Page 45 of The Marriage Debt

“No one paid me,” he mutters. “I just set the trigger. I don’t even know who?—”

I bring the barrel of the pistol down hard into his thigh. The sound is dull and heavy, a solid hit that jerks the whole chair. His body flinches violently, a strangled breath catching in his throat.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not?—”

“You’re not smart enough to plan it. You’re not loyal enough to stay quiet. That means someone paid you. Now say their name.”

He grits his teeth and stares at the floor, his eyes twitching with hesitation. The fear is already turning the screws. He won’t last long. That’s good. I don’t have the patience tonight.

“Lorenzo Cappa,” he finally says. “It came through a handler. I don’t know if the orders were his, but the name was in the message.”

I don’t move the pistol. “What was the job?”

He tries to slow his breathing, like self-control will help. It won’t. He shifts the broken wrist again and winces sharply. “It wasn’t supposed to kill anyone. That wasn’t the point.”

“Then what was?”

“They wanted to breach the perimeter. Scare the house. Show weakness. It was about making a statement. Drag your name before they gut it. That’s what I was told. Humiliate the Rossi family before the kill.”

“And the woman?” I ask. “Was she part of the plan?”

The silence that follows is its own answer. Then he nods once and speaks low. “Yes. They want to send a message.”

My grip on the pistol tightens until I hear the soft creak of the metal shifting under strain. The sound changes the pitch of his next breath. His voice breaks.

“I didn’t know she’d be there. I didn’t know about the kid. It was just supposed to be a scare.”

“You picked the gate,” I say. “You timed the charge. You set it to detonate while she was walking her son to the car.”

His head jerks from side to side, desperate now. “I didn’t trigger it. I swear. It was remote. I planted it and left. I was paid to place it and report. I didn’t have the timing. I wasn’t even supposed to be near the estate.” His eyes meet mine. He’s looking for mercy, but he’s not going to find it.

I step forward, keep the pistol pressed to his leg, and pull the trigger. The shot blasts through his kneecap, splintering bone and cartilage. The chair bucks beneath him, metal scraping across concrete as he lets out a scream that tears through the room. The blood comes fast, dark and steady, spraying across the floor and pooling beneath the chair in a wide fan of red. His screams fade into wet sobs, his chest rising and falling in ragged bursts as the pain overtakes him.

“You followed the wrong man's orders,” I say.

Rafe steps forward from the wall, face unreadable. He kneels beside the wrecked leg and inspects the wound with clinical focus. Then he opens a field kit and applies a clamp to slow the bleeding. Filippo flinches violently, his sobs now guttural.

“You’re not going to bleed out,” Rafe tells him. “Yet.”

I lay the pistol on the table and wipe my hands clean on a towel already red with someone else’s mistake. The weight in my chest doesn’t lift. It just shifts.

“I’m done here.”

I turn away as Rafe goes back to work. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t speak.

Outside, I close the door behind me and leave the screams where they belong. The men who planted that bomb want to humiliate me. They want my name dragged into the street, want fear to sink into the walls of my house. They think threatening my wife would start the fire.

They are wrong. The message didn’t land the way they wanted. But mine will.

The walk from the interrogation room to the lot behind the facility is short. I take it slow, not because I’m tired, but because the place carries a weight I don’t shake easily. It used to be a textile import hub, long before we bought it out. Concrete walls, reinforced entry, no street visibility. The drains work faster than the police do.

It’s where we bring people who need convincing.

Where Rafe finishes the things I start.

He stays behind, the echo of his steps swallowed by the heavy steel door closing behind me. The lock clicks once. The sound carries.

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