Despite my distractions, after I passed the gate to the safehouse compound and entered the highway, my eyes kept darting to the rearview mirrors. A few cars entered as I drove over Marathon Key. With no exits but the islands to the northeast, it was impossible to tell tails from other travelers.
At Key Largo, the last island before the mainland, I pulled off the road into a strip mall next to a lot full of speedboats for sale. Two of the cars that had been behind me since Marathon Key followed. The first, a well maintained but boxy Cadillac from the 80s, parked in front of the crafting store that took up a large space in the mall. A hunched old woman with hair white as snow shuffled out and toward the fabric store.
I tried not to stereotype in my business. Danger could come from almost anyone; man or woman, young or old. The more unexpected the enemy, the more easily they could strike. I’d heard stories about female assassins in my time. Ivan often talked about one he called the Happy Ending. An aging but beautiful woman who seduced her victims only to poison them once they got sleepy after the act. Of course, he always brought her up at his club just before he sang the praises of his girls. The Happy Ending might have been a figment of his imagination.
Despite knowing an older woman, even an elderly one like my first follower could have been a danger, I felt confident discounting her as a potential tail. The other car that had been behind me since Marathon Key parked not too far from my own vehicle. A dark SUV with tinted sides, the engine remained running but I couldn’t see inside.
The running engine wasn’t out of the ordinary. Given the heat, wasting a little gas was preferable to shutting off the AC. Still, most people didn’t just sit in the parking lot of strip malls after a 40-mile journey. I needed a better look before I could say for certain they had been following me though and the only way to do that was outside the safety of my car.
With my phone in hand, I opened the driver’s side door and stepped into the rising morning heat. Eyes on the phone, I watched the car in question though the edge of my vision. My footsteps took me toward the strip mall and nearer to the front of the potential tail car.
As far as I could figure, there were only two responses from a tail car being found out in this situation. If tailing was all they were doing, when they got discovered, they’d bug out quick. This was especially true if they knew my reputation. Had their master sent them to do more than follow me, a more violent response could be on the cards.
Just in case they wanted to do more than look at me, I kept a line of cars between us. If shots rang out I could drop to the ground behind them. If they wanted to run me down, those cars would stop them and give me a chance to escape.
Stretching my peripheral vision to its limit when the windscreen of the tailers came into view, I saw two men in the front. Both wore sunglasses, though that wasn’t all that suspicious in South Florida. Tanned white skin with dark hair told me their ethnicity could come from anywhere in Europe, even beyond. They might be Russians, Italians or even black Irish for all I knew. No help, I’d need to give them a little push.
I turned to face the potential tail, eyes on the driver. Both he and his passenger froze at my sudden interest. Circumstantial evidence at best. My finger clicked the phone screen, taking multiple photos of the car, including its license plate, but I wasn’t done.
My left hand slipped under my jacket. I’d left my gun in the car and was right handed too, but those idiots didn’t know either of those facts. The driver sprang into action. The SUV’s tires squealed when he slammed it into reverse. They tore out of the parking lot, cutting across the southbound lanes of the highway as they turned north.
Once I’d made sure the pictures really captured the license plate, I emailed it to the protection team I had in place at the safehouse. My eyes kept darting to the rearview mirrors on the way north, but no other tails caught them. Where ever the real tail had gone, they didn’t try to follow me again.
After parking next to Pirrello’s car outside the warehouse, I took a deep breath and considered what would have happened had the assassin succeeded. At the time, its effect on my standing in the Castello family would have topped my list of grievances. Today, Olivia still reigned supreme. This would-be assassin had aimed to take her from me. My breath came out slowly, billowing through the feral smile on my face. I was more than ready to face the bastard.
Before I stepped out of the SUV, the side door to the corrugated warehouse opened. Two men stepped out. Dark haired with matching sunglasses and undersized suit jackets bulging at their oversized frames, they might have been twins for all I knew. At least their presence told me I’d come to the right warehouse. They practically screamed central casting for a Mafia tough.
Neither approached my car, instead standing to either side of the double doors, keeping them open for me. Even early in the morning, a surge of heated air greeted me when I opened the door. The men at the doors nodded as I passed.
The open doors should’ve giving me a heads up that the inside wouldn’t be cool and air conditioned. Not as hot as the air outside, a quick waft brought the harsh scent of iron to my nose, along with the ammonia odor of urine.
I blinked my eyes to get used to the relative darkness. Pirrello and another man approached from the center of the cavernous room. Behind them, I saw the source of the foul smells. A man sat slumped over on a metal chair. His arms were bound behind him to the chair’s back. A blood soaked wife beater and a pair of boxers were his only clothes.
A trail of blood and saliva dripped from his mouth. One of his eyes had swollen shut, covered in black and blue bruises. Dried blood trails fell from several cuts on his visible arm like morbid stalactites.
“I told you we got him, Mr. Petrovich,” said Pirrello. He flashed a feral smile of his own as he nodded back to the grisly scene. “We kept him alive so you could question him yourself.”
“Why wasn’t I informed the moment you had him?” I demanded, brushing past the two men. “It looks like you’ve had him for hours. Can he even talk anymore?”
Seeing the potential assassin’s sorry state, a kernel of pity rose in me. Sure, I wanted the man dead for what he’d done, but I wasn’t a sadist. I didn’t enjoy others’ pain, seeing them suffer. If they had to torture him to get a confession, it wasn’t worth it. A tortured man would say anything to stop the pain.
“We wanted to make sure we were right, sir,” Pirrello’s voice stuttered. He and his companion turned to follow me. “Mr. Castello trusted me to handle his business. I only came to him when I had a resolution.”
“As you have no doubt realized, I’m not Mr. Castello,” I snapped, frowning at the condemned man chained to the chair. “In the future, I want to be kept in the loop all the way, especially before you or one of your yahoos amateur hour an interrogation like this.”
The closer I got to the unconscious man, the worse his injuries appeared. Beyond the cuts on his arms, the once white wife beater held a few more slits, their edges dark red, blood dripping down from them. One cheek got the same treatment. A large gash running from his eye down to his jaw bled freshly.
“I know what I’m do—” began Pirrello’s man before his boss held up a hand, silencing him.
“In the future, I will come to you first, sir,” Pirrello said with a nod, “but what we did worked. We know his name and why he tried to kill Olivia.”
“I’m waiting,” I replied, never taking my eyes off their handiwork.
“His name is Stefan Pushkin.” Pirrello let the name hang, one of his bushy eyebrows rising. “I assume you don’t need me to tell you who he works for.”
I ducked low to get a closer look at the slumped man’s face. Even without the bruising, swelling and the gash in his cheek, it probably wouldn’t have been familiar. The name was Russian, but I hadn’t been in my uncle’s Bratva for several months. He’d have brought more men in since then.
“Stefan!” I yelled, standing right in front of the unconscious man.
