Chapter Eleven #2
I draw the knife back and pierce it in his throat, twisting the blade a little, until he takes his last gurgled breath.
My mind is racing so fast I can’t keep up with my thoughts.
Mario Enzino is back. He’s really back, and I can finally fucking kill him, and Jack Enzino for hiding him.
I don’t know how they kept me at bay all this time, but I can’t procrastinate my vendetta anymore.
“If Mario is against his brother’s wedding, Seb is right, we need to use Art as bait and send him back home.” Marco grabs his phone to contact him.
His words make me freeze. Every muscle in my body has stiffened as it once again refuses to go along with the plan. Even though my head is telling me it’s what needs to be done, together with my avenging, bloodthirsty side, something inside of me is screaming not to let Art go.
“Fuck!” I kick the chair near the table, making it fly across the room.
“Christ man! What is it?” Marco’s hand lands on my shoulder, squeezing it. Some of the rage diminishes, but not the internal battle regarding Art.
I jerk Marco’s hand off me and order Jeff and Johnny to clean the mess.
Then I move to the sink to wash my hands and bloody forearms. Art’s light blue eyes suddenly appear in front of me.
How they crease when he smiles. The glow he radiates spreading all over his face, to his perfectly shaped lips and neat eyebrows.
It’s like watching a stream of sunlight spilling from the clouds.
He’s delicate and bright and vivid. He’s warmth and sorrow. Feistiness and vulnerability.
Fuck! Why? Why? I grip the metal sink edge so tight I hear a crack.
My phone starts ringing. I dry my hands and walk back to the table to get it out of my jacket. It’s Carlo.
“Talk,” I say into the phone.
“Boss.” His voice sounds strained. “He’s gone.”
Three hours later, I enter my apartment again, followed by Seb, Marco, and Fly.
Art’s sunshine and apple scent engulfs me.
I don’t hear Nacho’s bark or his tiny, clumsy body hitting furniture as he scrambles to reach me.
There’s Carlo, sitting on the sofa, elbows on his knees, face in his hands.
Jo is next to him holding an icepack on the back of his head.
As soon as they see me, they both spring off the sofa.
“Boss, this is all my fault—” Carlo starts, but I don’t let him finish. I punch him right in the face and then in the gut. Next I grab him from the collar of his shirt and shove him down on the sofa.
I ignore Fly’s gasp as I roar in his face, “It fucking is! And you’ll be punished for it this time by me severely, you fucking idiot. I’m so damn tired of all this incompetence!”
He nods with a stony expression. I let his shirt go and move toward the window.
I hear Seb ordering him to go see Doc. The person I’m really angry at is me.
I should punch myself. Why didn’t I handcuff him to the bed before leaving?
Why didn’t I put more men outside the door?
He whispered a few words in my ear, and I just couldn't think straight anymore. But did I ever do that with Art?
I’m certainly used to him trying to leave, seeing how many times it happened. He lied, manipulated me. So why do I feel this backstabbing feeling whirling inside my gut? Did I actually want him to stay? No. The plan was to let him go. It just happened a little earlier. Not under my control.
I light a cigar and when I put the pack back in the jacket pocket, I feel the edge of the paper note he left for me.
I crumple it in my hand. There’s no need to read it again. Every single word is carved inside my head.
Dear Luca,
I feel like I overstayed my…unwelcome, and it’s time for me to go.
There are many things I’d like to say, but that’s not really our style, is it?
Let me just tell you about something that keeps hanging in the back of my mind.
When you found my phone, you saw I asked Rami about Doppi’s son’s murder.
I think Mario did it and tried to pin it on your family for some reason.
The horn pendant with the engraved cross you found near the body, I think it came from his bracelet.
The house you saved Fly from a few months ago, you should check the backyard. I hope this’ll help.
I wish
Be caref
I’m sor
Addio Luca,
Art
PS. Carlo is not responsible for my escape. Please, don’t punish him.
Every word he wrote feels like acid being poured down my throat.
We went to his apartment, to his clubs. But there’s no trace of him.
Nobody saw him. Our men in the police checked all the airports and train stations, nothing.
Did he really go back to his father? We have men outside his two main residences, but Art never got there.
Fuck! I just have to know where he is. I need to know. I don’t fucking know why.
“Can I see the note, please?” Fly asks.
I hand it to him after crushing it even more in my hand.
“Didn’t you put a tracker on him?” Seb covers the phone mic to question me about it.
