Chapter 17 The Capos #2
Freddie pulled his gun, too, and mirrored Ciro’s position. “We don’t work for the fucking Segretis, you piece of shit.”
Aronne’s eyes blew wide and his head snapped from side-to-side. He slid a single foot back. “I didn’t— He’s lying! Obviously, the little fucker is lying!” His panicked eyes crashed onto Santino’s. “Please, Boss, you gotta believe me.”
Santino tucked his hands into his pockets.
“I want to, Aronne,” he said, because he had wanted to.
“But the thing about idiots is, they’re actually very convincing in their honesty.
” He tilted his head toward Tito. “And when this guy thought he was about to die, he had a lot to say. Like how you’ve been up to more than a little shit I have very expressly forbidden. ”
Aronne finally paled, his arms slowly lowering.
Santino continued. “I mean, it’s funny, I think, how a made man can complain about my allegiance with another mafia family, when that very allegiance actually happened before the idiot running his mouth joined up with me.
Almost feels like he’s spewing someone else’s script at that point, doesn’t it?
” A script he suspected they’d all gotten from Danilo, but of course, Tito hadn’t had that information.
The signs continued to point that way, though.
Aronne sucked in a hard breath and raised his chin in defiance, proving Santino’s unspoken point. “Whatever I am to you at work, and whatever suspicions you have, don’t forget I am also your nephew’s godfather.”
Indeed, you are. “Oh, I haven’t forgotten,” Santino said, forcing a familiar faux-levity into his voice.
“But, you see, I don’t care.” He paused, turned toward Tito again, and continued the thought.
“No, I take that back. I do care. I think I don’t want a disloyal, filthy bastard like you having any goddamn thing to do with the emotional or psychological development of the future of the Guerra family.
” He stepped around behind Tito and roughly yanked the dirty socks they’d used as a gag from the man’s mouth.
“So, traitors one and two, any last words? Perhaps you’d like the mercy I will offer if you tell me every single person working alongside you to overthrow me? ”
Tito sobbed as Santino’s hands settled just shy of his neck. “I-I know a few!”
Hardness overtook Aronne’s face. “There’s only one name that matters,” he said, seemingly giving up the charade of innocence. He raised one arm out at his side, index finger extended toward Ciro. “It’s not just me.”
Santino frowned.
Freddie’s eyes widened, flicking between Aronne and Ciro before finally sliding toward Santino.
Ciro growled low in his throat and for a moment, Santino was sure he would shoot Aronne dead right on the spot. Instead, he pulled his arms back, took the barrel of his gun off his former fellow … and raised it to his own head.
Aronne’s extended arm fell back to his side as if suddenly deflating.
Santino let both brows raise. “Ciro?”
“I ain’t no rat, Boss.” He stood up as tall as his five-foot, ten-inch height allowed and squared his shoulders, gun never wavering. “Give me the order and I’ll pull the trigger.”
That was a predicament Santino hadn’t expected to find himself in.
It wasn’t exactly a fool-proof gamble, after all.
Ciro could be counting on the gesture being convincing enough, or figuring that death at his own hands would be less bad than death at Santino’s.
He could also be being unfairly accused by a desperate piece of shit.
Aronne scoffed. “Nice bluff. Even Santino will see through that.”
Santino snapped his stare back the other way. “The fuck did you just say?”
Aronne met his stare, a flash of bewilderment crossing his face before his lips lifted in a sneer. “I don’t see a point playing your soldier now.” He turned his head and spat on the ground. “I answer to someone else.”
Santino released Tito and strode forward, anger beating a war drum in his ears as Aronne kept talking.
“And I won’t be answering a single one of your pathetic fucking questions. Go whine to your precious Drag—”
Santino closed the last few feet between them in a sudden burst of speed, spinning and delivering a sharp kick to the asshole’s solar plexus that shut him the fuck up for a delightful moment.
Aronne stumbled back, knees buckling and arms going around his middle, but Santino didn’t let up. Their conversation was done.
Loyalty almost always came out when the violence started, anyway.
So, he swung his fists, once again improperly protected for delivering a beating, and a grin finally split his face at the first bone that crunched beneath his knuckles. Blood sprayed from Aronne’s lips as his head snapped sideways, splattering across the floor.
No one moved to help the man. No bullets pierced the air, or bit into Santino’s flesh.
Aronne cried out and positioned his arms defensively, trying to curl in on himself. As almost an after-thought, he hurled his body to the side as if attempting a shoulder-slam.
Santino took hold of Aronne’s arm, pivoted, and pitched the man entirely over himself in a near perfect over-the-shoulder throw.
Aronne’s back cracked loudly on the hard floor of the warehouse, the man’s echoing outcry the only sound carrying over it, and Santino laughed low.
The dumb fuck should really have gone for his gun or at least a blade.
He could never match Santino hand-to-hand.
“I’ve been beating your ass in combat since I was nineteen,” Santino taunted, dropping into a crouch with his knees spread wide and leaning forward so Aronne could see his face. “What the fuck were you thinking, egging me on? You miss the feel of my knuckles breaking your bones that much?”
