20. Dominic
20
DOMINIC
Boris and Boris glance at each other through the bars of their respective cells. There’s nothing for them to gain by being silent. This might not have clocked yet, but at some point, it will.
“We came for him,” the one Boris says, his English laced with just a smidgen of an accent.
I glance at Luca. “Why him?”
“He took the Trapani woman and four of our men who are still missing since that Friday night. We were supposed to take only the woman and make sure she got on a private jet to Italy with her brother Vincenzo. That was the deal with Franco Fiore.”
Good flow. I nod in understanding. “And what’s this guy’s name?”
We need to establish exactly how much they know about the Scaleras and our operations before they can’t talk anymore. I feel somewhat flayed open as if someone is dissecting Il Consiglio from behind a screen. There’s a bigger force behind all this, and we need to figure out who it is. Good thing we’ve gone Code Red on security.
“He’s Steph Scalera.”
“And what else can you tell us about Steph here?” I say as I reach out for Luca’s shoulder and give him a squeeze. Boris and Boris have no clue there’s an identical twin in the mix. They clearly didn’t do their homework and rushed the job. Imagine calling Stephano Steph as if they’re fucking family. Now that ticks me off. Fuckwits.
“He is part of Il Consiglio .”
“And? What do you know about his family?”
“He has brothers. We’re not sure how many. One got shot years ago.”
“I see.” They haven’t identified me as one of those brothers yet. “And what do you know about Il Consiglio ?”
“It’s the gang that rules the ports this side of the East Coast.”
Gang . I don’t really care for the word. We’re an organization . An operation or a family-run business.
But it’s true. The ports of Boston, Providence, and New Haven are all our territories. Uncontested for decades. Fuck it. The Don is dead, and we might have signaled it’s business as usual to the capos of Il Consiglio , but outsiders who would want our turf have no need to play nice.
Until they land in here. I suppress a sigh. This better not be the rekindling of a turf war the Don won with blood and brutal force decades ago.
One positive, though: Boris and Boris haven’t earmarked the Scaleras as the kings of Il Consiglio. To these dumbasses, we’re just worker bees. Good.
“Maybe. I’m not sure how this is any of Franco Fiore’s business as he has his own operations going in Italy.”
“Where is Vincenzo? And the woman?” the other Boris asks. He’s been quiet, allowing the one with his mouth on the run to keep talking. “We want them. We go. Leave you alone.”
His English is more forced, his accent heavier, his vocabulary clearly limited. This one is very fresh.
I bet their heads were bagged when whoever transported them brought them here. These guys have no clue where they are. They weren’t in the loop with Franco’s arrival and that he came to sort shit out himself. He also noticed they were incompetent and underperforming. This explains why no Ukrainians were at our little shootout at the warehouse. They were still trying to get the original job done. Yep, fuckwits.
“Only we get to ask the questions here, Boris and Boris,” Luca tells them, and both men shift uncomfortably on their feet, setting loose a ripple of clanging metal.
Right. If they’re clueless about Franco’s movements, these two won’t know anything about Ariana Morelli’s arrival either. Their value just halved.
“Okay, so you’re here to take the lady in question, with her brother Vincenzo, and get them shipped back to Italy. How did Franco Fiore pay you for these services?”
“Bitcoin.”
I exchange a glance with Luca. Nice. “How much?”
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
We both quirk our brows as we glance at each other and then back at our prisoners. Somebody got seriously lowballed. Or?—
“Slim pickings for such a high-profile job, don’t you think?” I say, knowing what we know of Gigi Trapani and her family’s millions. Fifty-thousand dollars is an insult.
“Very slim,” Luca says. “Fuck it, I don’t get out of bed for less than sixty K a day.”
I smirk, leaning back in my chair. “You for real?”
“Lie in bed every morning and track the numbers and only get up once I’ve clocked sixty.”
He’s probably joking, but who the fuck cares. “You’re a little shit, you know that?”
Luca shrugs. “What can I say, having made money motivates me to make more money. Come on, Nicky. We all need some motivation to get out of bed in the mornings.”
Between him and Benedict, they have some contest going on in which I have zero interest. Money is handy, and it makes life easy, but fuck knows, I get out of bed because if I don’t, shit will fly and hit bull’s eye.
“There must be more to this deal you’re not telling us about,” I say as I stand. Time for some real talk. I walk over to the unit by the wall and open the lock with my thumbprint. With a deep but suppressed sigh, I switch on the system and take out the two PlayStation-type controllers. I have my back to the men, and they’d have no clue what’s coming.
As I stroll back, I toss Luca one of the controllers. He has his poker face on, but I can almost see that burrito squirm in his stomach. Yep, this isn’t Luca’s territory. I should tell my younger brother to leave, but fuck it, we’re only getting to the real good-cop, bad-cop part now, and I’m going to need him.
