WOLFE #3
“Allow me.” I stabbed through the opening in the top then used it as leverage to pop the lid.
I pushed the top aside and then tipped the box over, his son’s body rolling out, his wrists and ankles tied together.
An oxygen mask was secured to his face, and a small tank was with him to make sure he could get air while he was drugged.
He didn’t even know he’d been in a box because I’d knocked him out before I’d put him in the crate.
“Dante!” Luigi dropped to his knees in front of his son. “Is he alive? Dante?”
“Alright, that’s enough.” I grabbed him by the front of the shirt just the way his men had with Leo and shoved him back, sending him to his ass on the floor.
His men didn’t come around to help him, all too scared to get close to him.
“Let’s do a quick recap, shall we?” I stood over Dante’s unconscious body and changed the grip on my knife, what I used to stab someone right through the heart.
“You deceived Don Mancini, claimed to be an ally while you snuck around in the dark like the fucking rat you are. You stole two shipments of his guns, and even when Don Mancini came here in the hope of some kind of cooperative reconciliation, you chose to ambush him. Threatened to kill his son if he didn’t give you his business.
Am I missing anything?” I turned to look at my guys behind me. “Elio?”
Elio shook his head.
I turned back to Luigi. “Which brings us here. And I’m fucking mad as hell.
If this decision were up to me, I would carve your son like prime rib right in front of you and then do the same to the rest of you—one by fucking one.
” I pointed and then moved my finger around to all of them.
“Because this pit bull is fucking hungry.” Then I barked.
Barked quick and loud, the sound echoing off the walls of the warehouse.
“But Don Mancini is the boss, not me. So he’ll decide your fate. ”
I stepped away, returning to my rightful place in the background, my job finished.
Don Mancini looked at me and stared.
I stared back.
Then he gave me a nod—a nod that said more than words ever could.
I nodded back.
He stepped forward and glanced at Dante asleep on the floor and then looked at Luigi.
Luigi moved to his knees, bringing his hands together like it was Sunday mass. “I’m sorry, Don Mancini. I plead for your forgiveness. You can kill me, but please, not my boy. He has nothing to do with this… Please.” He started to whimper and cry, a groveling idiot.
I crossed my arms over my chest and watched the show.
“You’re the one who betrayed me, and when I gave you another chance, you decided to betray me again.” He said it solemnly, almost apologetically. “Our families have worked together for generations. They’d roll over in their graves if they knew this is how it came to an end.”
Luigi continued to shake, his hands clasped together. “Please, Vincenzo. Please…”
Don Mancini stared down at Dante. “If I didn’t yield, you would have killed my son.”
“But I didn’t,” Luigi said. “I didn’t kill your son.”
“You would have killed him and then the rest of us,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Or stolen my family business that’s endured for generations…
and left me humiliated. When Cosa Nostra came for you, I stood beside you.
When the Skull King threatened you, I stood beside you.
When customs changed and the shipments were turned upside down, I stood beside you.
But the second you saw an opportunity for power and greed, you stabbed me in the back. ”
“I was wrong, and it won’t happen again.”
“Trust is broken now, Luigi. There’s no going back after this.”
“That’s—that’s not true—”
“But from one father to another, I’ll grant you one mercy.
Your son has chosen a quiet life raising a family by the sea, to tend to his land like a man—and I respect that.
I’ll let him go. But it’s a very different outcome for the rest of you—except for those who bend the knee and choose to work for me. ”
In just a few seconds, every man in that room was on his knees.
“Good choice,” he said. “Except for the three of you.” He looked at Luigi and his closest cronies, the ones he’d conferred with, the ones he’d probably planned all of this with. “Wolfe, take care of this.”
I moved forward and grinned from ear to ear.
“Happy to, boss.” I gripped my knife and went first for Luigi, who tried to crawl away like a scared puppy.
“Who’s the dog now, huh?” I stabbed him in the back, right through the spine, and watched him crumple to the floor.
Then I moved for the next one, who got up and ran for the door.
I laughed uproariously as I dashed after him. “Ooh, I feel like a kid on the playground.” I punched him in the back of the head so hard he hit the floor and slid into the wall, and then an audible crack sounded from his neck.
The last guy ran for the stairs at the back of the warehouse, an escape route that was a little smarter.
I had a bullet in my pocket, so I grabbed the nearest corresponding pistol on the floor, loaded it, and then shot him just before he reached the second floor.
Hit him right in the head, and he rolled back down the stairs until he landed on the pavement at the bottom.
“Damn, I hate this part,” I said as I tossed the gun on the table. “When the fun’s over.”