Wolfe
“Alright, who’s next?” I tossed the bloody knife into the air and caught it again.
The last three remaining guys stood there with their hands bound behind their backs.
After seeing what I’d done to their comrades, every single one of them had pissed themselves—and based on the stench, I was pretty sure one of them had shit himself too.
“No volunteers?” I asked as I sauntered over. “Really?”
There was a pile of bodies beneath the oak trees, along with all the innards that I’d cut out of them. Intestines and stomachs and livers everywhere, along with so much blood that the ground would be stained for years.
“No one wants to jump at this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?” I asked with a maniacal laugh. “You jumped at the chance to come for Don Mancini and tried to take his daughter, didn’t you?” I spun the knife in the air and caught it again without looking at it. “Didn’t you?”
One of them trembled so hard he fell to his knees.
“This one, Salvatore.” I nodded to the tree. “Tie him up.”
Salvatore grabbed the man and dragged him to the long branch with the pulley system in place.
“Please… I’m sorry… Just let me go—”
I started to mock him like the bitch baby that he was.
“I’m soooo sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please, please, please.
Wah-wah-wah.” I stared at him as the rope was tied around his neck.
“You would have been the first to drop your pants and rape Don Mancini’s daughter if she had been captured.
So I’m going to cut off your balls and dick first.”
“No—”
“Pull him up.”
Salvatore yanked the rope and forced the man into the air by the throat. He immediately started to gag when his air supply was cut off.
I stabbed my knife right into his belly and then dragged it down, cutting through his stomach and his pants and down to his penis. Then I cut off his pathetic dick at the stump and watched it drop at my feet.
He couldn’t scream, only strain against the rope as his guts and blood started to pour out.
I cut and sliced, making a trail of his long intestines hang from his body down to the ground. Then I stood back and admired my work, watching the color drain from his face as he started to fade away. “Wah-wah-wah.” I raised my voice and screamed. “Wah-wah-wah!”
I knew Francesca had gone home to shower and recover, and while she didn’t text or call, I knew she wanted me there with her. I understood that I was the only person in the world who could make her feel safe again.
And there was nowhere else I wanted to be, except for one.
I had to kill Umberto Lombardi—and I had to do it now.
I wouldn’t be able to sleep or eat or breathe until it was done. Until that motherfucker was ripped into so many pieces, no one could piece him back together.
Don Mancini came to my side underneath the mighty oak on the property, the heavy clouds overhead about to pour down rain and wash all this violence away. The sun had set, and soon it would be dark.
He didn’t blink as he stared at the carnage that would make any man vomit in the dirt.
I respected him for that.
Most of his men had avoided this area like they couldn’t stomach it.
“I’m going after Umberto.”
“Now?” he asked, turning from the pile of dead bodies to look at me.
“Now.”
“It’s been a heavy day. We can regroup tomorrow—”
“He’s going to run.”
“Let me talk to some people.”
“His spy has already told him what’s happened here.
Trust me, he’s going to run—if he hasn’t already.
Probably getting his affairs in order and having his wife pack her shit.
I’m not letting him or his men get away.
” I turned to look at him directly. “Help me. Don’t help me.
I don’t give a shit.” I stepped away from the mess I’d made and headed for my car in the parking lot.
“Wolfe.”
I stopped and turned to look at him again.
“This is personal to you.”
Damn personal. I almost told him the truth right then and there because I didn’t give a fuck. The only reason I didn’t was because Francesca didn’t want that, and she’d already been through enough. “Every member of this family is personal to me.” I turned away again.
“Let me round up the guys, and we’ll go.”
I turned back to him once more.
“Give me fifteen minutes.” He walked past me toward the house, and when he drew near, he clapped me on the shoulder and continued to walk.
I waited until he was back at the house before I pulled out my phone and called Francesca.
She answered right away, like she’d been waiting for this call. “Tell me you’re on your way.”
It was hard to deny her, to hear the desperation in her beautiful voice.
The silence continued.
Then she released a heavy sigh filled with disappointment.
“I have to finish this.”
“Tomorrow—”
“Now.”
She didn’t argue with me.
