AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ah, Enzo.” Another man rose to his feet, adjusting the buttons on his suit.
I placed my arm in Gia’s. She’d grown quiet behind me. That had to be uncomfortable as fuck. I was sure she'd never walked into a room filled with that much hatred aimed at her in her life. No one liked the Silvanis, but very few made that apparent right in front of them. We stepped toward the table with poker cards laid out on it, and I pulled a chair out for her.
“Kenny.” I put my hand out and shook his. Kenny Agostino was about my age, the eldest son in the Agostino family. We grew up together. Our families intertwined before we were even born. Silvio had fucked his mother, and you don’t fuck another man’s wife in this business. If anyone found out, our alliance would die faster than Bullseye’s victims.
“Bianchi, as in the East Coast Bianchis?” Gia looked at him with an unwavering glare.
“The one and only.” He tipped his hat toward her with fake pleasantry.
“They call you Bullseye, right?” She gestured toward her forehead and mimed a death expression. The men at the table laughed, the corners of even Bullseye’s lips rising slightly. “It’s an honor, sir.” Gia crossed her legs. Bianchi was the one you called to get rid of the people no one else wanted to touch. He was the reaper. “Are we going to play?” She motioned toward the deck of cards, and a slim man in a tan suit picked them up, shuffled them, and started a new deal.
“You playin’, boss?” Rudy asked without looking at me, fanning out the cards in his hand.
I shook my head and put a hand over the deck, stopping the man from dealing them. “Ain’t no time for cards, boys. We got a problem,” I said firmly, getting down to business.
Everyone looked up at me.
“There’s a snitch among us.” I scanned the room, reading the solemn faces.
Gia’s body tensed as my voice hardened and became foreign to her. When it came to business, I was unrecognizable. There was no room for weakness.
“Does someone want to confess to getting involved with the feds? They're opening a goddamn sex trafficking case on this very fucking building.” I swept the cards and chips off the table. They crashed to the floor and skittered across the ground. I looked at the two men across from Gia, their expressions cool and confident. My eyes scanned the crowd further, eyeing Bianchi and Agostino and noting the anger on their faces. I looked down at Rudy, who tried to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “Rudy. Dear, sweet Rudy.” I leaned over the table, placing my hand near the revolver on my hip.
“I didn’t talk to no feds, Enzo.” Rudy looked up at me with eyes that were as deceitful as the tone of his voice. He was fucking terrified, and rightfully so. He fucked with my business.
“I don’t understand why you’d put your family at risk, Rudes.” I stood and circled behind him. Everyone tensed, their hands on their pistols. “You know damn well Silvio will take out that pretty wife of yours if you betray him.” Wives and children were supposed to be off limits—it was in our code—but Silvio didn’t seem to follow the rules anymore.
Rudy stood with his hands in front of him. “Enzo, I had to. You don’t understand. They were sniffin’ around my family.”
“No, I understand just fine, Rudy. You gotta put your family first. I get that, I do. We’re all about protecting our own. Right, boys?”
No one responded.
“Should we even be discussing this around her?” Kenny gestured toward Gia.
“That is my business,” I said.
“You’re worried about the feds, yet here you are, bringing in a different but equally dangerous enemy into our midst.”
“The Silvanis ain’t in this business and ain’t our competition. Besides,she’s mine.And I take responsibility for her.” I felt the hot stares of the room, especially radiating from behind me, where Gia sat. “Anyway, where were we? Oh right, the feds. What did you tell them?”
Rudy stuttered out a response. “The...the feds were hot on our tails for a drug bust that went south.”
“Ahh, well, see boys? That’s why we don’t fuck with drugs, Rudy. None of us want the fucking DEA searching around here, and we definitely don’t want the goddamn FB-fucking-I in here either.” My hand gripped my revolver so tightly that my knuckles turned white. “What did you tell them?” I enunciated every word, my patience wearing thin.
“Nothin’ much, just about the women they were bringing through here sometimes.”
I took a deep breath and rubbed my temple, wiping down my face and grazing my beard.
“You know what, it’s fine, Rudy, it’s fine,” I said as he stared at me. Everyone was frozen, knowing damn well that it was not fine. “You leave us to worry about the FBI, and you won’t have to worry about nothin’.”
I nodded at Bullseye, who swiftly pulled out his pistol and placed a bullet between Rudy’s eyes. His body hit the metal chair on the way down as he crumpled onto the concrete floor. Blood pooled from his head, fanning around him in a rich crimson puddle.
“Do we have a fucking understanding about the feds now?” I raised my voice, scanning with my eyes and hovering on every person, including Gia, whose expression was unsurprisingly calm. She was fucking unflappable.
“Now what?” Bullseye asked.
“Get everyone out who wasn’t here by choice. I don’t care what ya do to them, but they gotta go.” I stepped over Rudy’s body and sat in his chair. “Play by the books until this investigation is over.”
