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I told Molly not to mention our relationship to anyone outside of her immediate family. In theory, only Nana and Jason should know. Except secrets are hard to keep, and Jason’s a good kid, but he’s also friendly with his cousin.
And his cousin happens to be named Barry. And also happens to be a street-level dealer for the Irish.
Motherfucker.
“If you’re feeling squeamish, go upstairs,” Carlo says, cracking his knuckles. “I’m gonna play around here for a few minutes. I’ve been real stressed out. Your speech a couple weeks back really fucked with me.”
“Poor guy,” I murmur, walking past him. “I’ll take this one.”
“Suit yourself. Ronan and I have some catching up to do anyway.”
“Please,” Ronan begs, crying now. “I’ll tell you anything. Please!”
Carlo doesn’t care. These thugs don’t know shit. They can’t tell us anything worthwhile. This is just about hurting them. It’s about working out stress. Maybe they can give up the location of a few stash houses, or maybe even their boss, but beyond that? Totally worthless.
I stand in front of Barry. He meets my gaze. There’s no recognition—that’s good. If Jason told him about me, he must not have mentioned what I look like.
I lean down and get in the kid’s face. He shies back, grimacing.
“I’m going to have to hurt you,” I say very quietly. “If you’re smart, you’ll make it sound like you’re half dead. Do you understand?”
Barry’s eyes widen as much as they can and he nods once. “I get?—”
I punch him in the mouth before he can finish speaking. Carlo’s looking over, frowning a bit as he catches his breath. But once I hit Barry, he grins and goes back to work on his own victim.
I work poor Barry over. It’s not nearly as bad as what Carlo would do to him. I pull my punches, and good old Barry hams it up. He screams like each blow is ten times harder than it is. I almost want to laugh, the kid’s such a good actor. But it’s still hurting him because I can’t fake it too much. Fortunately, Carlo moves on to Shane, and when he’s done, we press them for as much information as they have. It takes a couple hours, but Carlo’s eventually satisfied.
“I’ll kill them in the morning,” he says as we climb the steps and regroup in the kitchen. There’s nothing but beer in the refrigerator. I crack one and toss another to him.
“This war’s made you a little sadistic, you know that?”
He laughs and takes a long drink. “Nah, it’s actually because the cleaning crew’s busy right now and I don’t feel like mopping blood myself.”
“Very practical.”
“They’re worthless nobodies anyway, but at least we got some leads.”
“You want to bring them to Renzo?”
He nods. “Big bro will be happy.”
“Here’s to Don Bro.”
That gets a laugh. We toast and drink, and once the beers are finished, Carlo heads out. I stick behind with the excuse that I want to make another run at the Barry kid, which Carlo seems to appreciate.
I wait until dark. I let Molly know that I’ll be late, but she’s used to it by now. My stomach’s a nervous wreck as I fetch the gun from my Lexus around midnight then climb back down into the basement.
The boys are asleep. Not sure how they managed it. I’m quiet as I walk over to Barry and wake him with a gentle slap. He snorts and groans as he looks at me, his swollen face a mess of bruises and blood.
“What’s your cousin’s name?” I ask, whispering to make sure the others stay asleep.
His eyes dart around. “What? Cousin?”
“You have two cousins. Name them both.”
“They’re not in the life, bro. Please, you don’t need to hurt them.”
“Name them. I need to make sure you are who I think you are.”
