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“The men you… terminated.”
“Who do they work for?”
“I don’t know. I swear to God.”
I’d heard it all before. Lies. Excuses. Some were more creative than others. This one was not, although I wouldn’t get anything from him. It was pointless to continue the interrogation.
“What exactly do you think is going to happen here?” I asked more out of curiosity than anything.
“I dunno. I’ll do whatever you say. Please.”
Please. The word meant nothing to me. Plus, he was lying through his crooked teeth, switching tactics because he thought I might let him go. Right. He obviously hadn’t heard of my reputation.
“I can help you. I know all the dirty secrets. I can hunt them down for you.” His eyes reflected eagerness, as if he’d just offered me manna from the gods. “I know who you are, the Animal. Right? You’re legendary around here. All the guys talk about your code of ethics, how you choose your victims carefully.”
A part of me wanted to laugh. Code of ethics? It was a vow I’d taken fifteen years before, a pledge to protect the man who’d spared my life. There were no ethics involved. There was only a duty to perform. I leaned closer, pushing the tip of the blade against his bobbing Adam’s apple. His eyes opened wide, staring into the dark abyss of mine. If he thought he could persuade me, he was dead wrong.
Fear had a particular stench, one of sweat and piss. While I normally enjoyed the layered intensity, today my stomach lurched in revulsion. Perhaps that was because my night had been filled with the fragrance of life and lust. I checked my watch, realizing this shit was taking too long. I needed to be in and out of Lucia’s apartment in an hour and a half.
My anger exploded, but it had little to do with the asshole who’d made the mistake of crossing the DeLuca family.
He sensed I was near the end of my patience, twisting his body in the rope holding him to the chair. “I’ll do anything you want. I’ll give you names.”
There would always be men and a few women who believed they could escape punishment for betraying the family, ignoring the rules they’d agreed to. I knew them all. Their time spent with the Animal would come soon enough.
One at a time.
“There’s nothing my family needs from you.”
“You worthless fuck,” he spouted. “I know what they did to you. They killed your family. You’re a fucking fool. You won’t survive. You’re nothing but a fucking trained dog to be used. You’ll never have power. You’ll never have a seat at the DeLuca table. Mattia wants you dead.”
His comment on the hierarchy of the family organization even given his cockroach status in the DeLuca world meant someone was talking. That someone needed to die.
I took a deep breath. Ordinarily, I’d have cut out his tongue by this point, but a shadowy reckoning made me endure the insults.
He jerked hard enough that the chair almost tipped over, taking him with it. “Yeah,” he hissed, certain he’d gotten through to me. “If you think anybody gives a fuck about you, you’re wrong. You’re just a worthless fuck stupid enough to jump any time Francobarks orders. You should have paid more attention to what your daddy was responsible for doing. You’re such a fool.”
What the fuck was he talking about? I grabbed him by the back of the hair, yanking both him and the chair off the floor. “Shut up about my family.”
The fucker smiled. “You didn’t know. Did you? You were supposed to die with them.”
“Know what?” White-hot rage tore into my system, his insinuations coming from a place of truth. “Tell me.” I shook him hard when he said nothing. “Tell. Me.”
“You’ll learn soon enough.” When he laughed, I lost my temper, no longer able to control the animal.
After taking a deep breath, I tore the sharp edge from one ear to the other, snickering from the shock registering in his eyes.
Then I walked away, pulling a paper towel from my pocket and wiping my face. It came away red. As silently as I’d arrived, I left the warehouse.
Let the fucking cleanup crew do their jobs.
The Animal needed to hunt.
* * *
I’d had no illusions of grandeur regarding the family I’d been raised in. While I was the oldest son, given I’d been adopted, my treatment had been entirely different than with my brothers, Mattia and Tomaso. I’d often wondered if the promise Franco had made was based on his doubt regarding the genealogy of both given his wife’s infidelity.
Whatever the case, I’d been made a promise years before. But I wasn’t a stupid man by any stretch of the imagination. My brother Mattia would ultimately fight for power, or what he’d deemed his rightful place in the food chain. If a turf war broke out, without a clear heir in place, sides would be taken, the DeLuca family coming out on the short end.
