Coughing up blood, Ferris tried to speak, but Nicola hit him again, this time harder. The sound of the blows echoed around the room, making Collin flinch in worry. Landing one blow after another to his battered face, Nicola finally stopped and stepped back. “I can do this all night,” he said without raising his voice.
Ferris’ head fell. Dark red blood oozed from his mouth in a long string down to his soaking wet trousers. He sobbed quietly, unable to even touch his wounds.
“I don't’ know anything,” Ferris said pitifully. “You have the wrong man.”
“Oh, I’ve got the right man,” Nicola said without guilt. “You’re just giving me the wrong answers.” He opened the bottle water and took a sip then walked over to the corner and pulled out a blow torch. “I’m new to this torture thing. You see, up until you decided to try to play God with my life, I was a good cop. I didn’t believe in this type of thing.” He lit the torch and walked towards Ferris. “But it’s amazing what a man will do once he sees his family nearly killed.” He put the fire only inches away from Ferris’ face. “They tried to shoot us, and when that wasn’t successful, they tried to burn us. Do you know what fire feels like?”
Ferris’ eyes bulged in fear. He tried as hard as he could to pull away from the hot blue flame of the sun-like fire. “I don’t know anything,” he lied. “You have the wrong man!” he screamed.
Nicola’s eyes blazed. Putting the fire to his cheek, the sound of flesh burning filled the room. It was enough to make him sick but he held back his own nausea and prayed for answers. Hiding his own disdain for his actions, he pressed with the interrogation. “Five questions, Ferris. It will turn into six and you’re torture will turn in to an all night affair. It’s all up to you.” He put the fire near Ferris’ crotch. “I can’ find other things to burn.”
“No!” Ferris screamed and cried. “Alright…” He threw his head back. “Alright. What do you want to know?” He cried aloud as the pain of the burn caused him to rock in the chair.
“I told you want I wanted to know,” Agosto said, looking Ferris in his wounded face. “What is Cane planning? Where is he? Where is your playground? What is your part in this? Who ordered the hits?”
The sound of men coming down the staircase from the main floor of the house to the basement caused Collin to look away from the horrifying sight to the processional of officers, including his officer.
Cory walked up to the camera and turned it on. Zooming in on Ferris, he waited.
“How do I know that you won’t just kill me once I tell you what you want to know?” Ferris asked, spitting more blood.
“You’ll just have to trust me,” Nicola said, chuckling. “It’s a hard choice. Trust me. I know, but you’ve made your own bed. Now, you have to lie in it.”
Collin kept his eyes on his father. Tears formed at the corners of his eye lids and fell down on this tape around his mouth and cheeks. Unable to look at him any longer, he released a frustrated sigh and looked down his taped feet.
“Cane is planning to take over the illicit drug business with a powerful new type of Molly that is completely undetectable once in the human system. He’s been testing it for months and now it’s in production. He has orders from all over the country and he has a partner out of New York, a woman, but I don’t know her name. I just know that she exists.”
“Is this new Molly what killed the four children in the Baby Boys case?” Nicola asked, unable to let go of the case that had haunted him since he had agreed to take it.
“Yes,” Ferris answered reluctantly.
Nicola chose his next question carefully. “Let’s go back to Cane for a minute. Where is he producing this new drug? We’ve searched the city and he’s not around. Where is he?”
“In Millington,” Ferris answered, looking at the blow torch. “His father has a farm out there. It’s still in his mother’s name. He’s using it to produce the product and prepare it for production.”
Collin threw his head back in disgust.
Nicola looked over at him and twisted up his lips. “Is Collin a part of this?”
“Of course he is. Why else would he be here?” Ferris answered, feeling absolutely no loyalty. “Collin kept the scent off of Cane while he prepared for the deal. Those possible dealers who knew had amnesty as far as Colin was concerned, plus he reported to us on the Baby Boys case and what Magnelli was planning.”
Collin shook his head.
Deputy Magnelli emerged from the shadows and walked over to Ferris. He leaned into the man with his gun pointed. “Who killed Carmen?” he asked, cutting through the chase.
