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“Don’t!” Francis’s bark echoed through the warehouse.
“Oh, that’s right.” Neo straightened. Backing up, he shook out his bruised knuckles. “You’re sucking each other’s cocks.” He grimaced and spat at the ground too, disgusted.
Now was not the time for Francis to get loud. He needed to stay back, stay out of this, and keep quiet, and then maybe he’d be all right. “You lying pig, Neo. You piece of DeSica shit. You have no right!”
Neo spun on his heel and marched toward Vitari purposefully. Another punch was coming—Vitari had taken enough knocks to know Neo’s look of violence—but at least Neo’s fists were flying at Vitari and not Francis.
But instead of landing the blow, one of the guards handed Neo a 9mm gun, and Neo studied it in the ambient lighting. “Maybe I should just end you now?”
“Don’t touch him!” Francis said.
“Or what?” Neo eyed Vitari down the gun barrel but his words were all for Francis. “You goin’ to execute me, Padre Blanco, like you did Luca Espinosa?” He laughed.
Vitari braced and skipped his gaze behind Neo, to where the guards held Francis. His eyes were wide, his face white. He blinked, and their gazes briefly touched. After everything they’d been through, everything they’d seen and done, even knowing Francis had betrayed him, Vitari would take a thousand punches for him, he’d fucking die for him, and he saw in Francis’s narrowing eyes and tight-lipped snarl how he’d kill for Vitari. Righteous conviction burned in his priestly glare. He’d kill Neo, like he’d executed Luca. It was love, Vitari realized. Francis would kill for love.
“This your gun?” Neo asked, waving the gun about in his hand, then examining it.
“Mine?” Vitari blinked. Wait, was that the gun from the yacht? The gun he’d used with Francis? A smile tugged at the corners of Vitari’s mouth. “Yeah, that’s my gun, you prick.” If he knew where it had been he wouldn’t be admiring it like he was now.
“I should kill you with it, no? Like some kind of karma?”
Vitari’s smile grew. “That gun’s special, you know? Personal.”
Neo smirked, thinking he’d taken something precious from Vitari, but then he saw Vitari’s smile, and his smug grin faded behind a snarl. He clicked his fingers at his men. “Get the priest out of here.”
Vitari shifted and propped his ass on his heels. “Wait.” The guards hauled Francis backwards. Francis let out some defiant demands. “Where are you taking him?!”
“Don’t worry.” Neo peered down his nose. “I’m not interested in the padre.”
Francis’s guards manhandled him toward a side door, and Vitari’s heart plunged through the floor. If Francis vanished through that door, he’d never see him again. This wasn’t a hostage situation, it wasn’t even a ransom. Neo would kill Francis because he could.
Francis bucked and tripped, desperate to get free.
They’d take him away and kill him.
No more Francis.
No, fuck no, that couldn’t happen. This wasn’t right. Francis was protected.
“Wait! Sasha said Francis would be safe! Sasha gave his fucking word,” Vitari said, hating how weak he sounded, how pathetic, but it was all true. If they took Francis from him, if they killed him, there was nothing left in this life worth living for. He didn’t want to live a single day without him. “Neo, don’t do this,” he begged.
Neo’s smug smile grew. “You didn’t really believe Sasha would save your priest, did you?”
He hadn’t, not really. But he’d hoped, stupidly. He held Neo’s glare. “What the fuck do you want? Huh? Name it, I’ll do it, anything. Just… don’t hurt Francis.”
Neo snorted. “Shit, you really have it bad for the priest.” He lunged, grabbed Vitari’s face, thrust the gun under his chin, and sneered, then spat. Globules of spittle dashed Vitari’s lips. “Vaffanculo a chi t'è morto.”
Vitari didn’t even care how the words burned, cutting too close to old wounds, he only had eyes for Francis. They’d take him somewhere out of sight, force him to his knees, and shoot him in the back of the head. The whole thing would take a few minutes. Problem solved. No more priest. Vitari could fucking see it. He’d done the same hundreds of times. Killed men as though they were inconveniences. It was wrong. The whole fucking world was twisted and fucked up, and he’d been a part of that, but not to Francis, not like this. “Neo, please, I?—”
“Vitari!?” Francis cried. He knew too, knew it was his end, could sense it.
Vitari couldn’t stand the fear in his voice. “Fuck, Neo, stop. Please! Don’t fucking do this. Whatever you want, I’ll get it for you. I can make you a fucking king!”
“Stop,” Neo ordered, then he nodded at the men holding Vitari, and the grips on his arms vanished. The men backed off. But it was Francis Vitari cared for, and those men who held him had stopped by the side door. Francis stood firm between them, chin up, eyes determined. But Vitari knew him, and that determined expression was the same one he’d worn as a priest just to get through the day. He was terrified, and so was Vitari.
Neo crouched and stared into Vitari eyes. “You see how easy it is to hurt you? How weak you are, Angel? No wonder your own father hates you.”
“I have hundreds of thousands in cash. It’s yours. Tell Giancarlo you killed us. We’ll vanish. Nobody has to know.”
