Preview of Bad Bishop
CHAPTER ONE
Tiernan
Pain.
It was one of my favorite delicacies.
I savored the hot lick of a sharp knife, the icy kiss of metal shackles, the explosive heat of bones crushing beneath knuckles. Really, there was nothing better than getting a little fucked up to remind me I was alive.
Apparently though, even I had my limits.
I found them in the basement of the Ferrante crime family. Zip-tied onto a wooden chair that reeked of shit, piss, and dried blood. My face was swollen from being beaten to a pulp for the last forty minutes.
The first twenty were enjoyable enough. Fuck, I even got a little stiffy when Achilles took out the brass knuckles. Now, however, I’d overindulged. This was overkill, even for a pain connoisseur like me.
The actual violence wasn’t the problem; death was always an option in my line of work.
I just hadn’t realized the cause of mine would be boredom.
I was half tempted to finish their job and slit my own throat.
It was better than listening to them droning on about my little…what shall I call it? Art project.
“My, my.” Achilles drove his fist into my face, sending me careening across the floor. An inferno of blood exploded from my nostrils. “I see why the Rasputins call you Deathless. You refuse to fucking die.”
A metallic grunt skulked up my hollowed chest. I shifted my body so as not to crush my wrists under my weight, darting my tongue to catch the river of blood snaking along my cheek. “Maybe you’re just bad at killing people.”
A forceful blow found my ribs. This time it was Enzo Ferrante, the baby brother. Felt like he ruptured my liver. As if the poor organ didn’t have its hands full as it was. “Zip it before I skin you scrotum to face, Callaghan,” he warned, his voice cheery and cordial.
When were we getting to the good part? Time was money, and unlike the Ferrantes, I had to earn my keep every night.
Enzo spat on an open wound in my face, his saliva irritating my raw flesh.
In return, I spat a ball of phlegm and blood on his shoe.
“Christ, these Louboutins are hand sprayed by Banksy,” he muttered. “Have you no shame? And to think I send you Christmas cards every year.”
He did. Though I never opened the fucking letters.
The Ferrantes ruled ninety percent of New York. Personally, I wouldn’t put them in charge of an automatic door. I reigned over the remaining ten percent, and with a deadlier fist. I was the future. They were the past. And they knew it.
Some people collected stamps. Others coins. I collected my enemies’ craniums. It was an economical hobby, if not a little messy. It also sent an accurate message—I wasn’t someone you wanted to fuck with, over, or in general.
Consequently, there was a human skull discarded between us. My little weekend splurge. The skull belonged to Igor Rasputin, the head of the Bratva. Well, ex-head now, evidently. This was what got the Ferrantes’ panties in a wad.
“Mind Igor’s cranium,” I said dryly. “I plan to use it as a penholder.”
“Gonna be hard to pen letters without hands, Alexander Hamilton,” Luca tutted.
A flicker of irritation passed through my face. A rare flash of humanity. Luca noticed. He pressed on. “What’d you think was gonna happen when we called you here? You killed the West Coast’s pakhan in our territory.”
“And you’re welcome.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you took better care of said territory, he wouldn’t be coming here, fucking your whores, sampling your drugs, poaching your soldiers.”
Achilles moseyed over to me. His fingers fastened around my neck, his thumbs hiking my Adam’s apple up my throat.
Choking me to death on my own cartilage?
Creative. I despised all things mundane, and that included artless murder.
Achilles Ferrante was a cold-blooded monster. But hey, at least he wasn’t mediocre.
His brothers pulled him back before he cut off my air supply, slamming him against the wall. The three broke into an argument in Neapolitan, their lips moving a mile a minute.
Waiting for them to stop bickering, I examined my surroundings in boredom.
As far as torture chambers went, this one was adequate.
Stone walls bracketed the room. It was dark, cold, and packed with medieval torturing devices.
The iron maiden, the rack, the pear of anguish.
There was also a generic knife rack, a chainsaw, and a wall of artillery.
It was Disney World for psychopaths. And I wasn’t allowed to test any of the rides.
The door at the top of the steep stairway was padded with noise-canceling foam. No one was coming to save me.
Not that there was anything to save.
No soul.
No heart.
No conscience.
I was an animated corpse. Bones, muscles, flesh, and menace. Vengeance was my fuel, and it was enough to keep me moving, just about.
At last, Luca broke out of their human circle. He grabbed me by the collar and pulled me back into a sitting position. He popped a cigarette into my mouth, flicking his Zippo to torch the tip.