Ferris swallowed hard as he looked down the barrel of a gun for the first time. “Collin killed her accidentally. He was supposed to kill Johnson, but she was there.” He looked up at Magnelli and pleaded. “I had nothing to do with that.”
Collin tried to speak. Screaming muffled words at Ferris, he tried to break free.
“Seems like he would beg to differ,” Nicola said to Ferris. “Take the tape off,” he said to Magnelli.
As soon as Collin could speak, he screamed. “Ferris ordered the hits because Johnson and Steele linked him to DeMario’s death. We had no intention of using him, but we had no choice. Dad, you have to believe me. Killing Carmen was a God’s honest mistake.”
Magnelli started to shake. “God doesn’t make mistakes, you evil, twisted bastard! I should have never allowed your crack whore mother to give birth to you. I should have never taken you in to my home. I should have never allowed you to come home from college, and I should have never trusted you in my house when you joined the police department.”
“Dad,” Collin cried. “Please forgive me. I had no idea. I promise you, I had no idea that Carmen was there.”
Magnelli ignored his cries. “Bobbi told me the day that I brought you home after your mother overdosed that you were trouble. And I promised her that you weren’t, even though I knew that you were born out of sin. Even though I knew that I didn’t love you, no matter how I tried!” He pointed the gun at his son.
Nicola stepped back and listened on like the rest of the men in the room, shocked at the reality of their relationship. But no one would stop him. His revenge was just as needed as everyone else’s.
“You have to believe me, Dad,” Collin cried.
“I promised Bobbi that I’d find the man responsible for her only child’s death and I’d put a bullet in him. Do I look like a liar to you?” Magnelli screamed. “Do I?”
Collin stopped crying and looked up at his father in pain. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice cracking.
“So am I,” Magnelli said, pulling the trigger. He shot his son three times. Once in the head and twice in the chest. Lowering his weapon, he looked over at Ferris who wept for himself. “You make him pay, Agosto, or I will,” he said, walking to the staircase. He had to leave, get away from what he had done and what his son had done. Jetting up the stairs, he left the men to do what they needed to do.
“Next question,” Nicola said, ignoring Ferris’ sobs. “What is Cane’s next step?”
Ferris didn’t hesitate this time. “He plans to distribute day after tomorrow to all the clubs that Twist owned, to his pharmacies where his men will sell to the locals and through the trucking line that he recently bought. It’s being produced in mass quantities at the farm. If you just go there?”
“Where?” Nicola screamed.
“I don’t know the fucking address. I just know that it’s in Millington,” Ferris said afraid.
Nicola stepped closer. “Where is your playground? I know that you have one. You wouldn’t have killed those children at your house, so where do you play?”
Ferris shook his head. “I didn’t kill those kids.”
Nicola pulled out his gun and shot Ferris in the knee that had not already been injured. “Now is not the time to fuck with me!”
Ferris screamed out in pain. “I don’t…”
Before he could lie again, Nicola shot him in the arm. Unable
to take the pain any longer, he confessed. “I bought a dry cleaners on Stage Road. It’s been closed for years. In the back. The playground is in the back,” he cried.
“What’s the address?” Nicola said, determined to keep his promise to Mrs. Naples.
“555 State Road!” Ferris screamed.
“How do you get in touch with Cane?” Nicola asked, turning his back on Cane to look at Cory.
“I use the track phone in my bag,” Ferris cried. “Just please don’t kill me. Please.” He begged.
“Oh, I’m not going to kill you,” Nicola said, putting his gun back in his holster. “But I’m going to make damn sure that you never hurt another child in your life.”
33
After six long hours of torture and interrogation by Nicola, Magnelli, Maurice, and Cory, the dark basement of the stash house stunk of blood, shit and piss. At first when the esteemed councilman felt untouchable, he had tried to play stupid, but after some rigorous encouragement with a cattle prod and blowtorch, Ferris had given them everything that they needed to go after Cane.
They knew the warehouse vicinity, location of the drop points for the Molly, the players involved minus the supplier who was still a mystery to everyone accept Cane, the reason that Twist was killed, who had put the hits on Johnson and Steele and who had put the hit on Nicola’s family. They even knew how and why Nicola had been set up.
