Page 120 of Taming Seraphine

My breath quickens. Something about watching her take charge of another man is exhilarating. Maybe it’s her tiny stature, maybe it’s the knowledge that she’s snatching back her power, but I can’t take my eyes off Seraphine and her drill.

“What do you want to know first?” he rasps.

“Where’s Gabriel Capello?”

He swallows hard, his eyes on Seraphine. “Last time I saw him was five, six years ago when the boss told me to collect him from a girlfriend’s place.”

I nod. So far, this matches up with her version of events.

“Where did you take him?”

“An apartment somewhere in Queen’s Gardens.” He coughs. “That’s the last I heard of him, I swear.”

“Someone else must have been keeping an eye on Gabriel,” she says.

Rochas shakes his head from side to side. “If there was, then it’s nobody I know. We talked about that crazy scene for months after, wanting to know what happened next.”

My lip curls at the euphemism. A man ordering his guards to humiliate and gang rape the mother of his children is no ‘scene’, especially when Rochas was one of its eager participants.

“What does that mean?” she snaps.

He flinches. “N-nothing. The night me and Mike took Gabriel was... different.”

“Oh,” Seraphine asks. “How so?”

“Just a gang bang. The boss punished one of his mistresses for stepping out on him, and the boys all got a piece.”

Seraphine’s features twist into a rictus of rage at the understatement, and my stomach somersaults. I rush forward and grab her arm before she plunges the drill into his skull.

“Wait.” I pull her backward. “What can you tell me about Samson Capello’s location?”

“He’s dead,” Rochas says, his voice strangled.

“Catania told me you walked through the Capello house and identified the bodies.”

“Th-that’s right,” he says.

“Then you must have found one of the twins lying face-down.”

“I did.”

“Did you turn him over?” I ask.

He flinches. “What?”

“How did you know Samson was dead?”

Seraphine revs the drill’s motor, and the sound makes him flinch.

I lean into Rochas, my voice lowering. “You realize you’re not leaving this room alive?” He squeezes his eyes shut, and I continue. “Samson isn’t coming to save you and neither are your colleagues. You have a choice to die with a bullet through your brain or I’ll let my lovely little apprentice open up your skull with her drill.”

Rochas sobs, his face crumpling in resignation. “The dead guy was some distant cousin whose car wouldn’t start. He must have known Sam was staying the night somewhere else and used his bed.”

“Was that so hard? Now tell us where we can find him.”

“Last thing I heard, he left town and is hiding out until the man who killed his family is dead.” He swallows. “I swear to god. That’s all I know. Sam said he’d hired two firms to track down the killers, but?—”

“Which ones?”

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