Father Peter DiMaggio finished with assisting Enrico Gnucci as they counted out the money. He had connections with the Italian branch of the Gnucci family-who had wanted to reclaim their territory- and they were working on not only laundering their dirty money, but also helping them establish citizenship here. They had devised a way to be virtually undetected, using many different avenues to obtain citizenship here and regain the power they had lost after the Punisher decimated the American branch of the Gnuccis. Some of those avenues were even legal.
In return for his financial and social assistance, their Consigliere made whatever little problems of his that dared to rear their heads...simply disappear. No fuss. No blood on the good Father's hands. Besides, he was able to intimidate most of the little farts into staying quiet. Promises of hell did wonders, even in this day and age of the ever encroaching threat of atheism.
He sneered at the thought of the children. Like most people of his particular ...problem, some would say fatal disease, he did it for the feeling of complete power. He liked having the power to make people fear him, gave him some peace at the end of the day. He took some pride in his priestly calling, knowing that with but a few carefully placed words, he could make the faithful weep in the confessional. Mostly over a thought or deed that he thought didn't even merit worrying over.
/Some people just want to feel the cut of the 'whip' into their back. They want to feel horrible. It's my job to make them feel bad, and give them a chance at salvation./
It was safe to say that the good Father didn't believe in God; he had given up that thought a long time ago when he was a lad, crying out to him for help from when... Never mind. That happened forty years ago. It was his time to have the power, to be in control, to inflict on others what had been done to him.
If he were to be honest with himself, he was just in this profession for the ...intangible perks because being a priest didn't pay that well. Not with the years he spent in seminary, getting a PhD in Theology. He took a deep breath as he put what he was working on aside and pondered which of his children he'd visit next.
/Marc? No. He's too old, old enough to start talking. Better leave him alone now. Maybe have Enrico arrange an accident. Yes, that would be best./ Peter massaged his temples, made ill by his thoughts, but not quite sickened enough to stop. He couldn't. This was a compulsion, driving him to do ungodly things. He liked doing what he did, but at the same time...part of him held a high degree of disgust.
He rose from his desk, moving swiftly in his black frock. He swept down the impeccably clean hallways of his rectory, out a side door, and into the courtyard. He headed toward his room, a quiet sanctuary from the hectic mess that was his life. Father Peter knew what he needed, he needed to punish himself, to still the chaos that whirled in his mind. He needed to practise mortification of the flesh. He closed the heavy oak door and shoved the steel lock into place. He sighed, feeling secure that he was, indeed, alone. He didn't bother glancing around
Father Peter removed his garb, and kicked the cloth aside. He stood in the cold air, dressed in modest boxers. He found a whip, saved only for himself, in his nightstand. He fumbled with the smooth leather. He cracked his whip, and it made a sharp noise. /A good noise./ He thought to himself.
He whipped himself, across the belly and legs, until welts rose up on his skin, painful and raw. He cried out a few times in anguished joy, both loving and hating the hurt that he caused himself. Mortification of the flesh, purifying his body of sins.
The older man felt the slick, cold metal of a gun against his neck. "Hmmm. I should make you whip yourself until you bleed and confess to everything that you have done to the children entrusted to your care."