He ducks back into the hall. “Cover me,” he says, stopping to shove another magazine into his gun. Seconds later, he motions me forward. Together we step into a second kitchenette area. A man lies slumped over the counter, another two on the floor. To the left, a small den sits empty. To the right, we can see into a bathroom, and beyond that, two closed doors.
We turn that way, but a slight rustling behind us catches Il Diavolo’s attention. He spins and shoots without time to even aim properly, and my first thought is that he shot the guy coming up behind me—one of Valenti’s guys. But the piercing scream hits my ears just as I turn. The Valenti guy is on the floor, and a pretty, fortyish woman huddles behind the rocker in the den, covering her mouth.
Il Diavolo aims and fires before I can say a word, and all I can think is that I’m next, that he’s going to take out any witnesses that he killed one of our men. The woman’s scream is cut off, and her body thuds back against the wall behind her before sliding sideways to the floor, leaving a streak of blood in her wake.
“We’re killing everyone?” I grit out. “Even the women?”
Il Diavolo strides into the den, kicking aside a chair, and drags the body up by her hair. A gun falls from her lap to the floor, and I see the hole in the rocker. It takes a second for me to put it together.Sheshot Valenti’s man. Il Diavolo shot her through the chair, and she screamed and dropped her gun. And then he killed her.
The way he tosses her body aside like a bag of trash and strides past me turns my stomach, but at least I know we’re not killing innocent bystanders. Il Diavolo gives me a disgusted grunt before heading for the closed bedroom doors.
Not a sound comes from either one. “Cover me,” Il Diavolo says before swinging open the door on the left.
A girl is kneeling in front of a safe, shoving bundles of money into a duffle. I know it’s Bianca by the cascade of wavy hair, but she doesn’t turn to show her face until Il Diavolo strides into the room. He grabs her by the hair and yanks her backwards, sending her sprawling on the floor. “Would you look at that,” he says, a cruel smirk twisting his lips. “It’s the mouthy bitch who got you shot.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Bianca retorts, her tone defiant even as she struggles to rise while Il Diavolo drags her backwards across the floor, her body sliding on the hardwood.
“Want to cut her tongue out?” he asks me, shoving her head toward me.
“Not now,” I say. “We still need Luciani.”
“Where’s your father?” Il Diavolo barks at Bianca, shaking her by the head. He maintains his grip on her hair as she flails and tries to pry his hand loose.
“I’m not turning in my dad to you monsters,” she snaps. “You can kill me first!”’
“He’s in that room, isn’t he?” Il Diavolo asks, a triumphant gleam in his eye as he drags Bianca to her feet. She looks like a doll against his giant form as he holds her in front of him.
As if in answer, a rain of bullets splinters the door from within.
“Unless you want to hit your daughter, stop shooting,” Il Diavolo shouts, ducking back into the adjacent bedroom.
“You sons of bitches are setting me up,” Luciani yells. “You don’t have my daughter. I told her to get out.”
“Tell him you’re here, or I’ll put you out of your misery right now,” Il Diavolo says, pressing the silencer of the gun to Bianca’s throat, still holding her pinned to his chest.
For the first time, fear writes itself across her face, as if she’s just realizing this is real. She can see out the open door to the handful of bodies spread across the kitchen.
“I—I’m here, Daddy,” she calls. “I was getting money from the safe. They caught me.”
“Good girl,” Il Diavolo growls, shoving her forward as he turns to the bedroom. I step in front, kicking down what’s left of the door and then jumping aside. No bullets come.Il Diavolo steps through the door, still holding Bianca in front of him, the muzzle of his gun pushing her chin up as he presses it to her throat. I step in behind him, edging in with my gun raised.
The room is small, probably meant to be a bedroom, but it’s set up as an office with a thick leather armchair near the window and a heavy walnut desk to our left. Lou Luciani is sitting in the armchair, an automatic rifle lying across his lap. Bianca start sobbing and choking out apologies to her father. I lean around my partner, aiming carefully at the man sitting in the chair. While his eyes are on his daughter, I squeeze the trigger.
The bullet rips into his thick torso, and he curses savagely.
“Daddy,” Bianca screams, flailing in Diavolo’s arms.
“Shut the fuck up and stop squirming unless you want my finger to slip on the trigger,” Diavolo says, squeezing her until she whimpers.
“She had nothin’ to do with it,” Luciani says, his voice thick with a Jersey accent and edged with panic. “Let her go and I’ll put the gun down. See?”
He raises both hands, leaving the gun in his lap.
“You think we fucking trust you?” I ask, cradling the Glock in my palm, keeping one finger on the trigger and the barrel aimed at his face as I stride across the room.
“Don’t kill him yet,” Il Diavolo says behind me.
Right. Dead men don’t talk.