Aronne coughed, blood bubbling up past his lips. Probably Santino had punctured a lung with one of the ribs he’d surely broken.
Armando’s urgent baritone cut through the moment. “Boss.”
Santino rocked backward enough to turn his head.
Ciro still held a gun raised, as if he’d become a statue, his eyes glued on Santino and Aronne, his expression grim but non-combative. Ciro was not the reason Armando had called Santino’s attention.
Armando moved forward enough to be fully visible and lifted his burner—the phone he brought with him for emergency communication when Santino held his off-the-books meetings.
And for a man who’d been at Santino’s side for forever, the concern on his face was far too plain. “There’s a problem at the house.”
Santino blinked slowly, the world crawling to a screeching stop.
A problem at the house. At the should-be-highly-secure home where he’d left his new, beautiful, largely unaware fiancée. A problem at the house meant Reiko was in danger.
A problem at the house meant Santino was going to drown St. Louis in blood if she’d shed so much as a drop.
A strained, wet laugh bubbled up from the prone figure in front of him. When Santino turned his gaze downward, the last piece of the puzzle clicked. Blood stained Aronne’s lips, but he still managed to smile like a predator who’d caught its prey.
Santino heaved a hard breath and surged to his feet.
“Freddie”—he pointed for unnecessary emphasis at the trash already dying at his feet—“take both of these fuckers and learn everything you can from them. Then send them for a long swim. I don’t ever want to see their pictures again, is that fucking clear? ”
Freddie tucked away his gun. “Yes, Boss.”
“Anyone you don’t trust with your children’s lives, you don’t trust with this.” Freddie had two small kids. They were the only people he’d ever been seen smiling for as far as Santino knew.
Freddie nodded sharply. “Keep the circle skintight, understood.”
Santino spun in place, walking and talking. “Ciro, you wanna prove yourself?”
“Just give me a chance, Boss.”
“Come with me, do exactly as you’re fucking told, and do not make me fucking regret it”—he turned again in order to meet Ciro’s watchful stare—“or you’ll wish you’d pulled that trigger without permission.”
Ciro exhaled hard and lowered his gun. “Understood.”
Santino resumed his path, raising his voice.
“If we find anyone at the house who doesn’t belong, I want them fucking crippled and lined up on the lawn!
” And if anything had happened to Reiko, he’d kill the ones who did belong, too, just for allowing it.
“Armando, reach out to house security and find out what the hell we’re coming home to.
” Arguably he should have made that call, but he had other priorities.
As soon as he retrieved his phone from the SUV, he pulled up her number.
It didn’t ring. He called repeatedly, and every time, it went straight to voicemail.
“Fuck!”
The phone buzzed in his hand right as he pulled his arm back to pitch the useless thing across the car, and Santino stilled. That was a text.
Reiko’s phone was clearly off or dead. She wouldn’t be texting, not unless she’d both memorized his number and gained access to a new device. In an emergency, most of his men knew to make calls for quicker communication.
Still, Santino drew a breath in an effort to clear the rage from his mind and looked again at the screen. What he thought people understood and what a man might actually do were not always the same. Plus, there was the chance it was something else, unrelated and poorly timed.
The message was from an unfamiliar, suspicious number. And his gut plummeted.
I seem to have something of yours…
The message was followed by the least-sexy picture of his beloved Reiko he’d ever seen.
She was gagged and blindfolded, bound at the wrists and ankles with her arms held behind her back, and lying motionless on her side on what looked like a tarp.
Her hair had become a rat’s nest, the camera flash had reflected off of tear stains smeared down her cheek, and most petrifying of all—she had been stripped down to her bra and panties.
But even so disheveled, he didn’t need to see the scar so prominent on her abdomen to know the woman in the photo was her.
Another text came in while he scrutinized the image, for clues as well as signs of true injury.
If you want her back, keep your phone charged. I’ll be in touch.
A growl rolled past Santino’s lips and he didn’t think twice before punching the buttons to call the number back. The line rang four times in his ear before clicking and disconnecting. He supposed he hadn’t expected them to answer. So, he returned to the text thread.
The more time you give me to find you first, the worse this works out for you. Tell me what you want and where we can meet. And don’t lay a finger on her.
The reply was immediate. Nothing more than a string of rolling laughing faces. The synchronized animation of the teardrops leaking from the yellow-faced eyes mocked him even as his heart shredded.
“Boss,” Armando called from the front seat, his tone cautious. “We’re here.”
Santino glanced up, looking past him and out the windshield. He meant home, of course. And somehow, Santino was surprised not to see the house engulfed in flame. But it wasn’t—it was just lit, too brightly for the hour.
The sight of his home standing upright, visibly intact, coupled with the knowledge that his fiancée had been taken and was in that very moment being horribly mistreated and worse made Santino’s chest constrict with fresh anger.
“Take Ciro and sweep the property. Talk to the staff. Find Luca, and he better fucking need a hospital, or I’ll put him in the goddamn morgue.
” He swiped his thumb across the screen of his phone. “I have a call to make.”