Page 14 of Fallen Rook

Who taught him blowing up people’s phones like that was acceptable?

I wasn’t gonna find out, because I had too much work and not enough fucks to answer the clown.

Tapping the screen, I blocked his number before slipping my sunglasses on and revving the car.

And started another day with the sole purpose of putting Enzo Ferrante in prison.

Chapter Five

Enzo

“Relax for me. You’re about to feel a little pinch.” My lips moved over the lit cigarette in my mouth.

I sank the syringe into my victim’s arm as he lay flat on the cot in my mother’s basement, wrists and ankles chained to metal bars. “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone was playing in the background. I loved that song. Goose bumps popped up all over my skin whenever I listened to it.

I often worked with music on. It was a great way to drown out the screams.

I guess it wasn’t fair to call it a basement when really, it was a soundproof medieval torture chamber where I brought my victims. Same difference, though, as this particular one wasn’t going to be walking out of here alive.

Nico De Rossi was an affiliate of the Ferrantes’ now-dead enemy—Sangue Blu. That, in itself, wasn’t a sin punishable by death. The fact that he’d spent last night drunkenly maiming and then killing three of our strippers in retaliation for killing his boss, however, was.

I hated when innocent folks got caught in the crossfire of underworld drama. It was rude, unnecessary, and gave the Mafia a bad rep. Couldn’t we just kill each other in peace?

“W-what are you injecting me with?” De Rossi stuttered, eyes bulging as I slowly extracted the needle from his vein, rubbing the spot with an antiseptic pad to ease the sting.

“Succinyl choline. Anesthesia drug.” I rolled my chair to my toolbox, picking a sharp incision knife. I ran a disinfecting wipe over it with the same hand that held the cigarette, blowing smoke sideways. I wasn’t necessarily worried about infecting De Rossi, but I’d always had respect for the medical profession.

“W-w-why are you putting me under?” Tears leaked from his beady eyes.

“Oh, I’m not knocking you out all the way; don’t worry.” I pushed my heel to swivel back to him. He exhaled visibly before I finished the sentence. “Just loosening your nervous system enough that you won’t die from shock when I start flaying you.”

That made him gasp on a choked sob. “What? No. Listen, man, you can’t…you can’t…Help! Heeeelp!”

He was screaming now.

I sighed. I’d just told him not to freak out. It pained me when people neglected their manners at the slightest discomfort. For instance, he smelled like shit right now, but you didn’t see me pointing it out, now, did you?

Nina Simone was singing about fish in the sea and dragonflies in the sky. A replica of Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment stared down at me from the wall.

I moved my lips to the lyrics as I lined up my flaying tools. Damn, they just didn’t write songs like that anymore.

Flaying had always been a fascination of mine. Oftentimes in my life, I had wanted to get rid of my own flesh. To shed my skin, leaving it and all the hidden scars it carried behind.

“Enzo, please, I beg you.” Snot, tears, and sweat ran down his face while I penetrated the top layer of his skin on the left side of his chest with the sharp device. His muscles loosened beneath my knife, and the scream subsided into a soft whimper as the drug slowly worked its way into his body. He sniffled as he stared at me through bloodshot eyes. “Enzo…” he croaked.

“Shh.” I curled my lips sardonically, giving my cigarette an earnest suck. “You knew what you were getting into when you killed CarCar, Sisi, and Tutti. It’s time to pay for your sins.”

I gave all of our girls nicknames and made it a point to always compliment their looks and their performance. They were honest, hardworking women and deserved to be treated with dignity and respect. More than once, I’d found myself rearranging some client’s features if he took it a step too far with them, or drove them home if they felt unsafe to take the subway. “Now, Nico, here’s a fun fact about sodium thiopental—because it’s a nervous system depressant, it was used as a truth serum in the olden days. And honestly? I could use some frank advice right now. Do you mind shooting the shit while we do this? A man-to-man convo, so to speak?”

He stared at me in drowsy horror, trapped in his own body. His pupils were the size of Mama’s dinner plates.

Wow. He was a terrible conversationalist. Unfortunately, I could only have this talk with a specific kind of person. Namely, one that wouldn’t be alive to tell anyone about it.

“So…there’s this guy. Let’s call him, hmm, Tyler.” Pinching his skin between my thumb and blade, I began leisurely peeling his flesh from his body. “Tyler and I aren’t friendly. In fact, he works for the FBI and wants me locked up. But yesterday…yesterday he literally saved my life. What do you think that means?”

“Eeeew…err…” Nico tried speaking, but the only things he could produce were distressed sounds. I took another drag of my cig and continued.

“And when he was done helping me, he kinda…you know, loitered? Like he wanted to stick around? But when he did leave, I do admit that I chased him a little. I wanted him to kiss me. You’re not gonna tell, are you?”