Suddenly it was comedy hour.
I caught Tommy’s wide-eyed stare and Mickey’s deep frown. He’d been left out of whatever Marco and Luca had planned, but it seemed like Luca calling me his wife broke his brain.
“You weren’t supposed to shoot Paulie yet.” Marco lorded over their captives.
“I couldn’t look at that big fucker anymore. I guess we can’t use you as a decoy now,” Luca lamented.
“Since we’re going off-script . . .” Taz stepped out of the shadows behind me, making me jump.
Squeezing Luca’s jacket closer, I mumbled, “Any more of you lurking around?” Frankie nudged my shoulder, a rare sign of solidarity.
Luca sighed and gestured with the knife at the twins. “We know they tried to kill Tootsie. We also know they let us think Tootsie was dead. What I don’t know is why. Marco didn’t order—”
The now earless twin shrieked, “He knew!” He jerked his chin wildly in our direction. “He knew!” He cried out, folding in on himself until his forehead rested in a pool of blood draining from the hole in Paulie’s head.
“Enough.” Marco bit out, pulling a gun from his waistband and shooting him in the leg, which, of course, only caused him to cry and scream more. “Give us a name.”
Luca grabbed the hair on the back of the wounded twin’s head, blood splattering his white shirt as he tugged upward, bringing them eye to eye. “Who knew? I want a name.”
Sobbing, he shook his head, suddenly unable to follow through on ratting out his accomplice. Luca nodded and shoved the injured twin into his brother. As soon as Luca cleared the tarp, Taz filled the earless wonder with bullets. One bullet went cleanly through his arm and into his brother’s. Unlike his twin, he just grunted, not a tear in sight.
I, on the other hand, struggled to remain standing. Frankie leaned into my side, propping me up without drawing attention to my weak knees.
“Now. Tony, tell us who you’ve been working with. I find it hard to believe you two dipshits are the brains of this operation.” Marco circled the tarp, sending a swift kick from his expensive Italian leather shoe to the living twin’s back. Tony fell forward, his face smashing into the ground with a sick thud.
Tony.
I’d never bothered to learn their names because the twins were fucking creeps.
Using the toe of his shoe, Marco rolled Tony’s prone body over until he was on top of his dead brother and stared up at Luca with pure malice and a busted nose. Luca squatted down and wiped the bloody blade on Tony’s shirt. “Why don’t you tell us who you’re working with, and I won’t start carving off pieces of your face.”
All I could see was the back of Luca’s head, but Marco stood over them, a grim smile on his face. My stomach twisted. The residual hangover, plus the scene before me, was a dangerous combination. I shifted, trying to use Mickey’s broad body to block the gruesome view.
“Fuck. You.” Tony rolled his lips together as Luca pressed the tip of his knife into his cheek. Sweat from the heat and beating rolled down his forehead and into his eyes.
“You see that woman back there?” Luca asked, waving the knife toward me. “Your job was to keep her safe. Instead, you fucked with her brakes, let Cy’s flunkies know she was at my club, left her alone in the middle of fucking nowhere, and had her followed.”
Tony scowled. “Why would I have her followed?”
“Huh. Well, the rest was all you.” Luca sliced Tony’s cheek wide open, and finally, Tony yelled and started crying. “That’s all reason enough to fucking gut you like the scum you are, but you also betrayed the family.” Luca flourished the knife and stabbed Tony right in the gut, twisting the handle.
“Luca?” Taz’s gruff voice broke through the screams bouncing off the walls.
“Right.” Luca nodded as he stood, leaving the knife in Tony as he stood next to Marco. “Your turn.”
Taz approached, pointing a gun at Tony's head, and wasted no time pulling the trigger. Sighing, he slid his gun into his waistband and turned to his cousins. “So, what now?”
“We’ve got a traitor.” Luca scratched his jaw and smeared Tony’s blood across his skin. He didn’t even notice because his attention was on the problem at hand.
“At least we have three less after tonight.” Marco jerked his chin at Tommy and Frankie as he and Luca walked past us with Taz. “Get them in the hole and make sure the tarp covers everything.”
Frankie squeezed my arm as he passed me. Mickey moved closer to his cousins, but not one of them spared him a glance.
“With the rehearsal dinner this week, we’ll be able to feel out the out-of-towners.” Luca turned to Taz. “We need to know when everyone gets to town.”
“Done. I sent you the info you needed on the Chicago hit.” Taz sighed. “I want my brother back. When this whole thing with Cy is handled, I want Tootsie back in Chicago as my second. He never should’ve come here.”
Luca’s face remained neutral. “That’s up to Tootsie. Before all this, he was set to be my consigliere. He’ll have to answer for the past few months, but it’s up to him where he wants to be after that. We clear?”