Chapter 10
Leo
I start the car toward Brighton Beach, placing a call in at the same time.
“Sasha Yvanovich,” I greet when the call lands. “How are you, my friend?”
“Good, good, Leo. How’s the family?”
We exchange pleasantries for a moment. Alexander ‘Sasha’ Volkov, son of Bratva boss Yvan Volkov, has his hand in all the pies his father deals in. Strip clubs, brothels, gambling dens—he has his pulse on his family’s entire operation as well as all the Eastern European mob’s on the Northeastern coast.
“Say, my friend, you wouldn’t happen to have Ardian Abrashi at one of your tables tonight, would you?”
I feel the insane urge to spit and wash my mouth out after saying the name, but I have to sound carefree and unaffected so Sasha won’t figure out my ulterior motives.
“What do you want with him?” The voice has gone a tad colder.
“Sasha, Mattia Bonucci here,” Mattia pipes up.
Sasha laughs. “Mattia, my man. How epic was the bachelor party I provided for you, eh? How’s the wife? My respects to Gospozha Bonucci.”
Mattia laughs, too, though I can see the strain on his face. “Thank you, my friend. Ardian’s engaged to my sister, as you must know. Leo and I were hoping we could swing him for a guy’s night out, you know.”
“Ah, it’s a surprise, then.”
“Yes,” Mattia confirms.
“Sure, sure.” Sasha rattles off the address for one of their clandestine casinos.
I thank him and cut the call. We make the trip in silence, alight from a side street, and use the password Sasha gave us to gain entry.
The place is packed, but it’s not hard to spot Abrashi with his back to us, seated at a blackjack table.
We amble up to him. Mattia grabs his collar and pushes him into the chair.
“Ardian, my man,” he hollers, as if all’s right between us and him. He’s slurring a bit on purpose, too. “Got a surprise for you tonight.”
I nod at the croupier. “Whatever his stake, I’ll cover it.”
Everyone knows who I am, the heir to Don Eduardo Pellegrini, and that I’m good for my word.
Mattia hauls Abrashi out of his seat. “Come on. Let’s party!”
Abrashi is surprisingly silent all the way to the car. Mattia slides with him into the back seat as I settle behind the wheel. He must’ve snuck a bottle of vodka from the bar at the den because I don’t keep liquor in my car. He opens it, a little sloshing on my seats. I wince. He’ll pay for the cleaning, but we have bigger fish to fry at the moment.
I have a plan in mind, and for this, I drive us to one of my restaurants, in Hell’s Kitchen. It’s always good to have a front, and I’m a man who likes his food and doesn’t hide it. So what better way to build my operations around a string of eateries all over New York? I find struggling but brilliant chefs, offer to finance their own place, and in return, they give me their loyalty and turn a blind eye when I need them to.
Vince’s, where I asked Bianca to meet me, is one such place. My hands clench on the steering wheel when I recall that encounter. The feel of her in my arms, pressed to my body as I pushed her against the wall, my finger delving into her hot, wet pussy, the taste of her…
I inhale sharply and snap out of my thoughts. I can’t lose the plot right now. If I think of Bianca too hard, that’s exactly what will happen.
I reach the restaurant, conveniently closed for renovations. There are no cameras around, and no one is crazy enough to try and attack my place. I pay the gang leaders in the area enough money for them to steer clear of my piece of their territory.
“Wha-what’s going on?” Abrashi asks as Mattia and I get out, and I haul him out of the car.
“You’ll get your chance to speak,” I tell him, pushing him inside the kitchens.
Mattia finds a chair; I plonk my charge onto it.
“Where’s Bianca?” Mattia asks.
Fuck! Too soon. Doesn’t the cazzo know anything about interrogation techniques?
His eyes are wild, though, and I give him another minute before he starts frothing at the mouth with anger and frustration. Of course he’s losing it. It’s his sister we’re talking about here—he was supposed to protect her. Instead, he all but shoved her into a famished and fucked-up lion’s den, completely defenseless.
I place a hand on my best friend’s shoulder. “Let me handle this, okay?”
He nods, turning his back to us, cursing in a string of Italian and English.
Fuck. He’s totally showing our hand here. I’m losing all the leverage I could bring with every second that passes.
Might as well just get on with it.
“You heard him,” I state. “Where’s Bianca?”
Abrashi has the balls to smile. “I hear my dear fiancée has gone missing.”
“She hasn’t. Because you have her.”
He shrugs. “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.”