Hearing the elaborate plan come directly from the serpent’s mouth had been a sobering experience for everyone in the room. They listened on speechless as Ferris revealed everything one sordid fact at a time.
When it was all done, everyone was exhausted.
There wasn't a calm heart in the room, especially since they all had families of some sort. It could have been any of them in Agosto’s place, any of their families put on a hit list, any of their jobs in jeopardy.
Nicola had to give it to the self-proclaimed Three Wise Men; they had planned out their strategy very well. But they had not accounted for one thing. Leaving him alive. And now that he had survived their botched attempts, he planned to make good use of his existence by ending theirs.
Glowering down at Ferris with his large, muscular arms across his wide chest under the hot halogen light, Nicola decided he was done for now with his interrogation. It was dawn and there were other things to handle.
Ferris drooped over in the wooden chair, exhausted, weak, and nearly unconscious. Mumbling something to himself first, he let out a pain-filled gurgle and then threw up green bile that spilled out of his swollen mouth onto his torn shirt.
The sight of what Ferris had been reduced to didn’t make Nicola as sick as he had first thought it would. Maybe because the bastard deserved it. He was a man who didn’t exactly believe in the methods he had used to get Ferris to talk, but he was coming to see that sometimes rules needed to be broken to get things done.
“I’m starving,” Cory said, standing beside Nicola. His stomach growled loudly. He spit on the concrete floor beside Ferris. “Worthless piece of shit. Should we cap him now so that we can get going?”
Nicola had never had a hard on to kill someone more. But he had made promises, promises he was sworn to keep. “No,” he finally answered regrettably. “Leave him for the time being.” He walked away from the man, needing to get some distance before he changed his mind.
“You have the proof that you need,” Cory said, pulling out his weapon and stepping closer to Ferris. He covered his nose and looked back at Nicola. “Why are you letting him live? Magnelli killed his son for killing a grown woman. You’re really going to let this baby killer live? He raped and murdered at least four children.” He pushed the muzzle of his gun to Ferris’ head. “He doesn’t deserve to take one more breath. Am I right, Maurice? Tell him.”
Maurice was in the corner on the couch nodding. Hearing his name, he sat up and looked over at Cory. “What?”
“Shouldn’t we kill him already?” Cory lobbied.
Maurice set his head back on the couch again. “I thought that was what we were doing.”
“Look, I know that he deserves it. You don’t think I want to kill the motherfucker right now for what he’s done to me, my family and three other families?” Nicola’s voice rose in frustration as he turned back around, veins popping out of his neck. “But that would just be doing him a favor. He needs to suffer beyond any measure of the word that he could have ever fathomed. He needs to be publicly fucking humiliated and stripped of every single recognition and every ounce of respect and then thrown in with the rest of the animals to spend the rest of his life being fucked up the ass and treated like the dog shit that he is. Tell me if you think hard enough about it that you don’t agree?”
Cory put the gun down. “You know how broken the system is. Hell, if it weren’t, we wouldn’t be here. So, what are you going to do when he walks away with no charges and starts giving names and ranks on everyone in this room? Then who will be getting fucked in the ass?”
Maurice looked over at Nicola and waited for an answer. Cory had a point.
“We don't hand him over until the case is concrete,” Nicola said, looking at Ferris, and if Nicola didn’t counter offer something better, then they’d make an executive decision to kill Ferris themselves.
“He’s beaten to shit,” Cory said, pointing at him. “And he witnessed the murder of another cop.” He pointed to Collin’s lifeless corpse still tied to the chair in the corner. “Tell me how that shit will stand up in court. He’ll pay one of his high-price lawyer friends to get him off on temporary insanity and he’ll be back at home fucking ten-year old boys before you know it.” Cory knew that would piss Nicola off.
It worked.
“I made a promise to deliver this son-of-a-bitch with a bow to the families who are now forever ruined because of him. What about their justice? What about their peace of mind?”
“Him being dead is justice and peace of fucking mind enough,” Cory pleaded. He pointed the gun one more time at Ferris and whined. “Just…” He stuttered in anxiety. “Just let me cap his ass, Agosto. Live for once.”
Nicola almost gave in, knowing that he had to keep the men in this room on his side in order to get the job completed, but the interruption saved him from having to make a decision right then.
