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Chapter One
Caleb
Ifuckinghatebeingmade to wait. Once again, I check the time on my phone and sigh deeply. It’s been almost an hour and I have places to be. I look over Saint who looks as anxious to find out what the fuck is going on as I do.
Leaning back into the hard leather chair I take in the mould growing on the walls. It almost reminds me of the waiting room Saint and I would be sent to as boys before we were called into the principal’s office awaiting our reprimand for fighting with the other boys. Unlike the safe space of the room next to the principal’s office, this is a ten room underground soundproof bunker that was built in the caves under Saints house. Innumerable secret meetings have been held here, and many have been taken to die slow, painful deaths in its depths, and buried into the concrete walls. It’s eerie as all hell down here and the sooner we get this over with, whatever that may be, the better.
Loud yelling from inside the room continues to echo and I recognise one of the voices as Eric.
Fuck.
I haven’t heard him this riled up in a very long time. Two of Eric’s men that I’ve never seen before stand guard at each door with their guns showing in their holsters. I begin to pace as my patience wavers. He doesn’t need to make his own son wait almost an hour. Sometimes I think he does it to intimidate us, to make us sweat.
“Please don’t kill me. Please. I’ve told you everything I know, I swear. Just let us go,” Steve screams painfully from inside the room.
“How much fucking longer are we going to have to wait? I’ve got shit to do,” Saint says impatiently.
We had planned for a day at the beach to chill out after the stressful few days we had chasing down Steve, but everyone here knows that when the boss of a highly organised crime family calls you in for a meeting, you be there no questions asked, otherwise you can forget about using your arms or legs for a while, maybe even worse. I’m all too aware of what happens to people who refuse or disobey an order. Hell, even his own son is not immune to his level of cruelty. I’ve seen it first-hand many times.
Eric Garo is a ruthless bastard. Underboss and only living son of Francis Garo, head of the Garo mob in the East Coast. Each job I do for him strips away a piece of my soul, what’s left of it anyway. I can’t count the number of bones I’ve broken, and bullets I’ve sprayed into bodies all on the order of one man. But that’s not even the worst of it.
I used to hate it in the beginning, inflicting pain on others, seeing their faces twist and cry out with pain as the life drained from their bodies, but I was younger then. Now I welcome their pain.
Another ear-piercing scream can be heard coming from one of the other rooms. This time it’s a female. Eric must have found Steve’s wife, Tracey. Steve knew that once you cross that line you condemn your entire family and blood line to death along with you.
When I hear her cry, I remember my mother as she held my father’s dead body in her arms. Like it was yesterday, I hear her scream just before a bullet was put into her forehead. Every time I think about that night it drives me into an uncontrollable rage until all I can see is blood and death.
“Use it. Use it to make you stronger,”Eric had said, and that’s exactly what I did. The bastard that shot them has never been found or brought to justice. Now that I’m older I’m almost glad of it because when I find him and I will, he will die by my hand.
The police have classed it as a Cold Case because the killer was never found, but it will never be cold to me. I relive that night in my dreams, going back to the nine-year-old boy cuddled up in my warm bed unable to sleep because of the monster waiting under my bed. Except that night the monster wasn’t waiting for me. He was downstairs murdering my parents. I can still hear my moms screams, begging dad to wake up after a loud bang echoed throughout the house like a firework. Crawling out of bed I wanted to call out to them both so badly, but I didn’t. Gripping my teddy hard, I made my way to the stairs and watched mom cradle dads’ lifeless body in her blood-soaked arms through a small opening in the wooden spindle as a man with a snake tattoo from his elbow to hand pointed a gun to the back of her head and pulled the trigger.
The older I got, the more I delved into my parents murder. I couldn’t let go. I knew that my dad worked for the organisation and that it was no random killing. I reviewed every detail the police have on file about that night over and over, until the pages crumbled. There was no footprints or handprints left behind. Not a single bullet case. A clean hit they said. The sure tell of a hitman. Not a single trace of the bastard that did it could be found, but that won’t stop me. Someone in our world knows the truth and I won’t stop until I have it. Retribution is all that matters now.
Chapter Two
Caleb
I’mpulledfromthememory when the door to the meeting room swings open. Two men are the first to walk out dragging Steve Hagan’s almost lifeless body. Followed by Chains. His leather jacket squeaks when he lightly taps me on the shoulder grunting out a greeting to us when he walks past. Nothing new.
Chains is one of Erics top men and not the type of person you ever underestimate. He’s lethal and will have you chained up by your nipples and balls and leave you hanging in your own piss and shit for days while you bleed out. Hell, I’ve seen it happen.
Both of Steve’s eyes are swollen shut and his face almost unrecognisable as blood drips down his face.
“Burn that fucking mark off his skin and feed it to his bitch of a wife,” Eric roars out after his men before the door to the room is slammed closed.
The mark Eric’s referring to is a symbol of the Garo family. The letter G wrapped in thorns to be forever branded deep into the skin with a hot iron when you become a made man, as a mark of allegiance to the Garo family. An allegiance that if ever broken would mean certain death. Steve broke his oath when he turned against us spying on us for the Maloti family. He almost got away until we tracked him down three nights ago and brought him back here for his reckoning. If there’s one thing you never do, it’s turn against your own. It’s not just the rival mob families that plant moles. Many have been turned to rat for the cops. Stupid fuckers thought the DEA and FBI would keep them from reach. They were wrong. Eric has most of them in his pocket with generous stacks of hush money. There’s no escaping this life once you’re in it. You know when you swear that blood oath, that death is your only ticket out. The fact that Steve is still alive means Eric wants him kept that way for a reason. For now, anyway. In our world information is key.
“About time you shut him the fuck up. Piece of shit,” Saint barks, spitting on Steve’s face as he’s carried away. It’s nothing less than I would have done. He is a piece of shit begging for his life like that, its fucking pathetic.
One of the men holds his finger to his ear. Turning to us he announces, “Mr Garo will see you now,” then pushes the door open allowing us to walk through.
A thick smell of smoke and something metallic fills my nostrils. Steve should be dead with the amount of blood on the floor and on the chair he was tied to. He must be one tough mother fucker if he survives that beating.
Eric sits at the head of the large rectangle table in the center of the room holding a lit cigar to his mouth.
He looks drunk. Shit, this isn’t good.
Bits of broken furniture and glass lie about the room. Shards of glass bottles crunch and crack under my boots as I walk further in. I nod at Jono, Erics right hand man as he watches us enter whilst wiping Steve’s blood off his hands and arms with a dirty rag.
