“How about scars, tats, anything that stuck out about him?”
He slurped down the rest of his soda. “I wish. He opened the door, slid the tray right next to it, and closed it before I could even get up. We never spoke a word. It was a basement—damp, dark, full of spiders and mold. There was nothing out of the ordinary. I couldn’t hear anything outside. No cars, people, not a sound.”
“The church Enzo used was out of the suburbs, hidden in the woods. Do you remember it?”
Sonny stuffed another sandwich into his mouth. “Kinda. It’s been a long time.”
With each second that passed, Sonny filled his empty stomach, his face slowly returning to normal. He was beginning to look like my oldest friend, apart from the blood and dirt all over his body.
“How did they take you?” I pounded the rest of the soda and crushed it in my hand. “Walk me through that night.”
Sonny dropped his food to the plate and rubbed his hands together. “Gia asked me to make her some popcorn and grab her a soda. We were going to watch the new Saw movie on Pay-Per-View.”
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “She loves scary movies.”
He nodded. “So, I went downstairs to the kitchen. I was waiting for the popcorn to finish up in the microwave, with my back turned away from the door, when someone came up from behind me and jammed a needle in my neck. I didn’t even have time to fight them off before I was out like a light. They must’ve shot me up with horse tranquilizers. Whatever it was that shit was strong. I woke up, I don’t know how many hours or days later, still high on that shit. They probably dosed Gia with the same thing.”
The thought of Gia being drugged and thrown into a dirty basement like Sonny made my stomach churn. I wanted to kill whoever was responsible for taking her away from me. Revenge was the only thing I could understand.
“That was it? You were in Gia’s house and then woke up in the basement?”
“Yeah. I wish I had something more useful to help us track her down.”
“How did you get out? How did you get back here?”
“They drugged me again. Instead of a needle, they put something in my water. All I remember was drinking from a bottle of Aquafina, and a few minutes later I was tired as fuck. I passed out by the door to the room and woke up in a back alley a few blocks over from here. They dumped my ass smack dab in a pile of trash bags.”
I laughed. “Maybe they were sending us a message after all. Enzo was taking out the trash.”
Sonny smirked. “Don’t be a dick.”
“If he wanted to send us a message, he would have dumped you somewhere more significant like the parking lot at Scores or even out front of our house. But he left you somewhere he knew no one would find you. He must’ve figured you would wake up and walk home from there.”
“Maybe he thought you would finish me off.”
“I almost did. Consider yourself lucky I didn’t shoot you at least once.”
“Who would help you find Gia? You can’t trust anyone, not even your brothers. We have no idea who was involved with all this and what game they’re running.”
“Marco and Pete helped me find Carlo. I still have to pick up Fig, Dom, and Sal.”
“What did you do with Carlo?”
“Smashed in his skull with a baseball bat.”
Sonny laughed. “You always had a good arm.”
“It doesn’t take much to swing a bat.”
“So, where do we go from here?” Sonny finished the rest of his food and set the plate in the sink. “Do you want to go after Dom and his guys or check out the church?”
“The church. Maybe it will give us a lead on where they’re keeping Gia.”
Just like that, I had my best friend back.
But could I trust him?
Chapter Eight
Angelo
Buried in a heavily wooded area, the church sat on a few thousand acres of land with no neighbors on either side. Sonny pulled up a long driveway, the gravel crunching beneath the tires of my car. He returned to his usual self after a few sandwiches and a hot shower. But he still seemed a bit off, as if being trapped in a basement for almost a week had done some irreparable damage.
Seeing him like that, made me wonder if Gia would be the same—or worse than Sonny. For Gia’s sake, I’d hoped not. She was a fighter. My girl never turned down a challenge and could handle anything thrown at her. But everyone had a breaking point. I had no idea how far Gia’s captors would hurt her before damaging her for good.
Sonny parked in front of the church, looking around at our surroundings. He bit the inside of his cheek, nervous about something.
“What’s bugging you?” I asked him. He wore his tells so well that I knew all of them.
“You know how you get the feeling when something doesn’t feel right?”
I laughed. “Yeah. Pretty much every day.”
“Do you have a flashlight in your trunk? If this is the place, we won’t be able to see shit downstairs.”
“I should have one from when we had to dig that trench in the middle of the night a few months back.”
We got out of the car and retrieved the flashlight from the trunk, approaching the abandoned church with caution. There wasn’t a light for miles, yet we saw one flickering behind the stained glass windows on the top floor.
I pushed my hand out in front of Sonny and pointed at the window. He stopped next to me, surveying the old building. We stared at each other, a beat passing between us before we both pulled out our guns. Keeping them low, we crept toward the side entrance to the church.
It wasn’t that long ago I was attending the funeral of Bianca Carlini. Gia was a mess, as she should have been, and I was so afraid of losing her. With Sonny and my men watching her at all times, I thought we were invincible, and no one could touch us. Being at the church dredged up old memories I’d wanted to forget. We’d spent three weeks apart after the funeral. With her missing, I couldn’t handle another day, let alone weeks.
