The bile churns in my gut, frothing and bubbling.
Another text message appears.
If one ofyou had to choose the next one of you to die, who would you chose?
Nobody wants to answer?
Not one ofyour guys would sacrifice themselves for you, Tony?
I knowyou’re reading the messages. They all have a read receipt next to them.
Maybe I’ll just getyou all in the same place and blow all you pieces of shit up.
5,4, 3, 2, 1. BOOM.
I jerkwhen the phone rings, breaking the silence and my frozen stunned stare at the words. It’s a number I’m familiar with—a burner phone Tony got himself a few days ago. He made me memorize it in case there was trouble.
Jesus, now there’s more trouble than ever.
“Yeah?” I answer the phone.
I can hear Tony breathing heavily on the other end. “Club in twenty,” he says, then ends the call.
I change clothes quickly and head out, wondering if this is a meeting or another body. I’m on autopilot the whole drive, until I stop at a red light and reread the text messages on my cellphone. I enlarge the picture of Junior again, but this time I’m trying to see where he is. There’s a brown couch and a cream pillow—the same ones from his house.
How did someone get in Junior’s house? His security system is insane.
I park half-assed in the lot. Something I always rag on the other guys about, but this time I don’t care. Junior’s security system comes with video cameras and one of those doorbells that records everyone who walks by on the street. We can get these motherfuckers before they take out any more of our guys.
Tony’s pacing in his office. Enzo and Sal are sitting on the couch with heavy expressions and Carlo walks in right behind me.
“Shut the door, hurry up,” Tony snaps.
“It was at his house, wasn’t it, Tony?” I blurt out, holding out my phone with the image on the screen. “Look at that couch and pillows. That’s Junior’s place.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, get that picture away from me,” Carlo roars, shoving my hand away from him. “This is the carnival massacre all over again, I don’t want to see that shit.”
I turn to Tony, who’s lighting a cigar, his eyes puffy and red.
“Tony, you know as well as I do Junior has that crazy security system. It records everything.”
Tony nods his head and points his cigar in my direction, “Yeah, yeah. Corrado, you’re right. You remember, Sal? That’s how he caught Frannie sucking that guy’s cock when he was in Vegas.”
Sal shrugs, “Tony, I don’t remember. Frannie sucked everybody’s cock. Even mine. She was a great cocksucker, he never should have divorced her.”
“Okay, listen. I’m not hearing anything about this. Nobody on the street is talking,” Tony says, low. “Is anybody hearing anything?”
We all look at one another and shake our heads.
Tony stops pacing and sits heavily on the chair behind his desk, taking a long deep pull off his cigar. There’s half a glass of dark amber liquid in front of him and he swallows its contents in one big gulp, hissing out the heat. “Corrado, remember when you took care of Pattie?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“What did he say to you?” he asks, twirling the empty glass in his hand.
“Pattie said you were buying kids, little ones off the black market, and selling them. He said he was doing some paperwork for you and you were making money.”
“Adoption,” he says, expressively. “I was helping couples who couldn’t have kids.
