Chapter 16: Give me my freedom

"Tear off his nails, one by one, until he remembers how to speak," Santino commanded, his voice cold as ice as he stepped into the basement. "No one can live after hurting my wife."

The sniper sat tied to a metal chair, gasping for air, and clutching the soaked rags pressed against his bullet wounds.

"Let me do it myself," Santino stated.

Leo stepped back, wiping blood off his knuckles, while Marco handed Santino a pair of thick leather gloves.

"He’s stubborn, boss," Leo grunted, tossing pliers onto the wooden table. "He told us that he was just hired through a dark web contract, claiming he doesn’t know who paid him."

Santino pulled on the gloves, his face completely merciless. The red mark from Soraya’s slap still burned faintly against his jaw. He dragged a chair across the floor and sat down directly in front of the bound assassin.

He leaned in close, resting his forearms on his knees.

"Let me make something very clear to you," Santino began, "you didn’t just fire a bullet at a Selvaggio. You aimed at my wife. You scared her. You made her cry on her wedding night."

The sniper spat a mouthful of blood onto Santino’s leather shoes, glaring through a swollen eye. "Go to hell. I don’t know who bought the hit. I just got the coordinates and the target."

Santino looked at him in disgust, calmly as he simply motioned to Leo.

Leo grabbed the shooter’s left wrist, pinning his hand flat against the metal armrest. Santino picked up the pliers from the table.

"I’m going to ask you again," Santino said, placing the cold metal jaw of the tool over the man’s index fingernail. "Who sent you? And more importantly... Who inside this house helped you?"

The sniper’s eyes widened slightly in panic, but he kept his teeth gritted tight. "Nobody inside helped me. I acted alone."

Santino had asked this question out of doubt, but seeing the way he reacted, he got his confirmation.

"Huh," Santino sneered. "The east fence has motion sensors every ten feet. You couldn’t set up a sniper rifle out there without triggering the alarms unless someone turned them down from my control room. Someone gave you our security layout, guard shifts, and the exact window she was standing near."

He didn’t wait for a response. He squeezed the pliers and yanked backward in one swift, violent motion.

A sharp scream tore from the sniper’s throat. He thrashed against his leather straps, gasping for air as blood dripped from his bare fingertip onto the cold concrete.

"Who dropped the security grid on the east sector?" Santino asked again, his tone completely flat, utterly unbothered by the screams.

"I don’t... I don’t know his name. The number was encrypted," the sniper choked out through his tears, gasping for air as blood pooled beneath his mangled hand. "All I know is that I got a call. They gave me the coordinates and told me the window would be open."

Santino’s expression remained unreadable, his grip on the bloody pliers unchanging.

"I’ll give you my phone, you can check which number called me!" the sniper pleaded desperately, nodding frantically toward his vest lying crumpled in the corner. "Just stop! Please!"

Santino tilted his head slightly toward Marco as he took out his cell phone. "Get his phone."

Marco nodded, stepping over to the pile of gear, pulled out a rugged smartphone, and held it up directly in front of the sniper’s bloody, bruised face. The screen clicked open with facial recognition.

Marco checked the recent calls, narrowing his eyes at the strange numbers on the screen. Using his technical skills, he quickly bypassed the masking and traced the call to its original burner number.

"I’ve got the number, boss," Marco said, looking up at Santino. "They talked several times and the last call came from inside the city less than an hour ago."

"Find out whose call this was," Santino commanded in a deadly tone. He stood up, tossed the pliers onto the table, and unfastened his gloves. "Trace the phone and pull every call or message linked to it in our network."

Santino left the basement, leaving everything on Marco and Leo to finish. He walked back upstairs, his mind heavy, moving through the guarded hallway toward the safe room.

He pushed the door open quietly.

The room was dimly lit. Soraya wasn’t on the bed. She was curled up on the floor in the corner, her knees pulled tight against her chest as she stared blankly at the wall.

As soon as she heard the door open, she looked up, her red-rimmed eyes flaring with instant bitterness.

"Get out of here," Soraya yelled in a weak tone. "I don’t want to talk to you."

Santino paused near the foot of the bed, his dark eyes taking in her small, defensive posture on the floor. He felt his heart clenched seeing like that.

"I’m aware of my mistake, forgive me," Santino admitted in a low voice. "I should have made sure the security was tight and not have left you alone."

"A mistake?" she scoffed. "I almost lost my life there, and now you call it a mistake?" Her voice was trembling with rage and weakness.

"This is just how my world is, Soraya," Santino said, taking a slow step closer.

"Exactly," she said, her chest heaving as she glared up at him. "That’s why I never wanted to marry you."

Santino stopped, his jaw tightening slightly as he met her gaze. "But you promised me you’d marry me."

Soraya went completely quiet. Her lips pressed into a tight line, as if he wasn’t the one who forced her!

Santino took a breath and looked down at her. "Go to sleep. Everything’s been handled. From now onward, this will never happen again."

"This is so shocking," Soraya said, a cold, mocking laugh escaping her lips as she looked away. "That even the great Mafia King can be targeted like this. You act like you’re so great, like a king no one can defeat, but you can’t even protect your wife, after forcing her to marry you."

Santino was rendered speechless. No one had ever insulted him in such a way. But before he could say anything, Soraya’s voice filled his ears.

"They won’t kill you—they’ll kill me, the wife you supposedly cherish so much."

"That will never happen," Santino said firmly, his eyes darkening with absolute certainty.

"How can I trust your words?" she snapped, her voice rising slightly. "How can you promise it won’t happen again?"

"It won’t because no outsider was involved. Someone from my own staff did this," Santino answered flatly. "I’ll find out who it is."

Soraya’s voice widened in shock as she couldn’t control herself anymore. "So... you don’t even know that people like this are sitting in your staff, wanting to betray you?"

Her words hit Santino hard. His jaw tightened as silence filled the room. She was right. It was an oversight, a severe security breach right under his nose that had almost cost her life.

"Look, I’ll never forgive you for this," Soraya said in a declarative and cold tone as she looked him dead in the eye. "I just got here... Survived a bullet and what did you do?" She rose to her feet.

"You locked me here asking for forgiveness. Is this how you try to get me to forgive you? By keeping me caged in a windowless box while your enemies shoot at me?"

"Then what do you suggest I should do?" Even in the face of danger and chaos, he’d maintained his calmness and eloquent gentlemanly act which bothered Soraya even more.

"Let me go," Soraya closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, she offered in a serious tone. "Give me my freedom, erase my name from your world and I’ll leave without a word. We’ll never see each other again."