I took Cane by the cuff of his shirt and dragged him off to the side, farther away from the starting line. Not that I cared if anyone watched what I was doing, but I wasn’t keen on eating smoke and dirt once the cars raced off.
I pushed Cane away from me. He lost his balance and fell on his backside. His eyes darted left and right as if he was searching for something to defend himself with. I grabbed his hand, twisted it all the way back and broke his wrist. He howled, cradling his injured hand against his chest. Nobody came to help him. They knew how things were. People who didn’t pay their debts got a visit from me, and a broken wrist was one of the kinder outcomes.
“Tomorrow, I’ll be back,” I told him. I pointed at his knee. He knew what that meant.
Over to the left side, near the starting line, I noticed a familiar face with black curls. Adamo, Remo’s youngest brother. This was definitely not a place he was supposed to be at this time of the night. He was only thirteen and had been caught in a racing car before. Apparently, Remo losing his shit on him hadn’t made him see reason. I jogged over to him, and the two older guys beside him who looked like they were up to no good. The moment they spotted me, they dashed off, but Adamo knew better than to try that. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in bed? You’ve got school in the morning.”
He gave a bored shrug. Too cool for a proper reply.
I grabbed his collar. And his eyes finally met mine. “It’s not like I need an education. I’ll become a Made Man and earn money with illegal shit.”
I released him. “Can’t hurt to use your brain so the illegal shit won’t get you into jail.” I nodded toward my car. “I’ll take you to Remo.”
“You didn’t finish school. And Remo and Nino didn’t either. Why do I have to do this shit?”
I slapped the back of his head lightly. “Because we were busy taking Las Vegas back. You are only busy getting yourself in trouble. Now move.”
He grimaced, rubbing the back of his head. “I can go home by myself. I don’t need a ride.”
“So you can try to sneak in without him noticing?” I nodded toward my car again. “Not going to happen. Now move. I have better things to do than to babysit you.”
“Like what? Beating up other debtors?”
“Among other things, yes.”
He trudged toward the car and practically flung himself into the passenger seat, then closed the door with so much force I feared he’d damaged the soft close mechanism. Since he’d hit puberty he was completely intolerable, and he had been difficult even before that.
I heard the pained gasps the moment I set foot into the gaming room of the abandoned casino that functioned as our gym. I stopped Adamo with a palm against his chest. I should have known Remo wasn’t alone. Bad news always drove him into the gym for his kind of workout.
“You will wait here.”
Adamo crossed his arms. “It’s not the first time I’ll see Remo beating someone up.”
He was right. Over the years he had witnessed violence. It was impossible to keep him from the cruel realities of it all, but Remo didn’t want him to start the induction process before his fourteenth birthday and until then he wouldn’t have to see the worst of our business. “You will wait.”
I said firmly before I walked on. He slunk over to the broken Champagne bar and began smashing a few glasses.
Remo was kicking the living daylights out of some poor fucker I didn’t know when I stepped into the second gaming room that we used for our kickboxing training, probably still furious because I hadn’t been successful bringing Aria back to him, or furious because of my earlier call telling him about his brother being out in the middle of the night. Again.
He stopped when he spotted me, wiping some sweat and blood from his forehead with the back of his hand. He hadn’t even bothered wrapping his hands with tape. He must have been eager to let off some steam.
“I took that one off your hands. Sometimes I need to get down to business myself,” he said. He looked back down on the bloody heap of a man, who was curled into himself, moaning. His grey hair was matted with blood.
I chuckled as I jumped up on the platform of the kickboxing ring. “I don’t mind.”
“Where is he?”
“I made him wait in the entry.”
He nodded. “And?” he asked, coming toward me and letting his victim lie in his own blood. The scar over his eye was slightly redder than usual as it always was when he exerted himself. “How did it go in New York? Your message wasn’t very enlightening.”