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Giancarlo

PLAYLIST: ? KING’S DEAD - JAY ROCK FEATURING KENDRICK LAMAR, FUTURE & JAMES BLAKE?

“We’ve got him,”Fozzi says as soon as it’s just the two of us. We step into the private elevator and ride into the underground level closed off to the public. “His name’s Duffy Salerno. He didn’t turn up much when we checked him out.”

“Salerno. OftheSalerno family?”

“No blood association. We checked.”

“Then how do you know it’s him?”

“We caught him in the act. He was checking the same PO Box that the note belongs to.”

I’m not convinced. “It’s too messy. Why bother?”

“You can ask him yourself. We’ve already warmed the piece of shit up for you.”

The elevator doors part down the middle, revealing a hall with walls as obsidian as my eye color. Spherical-shaped sconces light the way as we pass doors on either side. The underground level serves many purposes—a place to conduct private business among other things. Today’s purpose is a lot more gruesome than many can imagine.

We stop at the second last door in the hall. Fozzi opens it and steps aside for me to enter first.

Duffy’s strapped down to a chair, seated under a spotlight. Blood drips from his mouth, which he seems incapable of closing. The same can’t be said for his left eye; it’s swollen shut. The motherfucker’s probably no looker on any normal circumstance, but with his face bashed in, he makes Quasimoto appear handsome.

He nods off, then catches himself a split second later. Spitting out blood, he lifts his head up straighter and blinks up at me with his one good eye.

“I’m the guy you’ve been looking for,” I say, sticking my hands in my pockets. “You have another message you want to deliver me, Duffy?”

“Fuck off.” He coughs up more blood.

I raise a brow. “My men have beat the shit out of you, and that’s all you have to say? Fuck off?”

“We can blast him,” Fozzi volunteers from where he guards the door. “Or if you want to have more fun, I’ve brought some of Gio’s old favorites. I wasn’t sure what you’d like.”

“We’re civilized men here. We can handle this with our words. Don’t you agree, Duffy?” I grip his bloody chin and force his head back. His horror show of a mouth dribbles onto my shirt sleeve, but I don’t give a fuck.

Blood has always been my favorite language.

When he still doesn’t dignify me with an answer, I clench his jaw in my grasp. My dark gaze burns into his as I loom above him. I’ll never let him forget where he is on the totem pole—even lower than the scum on my shoe.

“What are the messages about?” I ask. “Why have you been sending them?”

No answer.

His breathing shallows. Every raspy intake of breath sounds like a creature on the cusp of death. It’s up to him if that’s his fate.

“Duffy, things can be easy for you…or I can make them very difficult for you. Who do you work for? Did Lovato Senior put you up to your little game?”

Duffy musters up enough energy to sit straighter. His bloody mouth opens as though he’s finally abandoning his pride. He’s going to speak and spill it all.

Instead, he spills more blood. He hocks a mouthful of blood and spits it on my designer shoes. They cost more than his life is worth.

He’s trying to piss me off. Make me beat the shit out of him the way Fozzi and the others have. What he doesn’t know is I’m not my brother—I don’t fly into fits of blind rage. I don’t normally explode in the way he does.

I laugh, finding a twisted sense of humor in his displays of defiance. The hollow sound bounces off the padded walls. I sense Fozzi’s confused expression and see the same flicker in Duffy’s one good eye.

He doesn’t understand what I find so funny.

“Are you done, Duffy?” I let go of his chin and smear my bloodied fingers across the bloated, purple swell of his cheek. “Do you think you hurt my feelings when you get your blood on me? Do you think it makes me mad?”

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