Chapter 5 - The Interrogation of the Iron Hand
The private underground shooting range beneath the Torino estate didn't look like a standard basement. It was a massive, soundproofed concrete bunker fitted with medical bays, tactical armories, and a central interrogation pit enclosed by two-way bulletproof glass.
At 2:15 AM, the air in the bunker smelled of cordite, gun oil, and fresh blood.
Tied securely to a steel chair in the center of the pit was a man with a broken nose, a split lip, and a silver Rolex watch dangling loosely from a swollen wrist. His suit—once an expensive Italian wool blend—was drenched in sweat and stained with mud from being dragged out of a safehouse in Queens less than thirty minutes after Vincent’s strike team hit the location.
His name was Jimmy ‘The Hook’ Falcone, one of Salvatore Marcone’s top capos.
The heavy steel door of the interrogation room hissed open, and Vincent Torino walked in. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket anymore. His white dress shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing thick, corded forearms covered in old, faded scars from a life carved out of violence.
He didn't speak. He walked over to a small metal table, picked up a pair of heavy leather work gloves, and slipped them on slowly, finger by finger.
Jimmy raised his head, squinting against the harsh overhead lights, a defiant, blood-stained grin stretching across his swollen face.
“Vinnie,” Jimmy wheezed, spitting a mouthful of pink saliva onto the concrete. “You’re making a big mistake, man. Sal Marcone’s gonna burn this whole damn neighborhood to the ground over this. You can't just snatch me off the street—!”
Vincent walked up to the chair, grabbed Jimmy by the collar of his ruined shirt, and slammed his head back against the steel post with a sickening thud.
The room went dead silent.
“You broke into a house where a little girl was sleeping,” Vincent said, his voice terrifyingly quiet—the kind of quiet that precedes a hurricane. “You put your hands on a woman who had nothing to do with our business. And you left her to die on a basement floor while her daughter ran through the freezing rain looking for help.”
“It was business, Vinnie!” Jimmy gasped, struggling against the heavy straps. “Marcone wanted the port audit files! The accountant wouldn't talk—!”
“Business,” Vincent repeated, a dark, humorless smile touching the corner of his mouth. He reached down and gripped Jimmy’s right hand, spreading the fingers out flat against the metal table.
Jimmy’s eyes widened in sudden, abject terror as he realized what was coming. “Wait! Vinnie, wait—!”
“Here is my business, Jimmy,” Vincent said softly. He picked up a heavy iron ball-peen hammer from the edge of the table. “You thought you were stealing municipal contracts. You thought you were playing chess with city hall. But you didn't check who was sitting at table four at Romano's restaurant tonight.”
“I didn't know she was your—!”
“She wasn't,” Vincent interrupted coldly. “She was just a woman who was supposed to sit across from me and talk over a glass of wine. You didn't just ruin a contract, Jimmy. You ruined my dinner.”
CRACK.
The sound of bone snapping echoed off the concrete walls like a pistol shot, followed immediately by Jimmy’s high-pitched, agonizing scream of pure terror.
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Vincent didn't blink. He raised the hammer again, his dark eyes devoid of any human mercy.
“Now,” Vincent whispered, his voice dropping into the abyss, “you’re going to tell me exactly where Salvatore Marcone is sitting right this second. And then you’re going to pray he dies before I find him.”
