Chapter 9 Constantine
Constantine
Rocco and I entered the villa, a handful of guys with us, while the rest remained outside and at the Temple, ready to be deployed when we were ready. Luca had texted me the address where his men were holding Vladimir. All I had to do was pick him up, like a kid at day care.
“He asked for nothing in exchange?” Rocco asked as we stepped through the double doors into the entryway.
“No.”
“You sure about that?”
“I told him a symbiotic relationship would be mutually beneficial. Can’t do everything alone.”
“He seems like the kind of guy that only does things alone.”
We approached the next set of doors and came across Vladimir tied and bound to a wooden chair, his face already beaten badly because he’d tried to run—or Luca just didn’t like him.
A dozen of Luca’s men were there, all carrying automatic weapons in case someone in Vladimir’s camp knew where to find him. “Thanks, boys,” I said. “We can take it from here.”
One guy walked up to me and snapped a photo. “Handoff complete.” Like a food delivery driver, he took a receipt to send to Luca in case shit went south and I tried to blame it on him. They all left, and then it was just the three of us.
I pulled up a chair and sat across from Vladimir.
He focused on the floor, too afraid to look at me . . . or stupid enough to ignore me.
“You know how this goes, Vladimir. And I’ve got a lot of shit to do, and I’d rather make this quick. So how do you want to handle it? Do I need to torture you to tears before I get my answer, or will you just roll now?”
His eyes stayed down, but he started to tremble. It probably wasn’t a conscious decision, but an uncontrollable twitch of all his nerve endings. He might even shit himself, he looked so pale.
“Keep in mind that one of your potential victims is my woman—and I’m getting justice for that.”
Rocco opened the briefcase he’d brought with all the gadgets inside, the jelly infused with gasoline so it’d stick to his face before we lit it on fire, the pliers and screwdrivers, bamboo shoots for the fingernails, the hammer that would slam down on his ball sack.
“By cutting off your dick.”
“I’m—I’m not going to talk.”
“Oh, you aren’t?” Rocco said. “Good, you just made my day.” He grabbed a hammer and spun it in the air before he caught it again.
“Yeah, Rocco loves this shit. Learned a lot of good stuff during his time at MI6.”
“You—you won’t hurt my family. So . . . you can’t make me talk.”
It was a leverage I would never have, leverage that would make all these transactions go quicker. But I’d never stoop to that level, no matter the stakes, because I was better than them. “Rocco, I’m going to handle this one.”
“Aww, come on,” he said. “I brought all my good shit.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “I’ll let you play with him when I’m done. Cut off his pants and give me the jelly. I’m gonna burn his sack off first.”
I stepped into the other room and made the call. “I got him to talk. Send everyone to the address I’m about to text. Meet you there.”
I headed back into the room and found Vladimir pantsless and slouched over in the chair, his face stained with tears. “Gonna head over and raid the place,” I said to Rocco. “Meet me at the Pantheon when you’re done.”
“Oh, it’s gonna be a while.” He grabbed a golf club that leaned against the wall and spun it around his wrist.
“I—I told you what you wanted to know,” Vladimir said breathlessly.
“And thank you for that,” I said. “But you touched my woman, so the fun’s not over.”
“I told you everything!”
I ignored him and looked at Rocco. “Make it good, all right? Because it should be me . . . but duty calls.”
“I’ll cut off his dick before it’s over, don’t worry.”
“I told you what you wanted to know!”
“Thanks,” I said. “See you over there.”
We raided the facility, but there was no one to save.
The victims were already corpses, and most of the dead had been cremated, so there were no remains to return to the families.
We rounded up every asshole in that place, all fifty of them.
About a dozen of them were security, and some were nurses and doctors who performed the operations, while the rest were other staff who did everything else.
We gathered all of them together, and a handful of them were women. A couple of them doctors.
“Put everyone in the van except the girls.”
The guys were dragged away and put into the vans parked outside. The girls were left in a group in the center.
I didn’t kill women, regardless of their crime. It felt like a contradiction to my principles, and it was blood I didn’t want on my hands. I fully admitted it was sexist, because women could be just as evil as men, but I didn’t have it in me.
But that didn’t mean I let them go. “Let the police know they’re here.
Let’s head out.” They were all handcuffed around the wrists and the ankles, stuck on the floor.
A few of my men stayed behind just to make sure there was no one we’d missed in the building who could let the prisoners go. “Enjoy your life sentences, ladies.”
We blocked off the different streets that led to the plaza outside the Pantheon. Spectators were welcome to watch, but they just couldn’t get close in case someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Forty or so men were dropped onto the cobblestone outside the ancient building with pillars made of Egyptian stone. Once they were accounted for, we pulled out the pulley systems and prepared the executions.
Bound by their hands and feet, all they could do was lie there and wet themselves, cry, or try to console one another.
I stood and watched, watched my men work to prepare forty-two nooses.
My phone rang, and I checked the name to make sure it wasn’t important—or it wasn’t Aurelia.
It was President Barsetti.
He already knew.
I took the call and didn’t speak.
“Are you out of your fucking mind, Constantine?”
“Why do you think I got the job?”
“There are people watching.”
“Good. Let the enemies of Rome see what happens when you violate the Roman Republic.”
“Constantine—”
“With all due respect, this is not your jurisdiction, Crow. It’s mine.
This is how I run my city. This is how I make the rats run back into the sewers.
This is how I protect my people. You may not like my tactics, but I’m the reason tourists continue to come, why people walk the streets at two in the morning—because they know I keep those streets safe.
The only thing I should be hearing from you is fucking thank you. ” I hung up the phone.
Rocco came to my side. “Barsetti?”
“Yeah.”
“He’ll get over it.”
“Vladimir?”
“Bled out. Wrapped him up and threw him in a dumpster.”
“Good.”
The men started to grab the assholes and tighten the nooses around their necks. Some of them tried to fight, but all they could do was wriggle like a slug. Most of them begged for their lives, asked for mercy.
I felt nothing.
“Anyone else?” he asked.
“A couple girls. Let the police handle them.”
He nodded in agreement.
All forty-two of them were hoisted up, and they started to choke the second their feet left the ground. Kicking and swaying, pointlessly trying to survive when there was no way to do so.
I stared at them all—like Christmas ornaments hanging on the tree.
Most of them were dead within a minute or less, but some of them lasted longer, turning blue in the face and swinging hard in the hope the rope would snap. Then it was down to one guy . . . like a fucking cockroach.
I took a breath, growing bored as it continued.
Rocco crossed his arms over his chest. “He’s really going for it, huh?”
I walked forward, pulled my gun out of the back of my jeans, and aimed at the spot between his eyes, making sure not to miss and damage the stone of the Pantheon. I pulled the trigger, hit my mark, and then he was dead.
I turned to the fountain, all of the people who were brave enough to watch from behind the barricades we’d put up.
“Touch my people and provoke my wrath. Hurt my city and provoke my rage. Attack the Roman Empire and your body will hang from the Pantheon to be feasted upon by crows.” I stepped away from the crowd of people and gave an order to one of my men.
“Leave them up until their bodies start to rot.”