Sonny opened the door without making a sound, holding it for me. He inched his way into the dark space with his gun raised and tilted his head to the side to instruct me to follow behind him. I closed the door, careful not to make a sound. But our soles were too loud for the quiet space. We did our best to keep our movements slow and deliberate, the stupid dress shoes so close to giving us away.
Once we reached a carpeted hallway, we had an easier time navigating the deserted space. Sonny opened the doors on the right side of the hall, and I stuck to the left. From the outside, I saw a bright light flickering through the window. Not until we hit the end of the long hall did we find the source of the light. The door to the church was ajar, propped open with a stack of old newspapers.
“Cover me,” Sonny whispered so low I had to strain to hear him.
I did as he asked and covered his rear, angling my body so I could see down the dark corridor and partially into the church. Sonny came to an abrupt stop, his sudden reaction causing me to elbow him in the arm. I almost dropped the flashlight.
His arm dropped to his side, and he shook out the pain. “You’ve got a pointy ass elbow,” he said under his breath. “Keep that thing away from me.”
Even at a time when he should have been on high alert, Sonny found time to make a wisecrack. That was part of his nature. He never took anything too serious, never worried about the small stuff. Sometimes, I envied his ability to be so cool under pressure. Sonny would joke around and make the toughest situation seem possible.
“Why the fuck are you stopping?”
He pointed his gun at the situation in front of us. “Not what I was expecting to find.”
A group of teenage boys and girls were huddled around a circle of tea light candles. They were chanting something in unison, their voices blending together. All of them were dressed in black, with black makeup on their faces, boys included. Dark eyeliner coated their lids, their ears and faces were full of piercings, bodies covered in intricate tattoos. Gothi
c didn’t even begin to describe this motley crew.
I tapped Sonny on the shoulder, ordering him to leave with me before anyone noticed us. There was no point in drawing unwanted attention. We took our time exiting the church, lucky enough to keep ourselves off anyone’s radar. The kids were not a threat to our business. But I didn’t want them seeing our faces if we could help it. We had enough people placing a bull’s eye on our foreheads.
“That was interesting,” Sonny said, laughing. “Maybe this wasn’t the place. I was expecting to find someone chained to a radiator, not a bunch of delinquent kids worshiping Satan.” He removed the key fob from his pocket and opened the door for us. “What the hell were they doing back there?”
I got in the car and waited for Sonny to join me before continuing, “Your guess is as a good as mine. That was a waste of time.”
“Should we have checked the basement?”
I shook my head. “No. I bet those kids have been using it for a while by the looks of all the furniture and shit they had in there.”
Sonny hit the ignition button and punched the gas pedal, the wheels screeching on the gravel as he pulled out of the parking lot. “At least we can cross it off the list. There’s no way Enzo, or whoever took me, was keeping me in that church with those kids around as witnesses.”
“The basement you were in could be anywhere. This was a long shot. We both knew that.”
He turned to the right and gave the gas more juice once we hit an open clearing in the woods. No one was in sight, not a single car or house. We were isolated from the outside world. I was almost bummed that we found kids instead of Enzo and his men. At least if we’d found Wiseguys, we would’ve had a lead on where Gia was being detained.
“Let’s start with Dom and his guys,” Sonny said, whipping down the road at a faster pace. “One of them must know where Gia’s being held.”
“All of them will suffer,” I growled. “Carlo’s death was painless compared to what I have in mind for the rest of them. Especially Dom. He deserves a slow and painful death for setting us up to almost get killed by Enzo’s men.”
“One good thing came out of the meeting at Vitale’s,” Sonny said, matter-of-fact.
I smirked. “You mean the part where I had a gun held to my head, and you had a knife to your throat?”
“Yeah, but consider what they said to us for a second. They told us the councilman is not as innocent as we think. Gia’s dad has something to do with all this.”
“Of course he does. He’s my dad’s oldest friend and another pawn in my father’s games.”
“What if Lorenzo isn’t the man we think? What if he has been pulling the strings all along?”
A shiver ran through me. Gia’s dad wasn’t a good man, but he wasn’t as bad as my father. Or was he? I was losing faith in everyone by that point. I couldn’t trust anyone. No one was safe from my wrath. Not even Lorenzo Carlini.
“Let’s start with Dom and work our way to Lorenzo.”
A Joker-like grin touched his lips. Sonny drove through the suburbs and back to Philadelphia with the same creepy smile that gave me the chills all over again.
Chapter Nine
Gia
Hot water was a luxury I’d taken for granted. I never knew how lucky I was to have running water and dry clothes until I was taken from my home. Being a Mafia family’s prisoner had zero perks. They treated me like a slave, starved me half to death, and let me rot in my own filth. I was strong enough to handle whatever they threw at me. Because of Angelo, I would survive.
I ran my head under the showerhead, sighing with relief from the warmth raining down on me. My faith in Angelo had kept me going on the worst days. He would save me from this wicked punishment. I wanted to believe he wasn’t the one who sentenced me to this miserable life. I also wanted to believe Sonny had nothing to do with my kidnapping.
“Hurry up in there,” the stripper yelled to me through the curtain. “You don’t have much time. If not for your curly hair, I would have to send you out there looking like a wet rat, and we can’t have that. So, get a move on. I need enough time to slap some gel in your hair and style it.”
