Page 107 of Say I Do

“Wait, I—” Darla licked her lips nervously, still staring at the gun. “I’m sorry! I promise I’ll forget it all. I’ll quit my job.”

“But you won’t.” I tapped the side of Darla’s face, smearing it with blood from my fingers. “Tell me who else was your source.”

“I don’t know.” She looked up at me, and I drove a blade into Lee’s shoulder. He shouted again.

“I swear, I don’t know!” Darla flinched away from Lee as he screamed against the boxers in his mouth.

“I know he won’t spill. It takes so much more to make a made man talk, and I doubt I have that kind of time.” I looked at Lee as his eyelids grew heavy. “But I know it would be fun.”

“This can’t be happening.” Darla started to rock back and forth.

I snapped a few times to catch her attention. “You can’t lose your shit just yet.”

She flinched away from me like I’d beat her half to death. I’d hardly touched her.

“Tell me what else you know.”

“I want to go home,” Darla shouted.

“Don’t make me kill you.”

She instantly snapped her mouth shut. I was over it already. Torturing her seemed like an easier way to go about things. I put my gun away, certain Lee wasn’t moving. If he did, Tony would shoot him. I grabbed Darla’s hand and rubbed it softly.

“Out of all your fingers, you probably use your pinky the least, right? In other words, I can cut it off, and it won’t be missed.”

She shook her head and attempted to yank her hand away. I pulled another blade free and pressed it against her pinky. “You did this to yourself, Darla. Things could have been civil between us. Try and keep your voice down, or I’ll have to cut more.”

Darla covered her mouth the moment I grabbed her pinky. I pressed down as I dragged the knife up. Her pinky came off before she even knew it. The moment it hit the bed, that was another story. Darla’s eyes bugged out, and I slapped my hand over her mouth as she screamed.

Seconds passed as she screamed against my hand.

“I need you to get it under control so we can move on to the next finger.”

She hurriedly yanked her hand back and clutched it close to her chest. “P-p-please no.”

“Then I’d start talking if I were you,” I said as I got off the bed.

Maybe a little space would help her. She was shaking like a leaf.

“He takes calls, and I hear them sometimes.” Darla was desperate, and it bled into every word that came out of her mouth. “He’s been meeting someone to make a deal. Something about bringing down the Vitales.”

“Who is he talking to?”

“I don’t know.” Darla bunched up the comforter. Her eyes begged me to believe her. “They were going to meet this weekend.”

“Anything else?”

She gnawed on her bottom lip until blood trickled down her chin. “H-he has three phones, but he only uses one to talk to that man.”

“Sure, it’s a man?”

Her head bobbed up and down rapidly. “I, um, he has an accent. It’s umm.” She looked around as if something in the room would give her an answer. It sure as shit wouldn’t be Lee. He couldn’t give anyone an answer.

“Thai, maybe Korean or Chinese. I— Please believe me, that’s all I know.”

“I believe you, Darla,” I said.

Her shoulders slumped. “Okay. Thank you. I promise to stop looking into the Vitale family. In fact, I’m going to quit being a journalist. I swear.”