So we got into the good cop/bad cop portion of the night. Yay fucking me.
“You killed the head of Bratva,” he surmised, voice shredded by cigarettes. “We have good business with them. Drugs, weapons, recycling routes. You’re costing me money, Callaghan. And I like money. You know what I don’t like?”
“A clean pair of fucking lungs?” My gaze halted on the cigarette in his hand.
“People who stand in the way to my money. I always find creative ways to get rid of them.”
“Send me the bill,” I drawled.
“It’s not just monetary.” Luca kicked the pakhan’s skull sideways. “New York belongs to us. When you go around killing people in our zip code, it makes us look like we don’t have a grip on our own ground.”
“Where’s the lie?” My voice was distant and disinterested. “What the fuck was a Bratva boss doing deep in Camorra territory?”
“Family function,” Enzo ground out. “His nephew’s graduation. Igor asked for permission, which I personally granted. You made me look like an idiot.”
He didn’t need me to look like an idiot. He was doing a fine job by himself.
“I found him exiting your club,” I reminded him.
“It was a very emotional ceremony, okay?” Enzo said earnestly. “He took the nephew to have his first drink there. Adorable, if you ask me.”
“My beef with the Rasputins expands beyond geography and politics. I won’t stop until I kill the entire family.
” I spoke around the cigarette. I didn’t smoke.
Not very often, anyway. Here and there, and mostly weed.
I was far too committed to my other vices—violence and greed—to pick up a third one.
“And if they dare set foot in this city, I sure as fuck am going to take advantage.”
“Let’s hope your beef with them expands into the afterlife, too.” Achilles slapped my back, nearly making me cough out a lung. “Because next time you take liberties in Camorra territory, I’ll smoke your ass like a pork’s butt.”
“Considering they’ve been eyeing New York for years now, you’d be a fool to intervene.” Talking sense into the Ferrantes was the equivalent of fucking a roadkill into resurrection, but just like a wayward squirrel, something compelled me to try.
“New York’s ours,” Luca snarled.
“Is it?” I marveled. “I own the Bronx, and the Russians have been buying Manhattan land for years now. What you have with them isn’t business, it’s a hostile takeover.
” I spat out the cigarette. “You’ve been losing prestige for a solid decade.
Once you lose the Upper East Side, the empire falls.
It’s already decomposing. Why do you think your father hasn’t picked any of your sorry asses to replace him yet?
You reek of weakness.” I managed to keep my irritation out of my tone.
Just. “Give me a blank check to finish the Russians off.”
“You want us to think you have our best interests in mind?” Luca took a drag of his cigarette, wafting the smoke sideways. “After all this time?”
I’d known these fuckers since I was fourteen. They aged like a fine corpse.
“I’m killing them because of my own personal vendetta.” I cracked my neck. “Our interests happen to align, that’s all.”
“What business do you have with them?” Luca propped his winged boot on Igor’s skull.
A ticked jaw and a jaded stare were my official response.
“You’ll have to kill a shit ton of soldiers before you get to Alex Rasputin.” Enzo tapped his lips.
Igor’s son. Bratva’s second highest rank. The next pakhan.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
“That’s a big ass operation you got there.” Achilles scrubbed his knuckles over his cheekbone. “Even if we let you go on your deranged quest, you don’t have the manpower.”
“I could use a helping hand.” I arched a meaningful eyebrow.
“No way are we getting ourselves into a full-blown mafia war.” Luca shook his head. “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
“Fine. Stay out of my way, then.”
Achilles mulled my words over, the menacing glint in his eyes sharpening. “My problem with your proposition is twofold.”
I stared at him impassively, knowing another fucking TED talk was about to ensue. Goddamn Italians and their love for words.
Achilles didn’t disappoint.
“One, we’re the ones who’ll get the brunt of it when Alex gets fished out of the Hudson River,” he said.
That was an easy fix. I could kill him anywhere on the map. “And the second?”
Achilles pushed off the wall, stalking over to me and crouching down so our faces were an inch apart.
He was one gruesome motherfucker, with a face even a blind mother couldn’t love.
Rumor had it every inch of his flesh was scarred, burned, or both; every part of his body from the chin below was covered in elaborate ink.
“I still haven’t punished you for killing Filippo,” he rasped.
Not this shit again.
Ten months ago, I offed one of the Ferrante soldiers when I kidnapped a woman he was watching over. Pure collateral damage. Nothing personal.
“I already told you. I thought he was cannon fodder, not the family pet.”
“Would that have changed things?”