“Stop playing games!” Mattia yells, stalking back to us.
I stop him with an arm braced on his chest.
Abrashi laughs, knowing he’s got us by the balls.
I wonder if he knows how much we know about him. I’d already decided I wouldn’t lay a fist on him tonight—it would hurt my plan if I had to go all the way. The monster in my blood was told to take a backseat by the cold, calculating one in my head. So I need to change tact, hit him where it really hurt using only my words.
I look at Mattia. We exchange a glance, and I know he’ll follow me into the bowels of Hell to get Bianca back.
“Tell me, Mattia. What do you think she’ll be like?”
He picks up my cue. We can’t use Abrashi’s pregnant girlfriend to get him to talk, but we can use the idea of her.
“That curvy little blonde? Nice piece of ass on her.”
“Right,” I concur. “What’s her name? Though I don’t think my men are gonna bother knowing her name to double fuck that tight cunt of hers.”
“Yeah, some of those shitheads are turned on by a pregnant woman.” He snaps his fingers. “Arlene. That’s—”
A mighty roar comes from Abrashi. He’s surged out of the chair and is coming at us.
I stop him with a slam of my hand against his throat. He falls to the ground, garbled sounds coming from him.
“If you touch her,” he mutters.
“Tell me where Bianca is, and I won’t.”
“My family will kill you.” He spits at my feet.
“Won’t matter if you’re dead first.”
Silence thrums for a long moment…then Abrashi is laughing.
Mattia’s on him like a possessed beast. He’s grabbed the Albanian’s thinning hair and is pounding his head into the tiled floor.
I stay his hand and shake my head when he finally glances at me. If he kills him, we won’t get any closer to finding Bianca.
Abrashi starts to laugh again. Fucker’s not going to give us anything. And the sound of his high-pitched laughter sounds like a hyena’s; it’s seriously getting on my nerves.
“Bitch’s not even worth it.”
“What did you say?” Mattia’s flying at him again. I pull him away.
“Kill me if you want. It’s not going to change a thing.”
I breathe in deep, thinking. “Ardian, you’re free to go if you tell us where Bianca is and we recover her safely. Think of Arlene, of your baby.”
“Assuming it’s his,” Mattia adds.
Pure rage lights up in Abrashi’s eyes.
“That bitch of Bianca is mine,” he spits at us. “You know why I’m a good accountant? It’s because I cover my tracks. I always do.”
Only the first part of his rant has registered in my mind, and I’m seeing red. Rage, anger, thirst for blood—his blood—is lighting mine on fire, like a lit lighter thrown onto a trail of gasoline. A trail that leads me right to him, making me crouch, grab him by the neck, pull his thrashing form all over the floor to get to the basement door.
He’s done something to Bianca, I just know it; he doesn’t deserve to live. He also doesn’t deserve to get a life with the woman he loves, build a family with her, welcome his child into this God-forsaken world.
Not when I might be denied all this, a future with Bianca, the woman I love, because of him.
He needs to die.
This, I’ll make sure of.
Adrenalin is coursing through me like a powerful drug fueled by wrath. It’s no hardship to pull his weakling form to standing in the gap of the open door. Pushing him down into the void is a piece of cake. He tumbles into the darkness, mouth open in a silent scream. At least I assume it’s silent, as I can only hear the roar of blood in my ears.
He lands with a thud on the cellar floor.
Still, I’m going to make assurance double-sure. I take the stairs down, crouch by his prone body, see the twitch still there at the corner of his lips.
Staring into his eyes that are wide open with terror, I grab a fistful of his hair and lift his head, his torso.
“For Bianca,” I say softly, like a last sacrament.
With a deft flick of my wrist, I flip his head forward then back, welcoming the sickening crunch of his neck breaking. The fracture will be consistent with a fall—I’ll have my men place his body at the foot of some stairs, make it look like he fell while inebriated.
I send a text to one of my family’s capos then climb back up, where Mattia has been watching the show. The capo will get his crew to handle this. At least this way, this dead fucker here won’t ever get to hurt her again. When she’s found, I’ll make sure this alliance is broken, come what may.
“We need to find your sister,” I say as I brush past. “And Mattia? When we find her, she’s marrying me.”
All this madness has to stop. Now.
No one has protected Bianca so far, and I’m going to take on that role.
I’ll scorch the Earth fighting for the woman I love. Bianca Bonucci is mine. Let anyone try to defy me and they’ll see how far I’ll go. Even war. I’m not afraid.
Try me, fucking Albanians.