“There is a way to keep your captive silent for good but keep him alive for your public humiliation plan,” Anatoly mocked, walking down the staircase. He had been quite intrigued by the exchange between Nicola and Cory. Evidently, the young cop had grown some balls over the years working for him, because when they first met, he was a sniveling little pussy, scared of his own shadow and eager to keep his hands clean.
“How?” Nicola asked, leaning his hands on the end of the wooden worktable in the corner. He heaved a heavy sigh, growing more and more tired of dealing with Ferris.
With Gabriel and Boris behind him, Anatoly stepped off the bottom step and down in what had become a makeshift dungeon in a black leather suit completely unfitting for the hour. Evidently, the man had been out all night and decided to stop in and check on everything before retiring back to the compound.
Gabriel’s face instantly turned up at the foul odor radiating from Ferris, but Anatoly was used to this form of retribution, was unaffected by the smell of men losing their bodily functions. He cracked a smile at Ferris, a stab right to the politician’s heart, as he crossed the room. “It’s one of my father’s old techniques. You cut a man’s tongue out, his hands off, and you cripple him. You leave him as ugly on the outside as he is on the inside. We call it the mirror method.”
“It will definitely make it hard for him to testify,” Cory said, slowly changing his mind. He could live with Anatoly’s plan. “By the time that they are able to get someone to even remotely try to understand him, the proof will have him incarcerated.”
“Who can do that mirror method thing effectively?” Nicola asked, unwilling to volunteer. He still had some sanity and didn’t want to lose it cutting off hands and tongues.
“Vasily is pretty good at it, but he’s away right now. I’ll have him take care of it once he’s back in town.” Anatoly walked over to the table and looked at the map as if giving such an order was an everyday thing. “So what’s on the agenda for today, gentlemen?”
Nicola pointed at the red circle on the map. “This is where Cane’s warehouse is. It’s out in Millington, not far from where the private airstrip is. About fifteen miles away from the military base. That’s going to be the last spot we hit tonight. We have to move quickly before word gets out that Ferris and Collin are missing, and that I’m not one of the bodies from inside the house. Once Cane finds all of this out, he’ll immediately pack it up and move. Right now, he can’t put all the pieces together. We need to use that to our advantage and attack now.”
“That’s all fine, but what is the first spot you’re going to hit?” Anatoly asked.
Gabriel shook his head. “He’s got pre-wedding jitters,” he explained to Nicola. “I tried to talk him out of it, but he thinks one last hurrah before the wedding will be good for him.”
“These men are going to be heavily armed,” Nicola said to Anatoly frowning. He wasn’t expecting the boss’ son to really get in this. After all, it wasn’t his fight. Plus, if something did happen to him, Dmitry would be on his ass.
“Before I was a boss, I was a boy, doing exactly what you’re doing right now every day before breakfast, after lunch and sometimes for dinner,” Anatoly said flatly. His face was emotionless.
“But you’re not a boy now.” Nicola rolled his neck. “You’re a boss. And you and I both know that you don't have to get involved. Sammy was enough. I mean. I’m grateful for it, but this is asking too much.”
Anatoly was a man of few words, and even more than that, he didn’t feel as though he owed anyone except his father and sometimes his fiancée an explanation. But just this once, he would explain himself just so that Nicola didn’t get the wrong idea. “This isn’t about you,” he said, sucking his bottom lip. He looked into Nicola’s face, hazel brown eyes blazing. “Someone, who will remain anonymous and is no longer with us, kidnapped my baby sister not long ago for a very handsome payoff. The plan was to sell her back to my father, but if he didn’t cooperate or if he got too close, the secondary plan was to sell her to someone else. They were going to rape her, make her a slave.” He pushed the words out like poison as his gaze became distant. “Since that day, I promised myself that I’d never let anyone get close to my family, especially the children. And I’d send a message to anyone who even thought about harming myself, my daughter or any of the women in my family. Now, obviously these rednecks are not threatening us, but your recent situation speaks to something in the core of my father, my cousin, and myself. You should feel lucky. If nothing had ever happened to Anya, you might be dead yourself right now.”
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