I nod. After he slipped away, I fucking did.
I put two. That’s how I knew he was in that alley.
“He left his jacket here.” I point at the fringed one on the sofa.
“And his handbag.” Which is in the bedroom.
Did he forget them? He was in a rush. Maybe…
is he planning to come back? No, the note is clear, he has no intention of returning. What would be the point?
“So, Art opened the door, telling Carlo that his dog had disappeared. Carlo came inside to help him look for it when Art hit him in the head with a skillet and ran away. Is that right?” Marco recaps the most idiotic escape. “What about Vince? Ryan? Wasn’t he in the parking lot? And Aldo?”
“Vince was helping me at the warehouse with Jeff, Ryan was on the phone with Seb, and Aldo was gone to buy dinner for him.”
“Art wrote about the house I was taken to when I was kidnapped.” Fly suddenly lifts the note in his hand.
“We thought it was used for human trafficking and prostitution. I do remember seeing blood in some of the rooms,” I hear Marco saying.
Seb hangs up his phone. “Filippo accompanied Detective Casper there. After he got an anonymous tip. They found over twenty bodies buried in the backyard. The most recent ones were of young men killed the same way Doppi’s son was.”
Fuuuuuuck! More heinous acts exposing Mario’s true rotten nature. When is he going to pay for them? I leave the cigar, grab two throwing knives I hid in one of the drawers in the kitchen, and throw them at the wall across the room.
I hear Fly’s surprised scream and then Marco’s cursing. “It’s okay, amore mio. That’s Luca’s way of…venting.”
“I should have killed that twisted, depraved psycho motherfucker years ago,” I snarl. Uncontrollable fury floods my body, almost choking me. If only Art had told me Mario was in Boston. Did he hate me that much for kidnapping him and forcing him to stay?
“So, he placed the body of Coretti’s right-hand’s son in our turf to start a war between Coretti and us,” Marco muses.
Mario was taught well how to shift blame and pin sins on others. Just like Jack Enzino did with my father. I grab the knives pierced in the wall, yanking hard on the handles.
“He did it to stop the wedding. The Enzino man you interrogated said Mario was against it. He doesn’t want Art to get married,” Seb declares, brushing his finger over his lip.
“Why is he so against it? Jealousy?” Fly asks.
“Father and son don’t see eye to eye,” Seb explains.
“They hate each other’s guts,” Marco feels the need to clarify further.
“I have more news to share.” Seb’s monotone voice and the tilts of his head as he examines me make me growl.
“Just say it.” My grip on one of the knives’ handles tightens.
He walks to me as he talks. “Mario was the one entering Art’s apartment, ransacking it and punching his closet door.
The landlord was finally able to get the CCTV footage from the security company.
Mario avoided the camera near the back door and on the apartment floor, but he didn’t know about the new ones that were installed on top of each apartment front door just a few weeks ago. ”
I tense, hating every word that came out of his mouth and with them all the possible reasons popping inside my head as to why Mario forced his way into Art’s apartment.
Seb grabs my shoulder and gives it a couple of pats.
His hand feels heavy. My muscles there relax a little, and I let out a long sigh.
He rarely touches people; he must think I’m a ticking bomb—with a raging beast waiting to come out.
“That guy gives me the creeps.” Fly tucks himself into his fiancé’s arms. “When I saw him the first time, he was smiling at me while holding a knife with Art’s blood on it.
I could see the enjoyment in his reptile eyes.
And the way he talked and stared at Art?
It was the most disturbing brotherly behavior I’ve ever seen.
” He visibly shudders. Looking repulsed by the memories.
“So, that means that Mario was hiding in New York all this time.” Marco goes back to the previous conversation, sending me a grave look.
“No,” I growl, remembering once again how Art didn’t tell me about his brother hiding in Boston.
“On and off. We can create a timeline of his appearances. Doppi’s murder happened two to three weeks ago, the apartment’s break-in around ten days, and the shooting—”
“Mario is responsible for the shooting too?” I bark, glaring at Seb while tossing the knife.
It hits the same exact spot in the wall from before.
That motherfucking piece of scum almost killed me.
If Art hadn’t pulled me down, I would be dead.
I stroke my chest, feeling it throbbing inside.
How ridiculous is it that he yanked on my chest hair? God, he’s so infuriating.
“Enzino was in Miami when the shooting happened,” Seb tells us.
“He could have made one of his men do the dirty work,” Fly suggests.