Page 161 of Taming Seraphine

My nostrils flare. We hadn’t thought of searching overseas. I ask a few more questions about who he brought with him, but Mike reveals that he thought his boss was going overseas to treat an ulcer. It looks like Dad was holding secrets from everyone, including his own guards.

“Let’s move onto Samson Capello. Where is he?” I ask.

Mike writes in extra shaky writing:DEAD.

“We all know he didn’t die.” I turn to Leroi. “Hold my gun.”

His eyes narrow. “What are you planning?”

“Relax, I’m not going to touch his dick. At least not with my hands.”

Mike makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, and he jots something on the paper. Ignoring him, I walk to the bag of tools perched on the bathroom sink and sort through the tools. No matter what Leroi says, Mike is still one of the monsters that took pleasure in violating Mom. He’s one of the reasons memories from that night still haunt my dreams.

There’s only one fitting punishment for a rapist. If I can’t directly touch his junk, I just need to improvise.

I return to Mike, holding the smallest pair of pliers. He eyes the tool, his breath coming in ragged pants, and then he meets my gaze.

“If I’m satisfied with your answer, I’ll let you keep your balls. Where is Samson Capello?”

He writes faster, the words almost blurring together.

In his summer house.

“Where?” I flip the page to a fresh sheet.

After he scrawls down an address, I rip it out and hand it to Leroi. “Can you check on this?”

Leroi disappears down the hallway with the scrap of paper, and I turn back to Mike to ask, “Is there anything else you want to tell me about Samson or Gabriel?”

He shakes his head.

“You’re sure?”

Mike nods, his eyes squeezing shut, seeming resigned to his death. After all, he heard Leroi give me an hour to wrap everything up. He probably thinks he’s given me all the information I need, so I’ll drive a nail through his skull.

He would be wrong.

“Let’s move onto the next subject,” I say, my voice shaking with rage. “Evangeline.”

His eyes snap open, his pupils tiny pinpricks within his light-brown irises. He tries to write something on the notepad, but I snatch it out of his hands.

“She’s a what?” I snarl. “A slut, a whore, a cheater who had it coming?”

He shakes his head, his eyes darting around the room, searching for an escape. Mike thrashes within his restraints, looking like he’s finally realized his fate isn’t to die quickly.

“I watched you all through the crack in the door,” I say. “She was begging, screaming, crying for it to stop, but you all laughed as you took your turns.”

He flinches.

I use the pliers to pull down his zipper and return to the sink to extract a larger pair that remind me of crab claws. After cutting through his boxers with a retractable knife, I clamp the plier’s jaws on his foreskin and pull out his penis.

Mike’s muffled screams are so loud that Leroi charges back to the bathroom with more tape and winds it around his nose.

“But he won’t be able to breathe,” I say.

Leroi scoffs and returns to the doorway and leans against his frame, holding a TV remote. “He’ll survive for long enough.”

Mike groans, his face covered in sweat. With most of his face now covered with tape, all I can see are his bloodshot eyes, which stream with tears.

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