50. Luca
LUCA
Franco fucking Fiore. In-fucking-credible.
Proper dead by our hands, hunted by the Chertnikov Bratva.
It’s an unexpected windfall of knowledge, but how small is this world really? I bet if we dig deep enough, Randazzo’s name will float up like a bloated corpse in that poisoned lake.
This is information I can use to bait them with, lure them out and turn the tables.
Russians and Italians are coming together on the game board of organized crime.
I bet it all started with trafficking, drugs, and all the sordid shit we’ve been trying to extricate ourselves from.
No wonder it’s so hard to get fucking clean.
It’s like a pervasive addiction: once you’re in crime, you’re always in crime.
I’m going to have to play along while trying to figure out why they are looking for Franco Fiore. That fucker pissed off more than one powerful crime syndicate. I can’t waste time; I need to get us the fuck out of here as soon as possible.
“Tell me about your Italian,” I say, shifting in my seat. I clutch the armrest. Gauge the chair’s weight. I only need one hand free to make a move. “I have connections in America and Italy. Sicily. Family, you know? Italians love big families. Maybe I know him.”
My Russian smirks. “Porn star fucker know-it-all. You Mafia?”
“No. Do I look like Mafia?”
Thank fuck I stopped Stephano getting more tattoos.
Matteo and Dominic are practically walking advertisements for our trade without their shirts on.
Not that you’ll ever see Dominic with his shirt off anywhere but in the privacy of his bedroom, or the pool in a private indoor space.
For one, the man has an Uzi handgun right out of the “Terminator” movie tattooed on his side.
Probably a fantasy of pulling a real Uzi out and shooting the Don to smithereens while screaming hasta la vista, baby.
The thought makes me smile, which is a mistake.
The slap comes from the side, heavy against my cheekbone, and my head whips. Oof.
I shake my head to clear it.
The man leans over me, eye to eye, his hand tightening around my throat. “You fucking Mafia?” he hisses, spitting in my face.
Jesus. Hold it in, captain. I have so much to share if you just pace yourself.
With my blood flow and air cut off, heat builds in my face. My eyes feel like they’re swelling, ready to explode out of my sockets. Fuck. What a way to die.
He lets go.
I drag in several haggard breaths, ignoring the pounding pain where he squeezed my throat.
He straightens, still standing close, towering over me.
“Not much use to you if I’m dead,” I croak out, throat parched as I look up at him, defiant.
He grunts, walks away, and tosses the knife onto the table.
This situation mirrors many of the things Il Consiglio resorts to when necessary. It sucks being on the receiving end of this shit.
“Who you looking for?” I ask. “What’s his name?”
He reaches for the poker. This is going to get dark.
“You Mafia?” he asks again as he walks up to me, the red tip glowing. “The tattoo, in your blood. Is Mafia thing to say?”
He’s either going to stab me with it or just brand me. I’m not looking forward to either. I prepare my jaw. I will not freak Milana out by screaming like a pig being slaughtered.
“No. Why do you think I’m Mafia? Told you I’m into porn.”
“Yes-yes. Why Italian American in car with Russian Bratva princess? Here is Masha Baykova, ‘The Witch.’ Your girlfriend is Russian. They friends?”
Fuck. At least they haven’t figured out who Milana is yet. “I don’t know.”
He steps to the side, aligning himself at an angle with my body. “I think you do.”
No warning. The rod lands on my chest. Skin sizzles. Steams. Smokes.
I whimper as sweat breaks out in pinpricks all over my body. The intense pain of the burn filters through the layers of skin, and I close my eyes.
Dominic. Dominic. Dominic.
My brother. Went through this.
Survived.
Again and again and again.
As a fucking kid.
To protect us. To stop the Don from doing worse to us.
Somehow, this truth makes me grind my teeth just long enough to hold out. The rod pulls away, and I throw my head back, sweat and tears running down my temples as I strain to slowly exhale, willing myself not to whine.
When I tune back into the room, dizzy with pain, I meet Masha’s gaze. The scent of burnt flesh hangs in the air, right underneath my fucking nose. Her good eye stares at me, blank and lifeless. She’s reliving her own trauma. Jesus.
“Who are you looking for?” I try again. “This Italian?”
“Fuck the Italian. You here. You talk about you. Masha. This Lana woman. The baby.”
My gut twists. They can’t even think of Milana. I need to distract them with Franco Fiore.
“You know,” I start, watching him with a nervous twitch of my fingers as he heads back to the fireplace to shove the iron back into the coals. “There was a killing in Sicily months ago. Famous Mafioso. Name is Randazzo.”
The name hangs in the room like a curse. The men share a look.
Bingo.
“Randazzo is your man?” I push, wanting to buy time before the return of the poker, or whatever comes next.
The man picks up the knife again. Jesus. This needs to end.
Milana. Princess. I don’t want to beg out loud, but now would be a good time to do some target practice.
“What you know about Randazzo?”
The way the name rolls off his tongue tells me it isn’t the first time he’s heard it—or said it. These guys are goons, but they might be deeper into Chertnikov’s layers of trust than I, at first glance, gave them credit for.
“Big Mafioso. Drugs. Human trafficking. Sex, prostitutes, girls, boys, whatever you want. I mean, I’ve come across some shit doing porn.
Now he’s dead and Italy is a shit show. He was murdered.
Not sure who killed him, but he had no heir, nobody to take over his operations.
They’re fighting for control.” His son is my half-brother, and so on and so on.
