Page 191 of Mafia Kings: Valentino

I nearly vomited.

Then I saw the source of the smell.

There was a naked man inside the barn. He was doubled over on his knees on the dirt floor, but his arms were held up by iron chains bolted to the brick walls of the barn. Smaller chains hung from the ceiling as well.

He had been tortured.Horribly.

Strips of skin had been peeled from his body, exposing patches of raw muscle.

The rest of his skin had burn marks and blisters everywhere.

His fingers were bent at terrible angles, snapped like matchsticks.

The rest of him – the parts that weren’t flayed or burned or broken – were coated with dried blood. A swarm of insects buzzed all around him in the air.

At first I thought he was dead –

Until he lifted his head weakly and whispered, “…please… Don Vicari…kill me…”

His single eye stared up at me in agony.

The other eye was gone – just a dark socket.

Most of his teeth were broken. Not pulled – shattered.

Then my eyes grew accustomed to the shadows in the barn.

I saw that the smaller strands I’dthoughtwere chains…

Were actually plastic tubes hooked to IV bags suspended from the ceiling.

They all led to needles in his arms.

There was one IV bag filled with blood and a couple filled with clear liquid.

All of them had words printed on the plastic.

Medical supplies.

That’s when I understood.

They weren’t just torturing him…

They wereactively keeping him aliveso they could keepontorturing him.

I had heard about Hell during sermons in church, about the torments of the damned –

But now I saw it in front of me in the flesh.

I knew my father had killed men who had betrayed him before – Niccolo had told me –

But it had always been quick.

A bullet to the back of the head, and it was over.

Not like this.

Neverlike this.

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