Chapter Six
When the Russo Mafia needed answers, Massimo was the one they sent. He had a way of getting answers, and as he sat straddled across a chair, he looked to Luiz Gutterman, one of the capos, whose loyalty was called into question. The man was sweating profusely.
The rest of his family were mysteriously gone. His wife and sons were nowhere to be found.
Ever since he had returned, he had been made aware of some difficulties the capos were facing, not just from the federal law, but from the Vigo Bratva as well.
Not to mention one of the local gangs that seemed to be gaining ground.
A small-time pimp who had been able to build up a small empire and named himself King.
There were a couple of businesses that had changed hands, and Massimo had been asked to investigate.
All the territory that had been lost had come from Luiz Gutterman, who suddenly had a great deal of cash in the house.
His bank accounts were zero and running into the minus figures.
The family home looked sparse. Massimo knew there was more to this story than met the eye.
“You know, you could just tell me,” Massimo said.
“You’re going to kill me anyway.”
“Am I?” he asked.
Luiz snorted. “Come on, you’re not stupid. You and I both know what you see. You see the house. You see what it looks like. The money.”
“So, why don’t you fill in the blanks for me?” he asked.
Luiz shook. His life was over today. There was no way it couldn’t be.
Massimo was going to have to kill him, not that it would be a problem.
He didn’t like Luiz. The man was cruel. There were many tales that surrounded this man, one was that he liked to torture his staff, men and women, who had no way of fighting back, and he made it a sport to break them.
There were many rules within the Russo Mafia, and one of those rules was to not intervene in how a man ran his house. None of them could stop what Luiz did, however, Massimo was not sad about the bastard being caught.
Massimo had done his fair share of killing and torturing to get what he wanted, but cruelty was not something he was known for.
The people who worked for him and his father were taken care of.
You took care of those closest to you and made sure they didn’t turn their backs on you.
The only reason the Russo Mafia had been made aware of Luiz’s escape plans was because one of his staff had found a way to escape, gone to a trusted soldier, and told them what he’d been doing.
“The Russo Mafia is going to get new leadership.”
“It is?” Massimo asked.
“Yes, and if you take my advice, Massimo, you will get out while you can. A change is coming, and when it happens, you’re not going to be expecting it.”
Massimo looked to Luiz. “And when is this big change coming? Is it going to come through those doors and save you? Is it going to save your family?”
“Leave my family alone.”
He tutted. “You didn’t hear, did you?”
The cockiness in Luiz’s face started to disappear. “What?”
“Have you heard from your family?” Massimo asked. “You wife? Your sons? They should be in a secure location. An island, right?”
Luiz actually got paler with every word he spoke, and Massimo tutted. “Oops.”
“What did you do?” Luiz asked.
“Me, I didn’t do anything, as I was coming to you. Giving you a chance to come clean.”
Massimo pulled out his cell phone and showed the clip that had been sent to him.
It was a newspaper clipping. There were no current televisions in Luiz’s home, and as he played the scene, it unfolded of a car traveling down a road and suddenly exploding.
There couldn’t be any survivors. It just went up in smoke.
“What?” Luiz said. “Why the fuck did you do this?”
“I didn’t, and guess what, neither did any of the Russo Mafia order that hit on your family. You know they do kill some family, but with others, they like to make an example. Depending on what they knew, either they came back into the fold or were sent out to fend for themselves.”
It was understood that some family members didn’t have a choice. Like the wife or sons, if they didn’t know what their father was planning or had no way of telling anyone, there would be some mercy shown. Again, special circumstances.
If they did know, but didn’t know much of the Russo Mafia, then they were sent to the streets, and that life usually killed them.
This hit was not a Russo Mafia hit. Russo Mafia liked to make things personal. This was not personal. This was a bomb that had gone off from inside the car. Either one of Luiz’s family, or a guard, or it was planted, but it was not a Russo hit.
Luiz started to sweat even more.
“I don’t understand,” Luiz said. “They said she’d be safe.”
“Who?”
Luiz looked at him and there was real fear in his eyes.
“King? Vigo?”
“I don’t know,” Luiz said.