“Go out where?” I was almost afraid to ask.
“On stage, of course.”
“To do what?”
“Oh, sweetie, you’re adorable.” She laughed. “To dance for Dante.”
“What happened to someone buying me?”
She peeled back the plastic curtain and stuck her head in the tiny shower, invading my personal space. Her eyes scanned my entire body with a wicked smile. “No one is buying you. At least not tonight. The boss wants to see what you’ve got before he makes a decision about you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If you give him a show, maybe you will get to stay here with the girls and me. Bossman likes to collect things. You could be part of his harem. But if you do anything stupid, like try to run, then you might be going home with someone even more sick and twisted than Dante.”
I covered my body with my hands, but all that did was make it even more noticeable that I was trying to hide from her. “Who’s Dante?”
“Dante DiSalvo, the boss of the underworld in Atlantic City. He controls everyone and everything in this town.”
I knew of the DiSalvo family because of their casino rackets and brothels, but until that night, I had no idea who was in charge. Angelo had taken meetings with the family in the past, even did a few jobs for them.
Why was I here? I had no idea why Dante would want me. Was it to get to Angelo? To get to my father? There were so many sins from my past haunting me like ghosts. They weren’t even my sins. But someone had to pay for them.
“What’s your name?” I asked her, still trying to hide whatever I could of my body.
“Alexandria but most people call me Lucky.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “How come they call you Lucky?”
“Because men know if they can afford to have me for the night they’re getting lucky.”
I laughed. She didn’t, just stood there with the same vacant expression on her face.
“So, you do this because you like it?”
She nodded, handing me a towel. “Unlike you, I came here of my own free will. These men will sell their house for a night with girls like us. You’ll see.”
I dried myself off and wrapped the towel around me. “I have money. I would pay anything to get out of here. Would you help me? I could give you whatever you want.”
She chuckled. “You didn’t end up here because of something you could pay your way out of, sweetheart. These men are ruthless. You’re here because they need something from your man.”
“What could they possibly want from Angelo?”
Lucky shrugged. “Who said it was Angelo? I don’t know who you are or what brought you here. All I know is I have to make you look hot for Dante, or I’ll never hear the end of it.”
She steered me into the changing room and pushed on my shoulders until I was sitting in front of a vanity. “Are you in charge of the girls?”
Lucky stared at me in the mirror, a bottle of gel in one hand. “You could say that. I’ve been here the longest of all the girls. Dante took a liking to me back when I had no family and no money. He looks out for me, and I do the same for him.”
“Why does he want me?”
She worked the gel into my hair, fixing my curls to give them extra bounce. “Why do rich men want any of the things they have? Because they can. There’s not much to it. So, what should we call you? We need a stage name for you.”
“My name is Gia.”
Lucky walked away to retrieve a black G-string, bra, and what could pass as a super slutty Catholic schoolgirl uniform. I wasn’t even sure if it was a skirt or if it was underwear. She dropped the outfit on my lap.
“Nope, that won’t work. Use a name that’s nothing like yours. When you’re on stage, you’ll want something that makes you feel sexy.”
I tried not to r
oll my eyes at her. “And Lucky does that for you?”
“Yep. When I’m Lucky, I can be anyone to anyone. Understand? Now, if I went up there and told men my name is Alexandria, then I’d be thinking of my parents and the life I left behind. See what I mean? Tell me, pretty girl,” she said, sliding her hand under my jaw to tilt my head back. “What’s it going to be?”
“Raven,” I said without hesitation.
She removed her hand from my face and smiled. “Like your hair? It’s perfect. Our little raven-haired vixen.” Lucky turned my chair around to face her, adding shadow to my eyelids and mascara to my lashes. “You’ll look fierce by the time I’m done with you, Raven.”
I sat still, my body growing more rigid at each touch from Lucky that I forgot to breathe. By the time she finished with my hair and makeup, I was in awe of her work. I didn’t even look like myself. Angelo preferred me without makeup. He didn’t even like it when I wore lipstick unless it was to leave an imprint of my lips around his cock. Then, he made an exception.
My lids had a smoky look, my lashes so long and thick they made my grayish blue eyes pop. I touched a hand to my cheek, shocked by my appearance. With a hint of blush and red lipstick, I was unrecognizable. Lucky was right about being someone else. But my new look wasn’t enough to give me the courage to dance for a strange man I didn’t know.
She helped me up from the chair and held my clothes as I slipped into each piece. It was weird having her stand there and watch me dress.
“You have an amazing figure, Raven. We need to fatten you up if you’re going to stay for a while. You have great tits. An ass that makes me little jealous. And that stomach… damn, girl. Haven’t they fed you? You’re too skinny.”
I slid the G-string up my thighs, moving it into place. “No, I haven’t eaten much since they took me from my house. I slept most of the time from all the drugs they pumped into me.”
She reached into the drawer attached to the vanity and handed me a chocolate granola bar. “Here. We can’t have you running around looking like some strung out junkie. Hurry up and eat it before Anthony comes back to escort you to meet Dante.”
The Ultimate Sin Page 4