“Gentle with the controls,” I say as I sit down again. “They’re sensitive.”
“Okay. So, what’re we playing?”
“Hangman.”
“Fuck. So just imagine we’re playing Call of Duty ?”
“If that works for you.” I test my controller’s buttons, and the Boris in front of me catches on that his arms are being lifted on both sides, reeled away from his body.
“How did you do that?” Luca asks as he leans in to check what I’m doing with my controls.
“Up, down, left, right. This button for arms, this one for legs, and this little fucker for the head,” I say as I play around to demonstrate.
“Okay, jeez, the Don was a committed old nutcase, wasn’t he just.”
“You can say that again.”
Protests come from both Borises now as we are tightening their arms and legs to the side.
“Damn, it’s effective. An oiled machine,” Luca says. “So neat. And clean. Not like yesterday’s shitshow of a party.”
With both men stretched out as stars, their arms and legs straining, barely balancing on their tippy toes, but with their necks still fine, I lean forward.
“What else did Franco Fiore offer you over and above the measly fifty K to get a shitty job done?”
Splitting that six ways doesn’t offer each man much, not for the bloody risk they were taking with their lives. But they weren’t aware of this when they stepped onto our turf, were they?
When neither man answers, I sigh. “Who do you lot work for when you’re not fucking around with the big boys, hmm?”
“We work for ourselves,” the fluent Boris chokes out.
“I don’t buy that,” Luca says as he stretches the fluent man’s arms a tad too much and he screams in pain.
“Do you talk, or do we torture you until you do? This can take the whole fucking day, or we can be quick about it,” I add, not really wanting to spend my afternoon listening to their torment. A gag would be nice, but counterproductive.
Silence stretches until Luca’s Boris starts to whine.
“Don’t you want to help your friend out, here?” I suggest to my Boris, playing the good cop. “Tell me what I need to know, and his suffering stops.”
“We work for us,” the man grunts.
Very helpful. “And who is your leader?”
The two Borises exchange glances and turn quiet again. For fuck’s sakes. I up the ante on my own controls, stretching my Boris to his full capacity. Then I go for the neck. Soon, he is on his toes, barely able to breathe. He wrestles in desperate breaths as his face turns blue. I release the tension a bit, and he sags, dragging in air like a starving man.
“Are you in bed with the Bratva?”
That’s the obvious choice here. And since they raised the question about our ports and who rules which territory, I’ve been drawing lines between the dots to get the picture. I don’t like what I see taking shape here. We rule the main ports north on the East Coast—everything south is Bratva. Once you hit the Carolinas, it gets messy and contested, a bloody situation we’ve avoided by having agreements in place with our neighbor in New York and New Jersey.
“Give a bit there,” I tell Luca. His Boris is bleeding in the armpits and is gasping in pain. “The idea is to hang them, not to quarter them.”
“Oh, fuck it, sorry.”
“The butcher might be pleased, though. Less work for him.”
Luca shoots me a glance. “Fuck, you’re a cold motherfucker, brother.”
I don’t bother to respond but watch how Luca alleviates the tension. The man starts crying, literally sobbing, and it makes me rub at my forehead with a thumb knuckle. Shit needs to get done already.
“Franco promised to help us take over the ports. First New Haven, and then Providence. Finally Boston. With money he would’ve gotten from the woman. Vincenzo’s sister.”
Fuck. I knew it. As soon as Matteo steered the Don into the afterlife, the hyenas started prowling, coming for the fucking carcass. Well, we’re still fighting fit and not letting go for a long while. There isn’t a single weak link in Il Consiglio’s top tier. There’s nothing to have here.
My Boris glares at the talkative Boris, and I bet if he could cut his throat right there and then, he would have. The man just overshared.
“Do you have anything to add, Boris?” I ask my man, and he turns to look at me, his one eye twitching in the corner as if he’s about to pop a vein.
He spews at me in Ukrainian, but it could be Russian for all I know. Not that it matters, because we’re done. With a final pressing of the neck button and the up button in unison, the man gets jerked up so fast, he hangs, swaying. I lower his arms and legs so he’s suffocating from his own bodyweight.
I sigh. I don’t care to watch this shit.
“Anything else you think we need to know?” I ask the other Boris. My Boris’s feet flay and his arms sway as his hands try to reach for the choke at his neck in an attempt to save himself.
Fluent Boris just stares at me as we listen at each ragged breath that becomes more and more strained. Then it grows eerily quiet in the room.
One Boris down. One to go.
“Well done and good luck to you,” Boris grunts from where he’s grappling for breath. “Boryslav didn’t deserve that. To think he only came to America four months ago. And—” He breaks off to breathe. “You just killed Igor Petrov’s long-lost nephew.”
A beat of silence tears through the room as Luca freezes on the spot, his eyebrows shooting to his hairline.
Fuck.