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Her gaze fell on the gun, and her cries only grew louder.

“Shut up!” I yelled, but she only quieted for a few moments.

“I told you,” Rafael said. “She’s been like this for hours.”

“Then she has to know something. She’s protecting him.” Anyone else would’ve tried to save their own skin and would be looking for ways to get themselves out of this.

“Probably,” Rafael said. “Maybe we should take her to the basement.”

“You mean torture her?”

He nodded. “She has to stop screaming and crying at some point.”

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, then turned to Jessica. “Come on, Jessica! Snap out of it! Focus! If you don’t tell me what I want to know and if you keep screaming, I’m going to be very pissed off. You don’t want that, do you?”

She sobbed.

“Oscar Santino,” I said. “What do you know about him? It’s not a hard question.”

“Let me go! Let me go!” Jessica started repeating over and over again.

I whipped out my gun and pointed it at her. “Do you want to die? Do you want to die to protect him?”

She screamed at the top of her lungs.

I grabbed her by the hair and shoved the barrel of the gun into her mouth. “I asked you, do you fucking want to die for him?”

Her eyes were wide as she stared at me, muffled sounds coming out of her throat.

I felt someone’s gaze on me and glanced over my shoulder.

Luca.

He was staring straight at me from the hallway, an angry look on his face.

I pulled the gun out of Jessica’s mouth. “Talk!”

Jessica cried again, nearly choking on her tears.

I groaned and stormed out.

“What?” I asked Luca.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Questioning a prisoner.”

“Like that? Is that really necessary?” He was judging me.

It was written all over his face.

“Yeah, it is. She refuses to speak. That’s not my fault. I don’t have much time until Santino figures out she’s been taken. If I don’t get some information out of her as soon as possible, that information might no longer be of any good to me because Santino will go into hiding. So yeah, I have to do whatever it takes to get her to talk, and sometimes, that’s not pretty.”

“She’s just scared and shocked. You kidnapped her and now you’re threatening her. Why do you think she’s crying?”

I crossed my arms. “Fine. Then why don’t you go in there to talk to her?”

“I’ll need a bottle of water and a snack.”