’s a redundant question.
“I don’t know, sir,” he answers anyway. I know I have enemies, and many of them are his spies. He lives for vengeance, my father.
“I’m going to fucking kill him. Let’s go.”
“The Lincoln property?”
I nod once. The Lincoln property is a large and completely private estate on the outskirts of the city. It’s currently occupied by my father, and I wonder as I fume if I can’t throw the old man out on the street. Wonder what the hell debt I owe the bastard.
We pull through the gates a little over an hour later. The property is so large, you can’t see the house itself for another few minutes and, after that, it’s still a mile to the front doors. With thirteen bedrooms, it’s bigger than my house in the city, but he’s still not satisfied. He wants more. Greedier and greedier in his old age.
No one stops me when I walk in the front door, although the woman dusting is startled at my entrance.
“Where’s my father?” I ask her. I don’t know her name, and she’s quite young. She most likely doesn’t know who I am.
I ask my question again, louder this time.
Footsteps upstairs tell me someone’s heard, and when I look up, I see Janet, my father’s nurse. She’s been in my employ ever since the accident. Or what she calls the accident. My father and I both know it was not that.
“Giovanni? Is that you?”
She comes down the stairs. She’s in her early fifties and the only one who can stand to be around my father. Staff turnover is at an astonishing rate here because he’s such a dick. She reaches the landing and comes to greet me. I can barely spare a smile. I’m too angry. “Where is he?”
“He just went to bed to lie down for a bit.” Her expression changes. She is his nurse, after all. She may not know the reasons for our shared hatred of each other, but she knows the depth of it.