“What exactly do you know?” I held the blowtorch a foot away from the head of the man who worked for me. He had been seen somewhere he shouldn’t have been. He was the third man of mine that I knew was holding something back from me.
“Nothing, I, I, I can’t!” he stammered and broke out in a sweat while I grew annoyed. The howl of the torch echoed through the basement walls of the warehouse where I handled most of mybusiness.It was hidden deep within the property of my dockyard, and the basement was built like a bunker so screams could not be heard, and any odor would blend in with the surroundings. It was a necessary place where we could deal with the darker side of things that was out of the public eye and well away from our homes. Our ammunition and other specific items were stored here in bunkers below ground, and a huge walk-in safe held the overspill of cash from the gas stations and casinos we laundered through.
“You dare withhold information from me after I took you in and gave your family a good life? You would be living on the streets if it weren’t for me.”
“It’s not like that.” He tried to buy time, but I was not having it. I leaned forward and melted away the side of his skull. His screams were deafening, but I didn’t care. I’d learned over the years to tune them out. I didn’t have time to play thewho done itcard. Something was happening here, and I knew something worse was coming. The body found at the dockyard was shot execution style, and I had no goddamn idea why.
“Elio.” Niccola, my cousin, called me away from the others. With a quick, emotionless glance at the man’s charred face, he turned his back to it as he spoke. “Martin said the few who were around didn’t see anything.”
“Let me guess, no one will talk?” I swiped my hand through my damp hair, confused as to what was going on at the docks. Maybe I needed to spend more time down there myself.
“No,” he mirrored my movements, “but there’s something else.”
“Go on.”
“There might have been a witness to the hit at the dockyard.”
“Our hit,” I had ordered Donatello, my other capo, to deal with a problem last night, “or someone else’s?”
“Not ours.”
“Who the hell used our territory for their goddamn hit?” Off hours, you would need a code to get in, and we had many cameras.
“I’m looking into it.”
“Good.” I sighed, tired of more shit happening on my property. “Did you check the cameras?”
“They were turned off.”
“Why do you think there was a witness?”
“There was a woman’s bracelet found only a few feet away.”
I ran a hand along my bottom lip as pure, white-hot rage smothered my blood and took over any sane thought I had left in me. I stepped closer to him so only he could hear me.
“Find them, bring them to me, and I will decide if they live or die.”
“Of course.” He went to leave, but I stopped him.
“What about the rest of the footage leading up to and afterward?”
“We’re still looking into it. They were down for twenty minutes, and others around the parking lot were just flickering.”
“Of course they were.”
He nodded to show he understood my train of thought.
“I need to go to my parents’ to get ready. I have a date that I need to mentally prepare for. Come on.” I barked some orders to the others, then we hurried to the parking lot.
“Good afternoon, Elio.” Mama’s friend batted her long eyelashes at me. “We may have found you the perfect woman. She’s new in town, just arrived here from America.”
“Come on, now.” Mama shook her head at her friend, pushing her hand down to dismiss what I’m sure was a photo on her phone. “This isn’t the right time.”
I turned away to reach into the refrigerator. I tried to ignore their almost weekly setups.
“As much as I appreciate that you want to find me love, I’m good. Why don’t you entertain the idea of finding Niccola love?”
“Don’t drag me into your hell.” Niccola whisked by, shooting me the finger with pure delight that this conversation didn’t include him.