“You just said they,” he said.
“I...” Luiz looked confused. “They said she would be safe.”
Massimo stared at him and waited.
“I ... got a call. I don’t know which one it is. I know King and Vigo have been gaining ground and they have wanted to for a long time. They’re the ones that have been paying me off, changing business hands, that kind of thing.” Luiz looked dead, he looked broken.
This surprised Massimo. To him, Luiz had always been a cruel, selfish bastard, who didn’t care about anyone or anything other than himself, yet looking at him now, he was taken aback. There was real sorrow on the man’s face. He had lost his family. And whoever he had trusted, had done the hit.
“I got a call, but not by any number I recognize, and the voice was warped, like it was speaking into one of those devices,” he said. “It told me I needed to get my family out. That a car would be sent, and I was to be with them.”
He looked at Massimo. “That bomb was for me.”
“So it could be either Vigo or King?” Massimo asked.
“Yes. That is all I know. I swear. I ... thought they were going to make their move and that getting out with my family was the only way.”
“Why didn’t you leave with them?” Massimo asked.
“I was ... disposing of my staff,” Luiz said. “They’re stacked up in the basement. Also, I wanted to take a separate car to load up the cash. The caller said to leave it, but I didn’t want to.”
Massimo nodded. Greed had been a motivator for Luiz, as well as hurting other people, before he was done. And now, Massimo was done.
He was not in the mood to torture the bastard for long, and so, he pulled out his gun, aimed, and fired, sending a bullet right through the man’s head. None of his men said a word.
“Spread out. I want to know if this house is being watched,” Massimo said.
His soldiers did as he asked, while he got to his feet.
Luiz wouldn’t be missed. He was weak. Intent on overthrowing the Russo Mafia, it made him a fool and a traitor.
Luiz hadn’t been lying, as he saw multiple dead bodies in the basement, and he didn’t even bother to go and look. The stench was appalling, and he had a feeling Luiz had been killing his staff longer than a few days.
Making his way through the house, he saw in several rooms the stacks of bills, all wrapped together. Massimo looked at them. Luiz was being paid off, but whoever had done the paying must have intended to come back for the money.
Russo wouldn’t want this money. It was traitor’s money. They wouldn’t lower themselves to steal it, and after looking through the whole house, Massimo got to work. His men had already brought in the barrels of gasoline, and he started to spread it across the cash.
There would be some people who would mourn the burning of money, but not him.
Then he pulled out the boxes of matches he kept.
There was a time he would have used a lighter, but he got sick and tired of having to purchase another one every time he tossed it into a fucking room.
A match would do just as good a job as a fucking lighter.
He dropped the match, already stepping out of the house. He didn’t need to see it burn.
His men had already reported back to him that no one was stalking the house.
No one was coming back. Massimo knew that whoever had given Luiz the order was not coming back.
They would stay well enough away, especially now, because they had probably seen Massimo arrive.
He had a sneaking suspicion they were after the money, and now that the money was gone, they had nothing to come back for.
He had probably just pissed the person off, but Massimo didn’t mind. Someone was after the Russo Mafia empire, and he was going to find out who it was, then he was going to fucking destroy them.
****
Isabella had left to have lunch with some of the Russo Mafia women. She had invited her, but Adelina had decided to sit this one out. There would be plenty of time to have the women looking at her with disapproval as she didn’t quite match up to what they wanted for Massimo.
She was not one of them, so she had stayed home.
A home that didn’t quite feel like hers.
Massimo had said, in time, they would find a new place.
Only, she didn’t see the point. Massimo’s home was quite large, with over ten bedrooms, at least that is what she had counted upstairs.
They also had extensive staff, including regular cleaners and cooks, as well as soldiers inside and outside the perimeter.
Just passing through the main hallway, there were two soldiers at the door.
There had been men at her parents’ house, but they hadn’t quite been soldiers.
She moved her arms from front to back, swinging them, trying to clear her mind and her thoughts. She wasn’t alone. Massimo’s father was somewhere in the house and she had yet to meet him. He hadn’t come to see them as they returned. She hoped it wasn’t because he disapproved of her.