“I can’t stop, Francesca. I can’t stop until every single motherfucker behind this is bones and ash.
Nobody—and I mean fucking nobody—touches my woman and gets away with it.
” She didn’t have a clue how much I wanted to go home to her.
To kiss away her tears and let her cry in my arms. To be the shelter and protection her broken heart needed right now.
But my blood lust was insatiable. Hanging all those assholes from the tree and hacking them to pieces wasn’t enough.
Luigi Lombardi crossed us—and his brother tried to finish the job.
Well, he failed.
Now he had to deal with me.
I was so proud of the way she’d survived, of the way she’d stood her ground while the bodies of her enemies filled the room around her. The way she’d blasted them with bullets and cut them with her knife.
I was so fucking proud.
Seeing her standing there as the victor coated in the blood of the men she’d blown to pieces… I’d never wanted to fuck her more.
But what I wanted more was revenge.
I wanted it raw and bloody and violent.
And I would laugh while I took it from Umberto’s dying hands.
“I’ll let you know when I’m on my way home.”
“Wolfe.”
I wanted to call her baby, but I was still angry right now.
“You promised me…”
And now she just made me angrier, reminding me of a promise I would give anything to revoke.
“You promised me you wouldn’t hurt a woman or a child, and I know Umberto has a family.”
I stared at the house and saw Leo come out with some of the other guys, all carrying guns and ammunition for the hit we were about to do. Inside, I was seething, pissed off that Francesca put these fucking restraints on me.
“Wolfe,” she said gently. “Please.”
“You know what they were going to do to you?”
She said nothing.
“Because I do.” I didn’t torture them for information. They just told me everything they knew in the hope they would be spared from the carnage.
“I don’t care.”
“I fucking care—”
“It didn’t happen, and his wife and daughter had nothing to do with it.
” She raised her voice, showing the mob side of her that came out when she didn’t mean to try.
“You made me this promise, and you’re going to keep it, Wolfe.
This has been a really shitty fucking day, so do what you need to do and then come home to me.
I don’t need revenge—I need you. I need you to come home to me and put me back together.
And the longer we talk about this, the longer I have to wait for you to walk through that door. So just do what I asked.”
I called in my favors to find Umberto.
A lot of people owed me debts, so I went down the list until someone could give me what I needed.
I leaned against the car with the phone in my hand, the call on speaker.
“He already sent his family to the Catania airport. They’re flying to London and then New York. And he and the others are headed to Vincenzo Airport outside Palermo.”
They split up so I had to choose my revenge.
Did I kill his wife the way he tried to kill mine?
Or did I go straight for his throat?
He could thank Francesca for my decision. “Where is he now?”
“Already on the way. Probably be there in forty-five minutes.”
I couldn’t make it in time. “Where’s he going?”
“Rome.”
I hung up.
Leo listened to all of that with a cigar in his mouth. “We’ll never make it.”
I held up my hand and made another call. It rang a couple times before one of my guys picked up. “I need you to ground all flights for the next three hours.”
He hesitated over the line, knowing that was a big fucking ask.
“I told you one day I would come calling,” I said. “And what were my terms?”
He didn’t say anything.
“No questions asked.”
He sighed over the line. “Three hours is all I can give you.”
“That’s all I need.” I hung up. “Let’s head out.”
Leo let the cigar sit between his parted lips as he stared at me incredulously. “How the fuck did you do that?”
“Get in the car.” I walked around the front to the driver’s seat of my Range Rover.
He opened the passenger door and got into the car beside me. “You really do know everybody.”
The rest of the guys got in the SUVs, and we headed out, making the two-hour drive to the airport.
Umberto wouldn’t suspect that I was behind the emergency at the airport, and Catania was on the opposite side of the island, so he wouldn’t risk driving there.
He would keep waiting for clearance and bitching at the airport workers—who would have no information to give him.
It was a long drive, so Leo fell asleep against the window, as did Andre in the back. I was wide awake, not because I was behind the wheel, but because I was still furious. I wasn’t sure how Leo could just tap out like that after what had happened to his sister.
The airport eventually came into view, and we parked right in the front, all of our cars visible from the windows of the airport if anyone looked.
