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“Problem is…” Another voice spoke up, his accent holding an Irish lilt. It was dark, deep, and deadly. There was no mistaking the dangerous edge to his tone, even from here. “We don’t.”
There was a scuffle and the sound of bone cracking against bone. The nasally man screamed, and then there was nothing but ragged breathing.
“Tell us who sent you,” the Irish voice growled. “Was it Dante Romano? Ward? Tell me who the fuck put a hit out on my sister!”
“I don’t know,” the nasally man whined and sobbed. “The hit was encrypted. Anonymous payer.”
“How much?” another voice questioned. It was nearly identical to the first, with the same lilting accent but rougher. Gravelly.
“Three mil.”
Someone whistled.
“That’s a lot of dough for a wee little woman,” the first voice scoffed. “You didn’t bother to do any research, huh?”
The man simply whimpered.
“Here’s what you’re going to do, Jimmy,” the rougher voice snarled. “You’re going to send a message to your boss.” The man’s name on the wind had my journalist instincts perking up. Sure, it was a common name, but there were very few men named Jimmy who pulled out hits on people.
“I…I can do that.”
Don’t do it. Don’t do it.
The mantra whispered through my mind like a broken record, my inner caution goddess singing the warning of her people, but the Nancy Drew altar I worshipped wouldn’t be subdued. I was a reporter, and this was a front-page scoop.
At least, it would be if I planned on writing about it.
Which I wasn’t.
Maybe drunk me was bordering on suicidal, pushing aside my logic goddess, who had been waving pom-poms in my face like a red flag.
Still, it couldn’t hurt to take a peek. Just a scosche.
I took a deep breath and peered around the corner with ample parts curiosity and fear.
Biting my lip, I swallowed back the gasp that threatened to bubble up my throat and fly free as I took in the scene before me. It was a scene right out ofThe Godfather. Two men towered over another, their looks nearly identical, from their height to the ginger color of their hair to their angular noses and cut jaws.
They didn’t sense me spying, their focus completely on the older man they had on his knees before them. I knew I recognized his name. The man begging for his life was Jimmy Burlosconi, a mid-level hitman for the Italian mob. He’d gone to trial a few years back for killing his girlfriend in a jealous rage, but all the witnesses conveniently disappeared, and he got off scot-free.
I had covered his trial.
“Whatever you need me to do, I can do it. Promise.”
The man whose face I could see more clearly smirked, his hand tightening on the knife in his meaty grip.
“Only problem is, Jimmy,” he sneered, surging forward and burying the knife in the man’s throat. Jimmy’s scream was cut short as blood bubbled from the knife wound in his neck. His body hit the pavement with a dull thud. “I don’t need you alive to tell it.”
“Jesus, Seamus,” his mirror snorted in disgust. “Couldn’t we have at least gotten him in the trunk first or something? Now we have to drag his body down the alley.”
The one named Seamus shrugged unapologetically.
“This way, he won’t get away, Kier.” Seamus smirked at him. “Now help me get his fat ass in the cellar before someone comes out for a drag, aye?”
“Oh aye,” the one named Kier huffed. “Let me help you clean up the mess you started. Again.”
“You sound like Da.” Seamus grinned. “Already getting a stick shoved up your ass over everything.”
“Fuck off, Seamus,” Kier muttered, elbowing his brother in the ribs. “I’ll shove a stick up your—”