“You knew this Randazzo? In Italy?”
“No,” I say, still trying to keep my head while enduring the searing pain on my chest.
“You sure?” The man steps closer, the knife hanging like an idle threat from his hand. “Tell truth. No more pain.”
Uh, yeah. About that. We’re dead meat, and when you’re butchered by his type, pain is the name of the game.
“I never met him. Recluse. You know? Man who lives in fear. Never goes out. Never shows his face.” Fuck my life. Now I’m even mimicking his way of talking, keeping it simple, straightforward.
He leans in, menacingly, nods to his buddy to step up to the table. He goes to stand on the other side, and with one flick of the blade, he cuts through the zip tie on my one wrist.
I don’t smirk, but this is a good thing. Except now, he has my arm in a vise grip, forcing it flat on the table, clamping down as his friend puts both hands on my arm, leaning in with what feels like his full body weight.
My gaze swoops around, wild. Fuck, if there’s an axe, I’m done for.
The man teases my fingers apart, splaying them like my hand is a starfish.
“Tell you what. We play game. One fact. Or one finger. You choose.”
“Lana,” Masha whispers, but her voice is just a croak. “Lana!” she calls out again, this time louder.
The assistant lets go of one hand, picks up a gun from the table, leans to the side to have a clear vision of Masha, and aims.
The shot cracks through the room.
Holy fuck. I close my eyes, not wanting to see how he blew her brains out.
Fuck.
Then she cackles. I stare at her, at her sinister grin. I can’t see any blood, not with her thick coat still on, sweat glistening on her good skin, the red blood streaks from her fingers now like warpaint on her cheek.
“Just my shoulder. I’m good.”
“Shut up, you whore!” my interrogator yells over his shoulder where he is leaning on the table, his back to her.
The shooter says something in Russian as he puts the gun down. I tune in on the sound to place the gun. When I feel his weight on my arm again, I glance at the table. Both guns are right on the edge. Not within my reach, but with a tilt of the table, they’ll fall out of reach on the ground.
“Now. You. One fact, or a finger.”
I tighten my grip on the chair, shifting my butt, testing the weight of it. It will have to do. And I’ll only have one shot at this.
It’s in your blood.
“Randazzo,” the man starts again, and I’m tired of his games. “You know him? You part of his Mafia?”
“No. But I know someone who is. Someone who took over from him. Claimed his operations, even though they are no blood connection. Not the assigned heir. A man with real ambition.”
Another shared glance. They don’t speak.
“Why are you looking for this guy?” I ask, not mentioning his name yet, seeing how far I can push them.
He runs the blade along my pinkie, and I curse because my body is trembling with apprehension, my fingers quivering and cold.
“You know nothing,” the man says as he jabs the knife’s point into the table.
Before I can speak, he levers the blade down, slicing right through my pinkie’s middle knuckle, and this time, I fucking yowl like a baby.
My whole body shakes as I stare in horror at my severed fingertip. I’m a shaken bottle of human adrenaline. Crack open the top and I’ll explode in rage, just like a can of Coke.
I bite my tongue, forcing myself to ignore the pain. “Franco Fiore. That’s who you’re looking for, isn’t it? Man with snake tattoos. All over his body. All black ink. He owes you money? Fucked up a job? Maybe didn’t arrive for a job? Didn’t deliver what he promised?”
I have their attention now. The man’s grip on my arm weakens, his mind seemingly churning, digesting my words.
“You know Franco Fiore?” my interrogator asks as he straightens, the knife loose in his hand.
“Uh-uhhh,” I groan a bit. Time to showcase my Russian. “I know Franco Fiore. And as you say in Russian, moy starshiy brat mudak yebanyi.”
My older brother is a fucking bastard.
In the two seconds of surprise, I jerk my arm from the other Russian’s grip, throw the table over with a brute strength I didn’t know I still had, hitting the other Russian in the shins. He sinks to the floor, howling in pain.
I lean forward and drag my chair from beneath my butt, gripping it with my tied hand. I swing it up, oblivious to its weight, and hit my interrogator with all the force I can muster.
The surprise attack winds him, the chair’s leg hitting him in the temple. He crumples to the floor, the knife clattering from his hand.
The guns skidded at least three feet across the floor, and the other guy is scrambling for them now, I reach for the knife at my feet and fling it, as I’ve been trained to, and hit him in the chest. It won’t kill him, but it will slow him down.
Masha manages to stand, lifting her chair beneath her, and hops two steps over to where the Russian I hit in the head is coming to.
With spectacular aim, she sits down on her chair, planting one of the solid chair legs right on his face.
Bones give with a satisfying crack as she pierces into an eye socket.
She goes for it again and again, and I can’t watch.
The other Russian is crawling toward the gun, and I kick both away. One hand still tied to my fucking chair, I bring it down on his face.
“This is what’s in my blood,” I hiss.
I smash it down on him again, knowing a gun would be kinder, quicker, but a mindless violence courses through my body, Stephano’s rage I was always forced to contain.
The man isn’t dead yet, and in my peripheral vision, I see Milana step out of her room, gun in hand.
She closes in on us and pulls the trigger. A perfect shot. Right in his temple.
I stand back, chair all fucked up and in pieces, yet still dangling from my arm. The zip tie has cut into my wrist, and there’s blood everywhere.
“Good shot, princess,” I huff out, wiping at the sweat running down my forehead with my ruined hand before I meet her horrified gaze. “You know what we say in Il Consiglio: teamwork makes the fucking dream work.”