Prologue
Raoul Caraldi
“Five hundred thousand? Screw you! This parcel is worth more than five hundred thousand! It’s one million.”
The voice echoing through the dark room is low and guttural. Heavily accented. Russian. I recognize the accent. The other voice on speakerphone is less distinct, but equally pissed. It’s hard to identify over another keening noise that’s coming from somewhere else in the darkness.
“That’s double, you cunt! We said half a bar. Now give us the merchandise. We had a fucking deal!”
“Poshol nahuj!” the guy in the room tells the other guy to fuck off. “We lost good men.”
The voice on the phone amps up the volume. Yup, definitely pissed. And from the sound of it, Italian.
“I don’t give a fuck about your men. Collateral damage. Not my problem.”
There’s something familiar about that voice. Not just familiar. I know him. The motherfucker is the underboss in my uncle’s organization.Jesus!Good old Uncle Edoardo organized this? Shouldn’t surprise me. I’m the reason his kid is unalive, after all.
Still, I hope his dick rots off.
I shift closer to listen better. I’m pressed up against thick bars in some kind of holding cell. The floor beneath me is hard. Cold. Raw concrete. I tug my wrists against my bonds. Whatever they tied me with has no give in it.
Cable ties. I’m pretty sure of it.
Just my luck to get taken out by a band of Russian pros.
Though maybe it’s not so bad. Amateurs would have done more harm. I shift again. Aside from a throbbing skull, I’m doing pretty good. Nothing broken that I can feel. No bullet wounds – although that had been touch-and-go back at Dario’s fucking club.
Motherfuckers.
They probably don’t want to damage the merchandise.
“Vaffanculo!” Phone Guy seems to have reached his tipping point.
“Is that so? Now it’s two million!”
There’s the start of a response, but the Russian cuts the call. I hear him moving around the room, cursing under his breath. Footsteps ring out on the cold concrete. Now two voices are talking.
“Fucking wop,” the first one mutters. “I hate working with those cunts.”
Beautiful. Maybe my luxury stay here is about to come to an end. I tug at my wrists again. They’re pulled tightly behind me, giving me less leverage. And my shoulders are screaming at having been tied like this for hours. Unless I can find something to hack through the ties, I’m stuck. At their mercy.
And if you get free, Raoul? Then what? They’ll shoot you, for sure.
Fuck.The bastard on the phone may have been my best chance of getting out of this shithole. And I really mean shithole. I can smell shit.
Goddammit! These shoes are calfskin. What a fucking waste.
I fumble my fingers around my wrist. Yup. Somebody took my Rolex.
Surprise, surprise.
The men are still talking…a combination of English and coarse Russian. My knowledge of the language is shaky, but I can follow the gist of it. They’ve picked up some girls. Fresh “virgin stock,” according to the newcomer.
“This will put you in a better mood, Vassily,” New Guy says. “These girls are prime.”
Great. Fucking flesh traders.
They’re worse than whatever’s on my thousand-dollar Guccis. But I know their kind. They’ll trade whatever they have for the best price. I can deal with that.
