“Tell us what we want to know, and we’ll make it quick.” I sidestep the blood pooling underneath the dead man’s skull. “Deny us the truth, and we’ll torture you to the brink of death and bring you back, over and over, until you tell us what we want to know.”
“You can try it, Pretty Boy, but I won’t break. I’m not telling you shit.”
Caleb punches him in the solar plexus, and he falls forward on his palms, wheezing and heaving.
“We need to leave,” I say, checking the sky for drones. This place is a virtual ghost town but we’ve just littered the air with gunfire, and someone might have heard. “Grab the two live ones and take them to the bunker.” We have a hidden bunker, buried deep underground, on Staten Island where we bring men for interrogation.
“No one is snitching on my watch,” the long-haired guy says, snatching a fallen gun from under a hunk of rock and peppering his colleague with bullets.
“No!” I shout as one of our men shoots him in the chest. “For fuck’s sake,” I snap when the long-haired asshole falls on his side and blood bubbles in his mouth and flows from the wound on his chest. “What part of ‘don’t shoot to kill’ didn’t you understand?” I level a lethal look at thesoldatoin question, wondering who he is and if that was an innocent mistake caused by an eager trigger finger or a deliberate action to ensure we get no intel. Or maybe he was genuinely trying to protect Caleb and me. The jury is out. Did he pull that trigger on purpose? Is he working with the mole? Or a loyal made man? We need to find out. I eyeball ourcapo,and he instantly swings into action, disarming and restraining the man. Guess we’ll be interrogating someone after all.
“You’re all dead,” the fallen man says in fits and spurts as blood drips down his chin. His eyes are manic as his gaze locks on mine. “You have no idea who’s coming for you. He’s going to kill everyone.” His head lolls to the ground as all the life leaves his body.
“This is really starting to stink bad,” Caleb says three hours later when we’re finally back home. We separated to shower and clean off the blood and grime before reconvening in my penthouse. I refuse to step foot in Caleb’s messy den of iniquity.
“This has stunk from the start. What do you think he meant?” I ask, pouring us both a scotch. I pad across my living room in my bare feet and cotton pajama pants, handing him his drink.
“Who the fuck knows? He made it sound like whoever is behind this is not anyone we’re expecting.”
“Does he mean other Italian Americans?”
Caleb shrugs. “It’s a minefield, and my brain is too tired to decipher it at four thirty a.m.”
“I’m not sure I can sleep,” I admit, sinking onto the couch. “I’m still wired.”
“You get it all out of your system?” Caleb side-eyes me.
“Not even close.”
“What’s going on?” He dangles one sweatpants-covered leg over the side of the recliner chair as he sips his whisky and stares at me.
“I kissed Gia.”
He swirls the liquid in his glass. “You like her.”
“More than I should.”
“Why shouldn’t you like her?”
“Because I can’t. I swore I was never letting any woman in again, and I meant it.”
“You were made to be in a committed relationship, J. How long are you going to continue denying yourself?”
“I’m not denying myself.”
“Sure, you are, big brother.”
I groan. He only ever rolls out thebig brothersentiment when he’s trying to prove a point or get his way about something. Most other times, he’ll argue it doesn’t matter that I was born first, eleven minutes before he made his grand entrance.
“You don’t believe in love either,” I remind him with a knowing look.
“We’re not talking about me, and are you saying you’re in love with Gia?”
“No. Fuck no.” I almost spit my scotch all over my polished floors.
“I think you protest too much.” He flashes me a mischievous grin. “It’s okay to admit it.”
“Like you’ll admit you have feelings for Elisa?”