It wouldn’t take long for Umberto and his men to realize they had company.
They would have smuggled their weapons onto the jet and already had their cache stashed inside the plane, but they probably weren’t armed in the airport.
So this would be quick.
I tucked the gun into the back of my jeans and pulled my knife out of the sheath. With it gripped in my hand, I walked in the lead, while Leo and the others were armed to the teeth with automatic rifles.
We entered the airport, and everyone in the ticketing area ducked behind the counters. People in line for security immediately screamed and ran for the exits or the restrooms because they were closer.
I stopped underneath one of the screens, seeing that all the planes were grounded, but their gates were still assigned. “Gate eight.” I headed in the right direction, walked through security. The guards didn’t try to stop us but ducked down and grabbed their radios to call the police.
Who wouldn’t do a damn thing about it.
I ignored everyone and walked straight ahead, paying no attention to the people who continued to scream and run. The airport wouldn’t normally be this busy at this hour, but since all the flights were delayed, it was packed with exhausted and pissed-off travelers.
Every gate we reached caused panic, with people screaming and running. Sometimes it was dead silent, like people were too scared to make a noise. By the time we reached gate twelve, which was the last one, people had cleared out.
Umberto sat in one of the rows of black leather chairs, wearing an open dark brown coat and a black bowler hat with an enormous gold cross hanging from a chain around his throat.
His head was tilted down in a form of pathetic surrender.
No one else was there, probably because his men had abandoned him the second they saw people run for the exits.
Probably knew the big bad wolf was on the way.
I stopped in front of him, several feet away, and watched him avoid me like a boy who had been caught sticking his hand in the cookie jar. “On your feet.”
He remained seated and slightly hunched forward.
I grabbed him by the back of the jacket and threw him on the floor. “On your feet.”
He hit the floor with a slight wince but stayed down.
I kicked him so hard he flipped over.
Leo and the rest of the guys stood there, watching the pathetic scene.
I spat on his coat. “Figgh’i buttana…” Then I kicked him again, sent him rolling onto his other side.
He heaved on the floor because I’d probably broken a rib or two. Then he slowly, pathetically, pushed himself to his feet.
“Take him.”
Leo and the others moved forward to grab him.
He didn’t put up a fight at all. “Luigi deserved better—”
“He was an idiot for thinking he could cross Don Mancini. Now the entire Lombardi line is gone. Well…almost. I still have to have some fun with your wife before I throw her into the ditch.”
He’d been apathetic up until that point, but the second I mentioned his family, he went pale in the face. His bottom lip trembled in horror, but he didn’t say a word, probably not wanting to give anything away just in case it was a bluff.
“Our men grabbed her and your daughter at the Catania airport.”
The white of his face shifted to a sicklier color. His eyes drifted away as the horror sank into his bones.
“Tell me, does she like it in the ass?”
“Mercy,” he pleaded. “I’m the one who did this, not her.”
“Francesca Mancini had nothing to do with your brother’s affairs, but you plotted to take her and let your men stick their dicks anywhere they would fit.” I stepped toward him. “Those were your orders—word for word.”
He tried to get out of Leo and Andre’s grasp, but he was decades older and helpless. “Just…please…”
“Your wife will be a come dumpster until she finally offs herself. Now, let’s go.” I turned away.
He burst into tears behind me and sobbed. “No! Mercy! Mercy!”
I grinned as I walked off.
I executed him the way I did with the others, hung him from a tree and cut his insides out. Let everything drip out onto the ground and curse the roots of the branch that held him. I used the high beams of the cars for light.
We were near one of the main roads, so when the sun came up, cars would drive by and see his mutilated body. It would make headlines in the news—and everyone would know not to fuck with Francesca Mancini.
I grabbed the wet towel that Leo handed to me and wiped my hands clean before I took care of my knife.
“Did you really grab his wife?”
“No.” I slipped the towel underneath my short nails, making sure to get every drop of that traitor’s blood off me.
“So, that was all a lie?”
“He believed it—and that’s all that matters.” I tossed the dirty towel on the ground. “Now let’s get home. I’m fucking tired.”