Len swallowed repeatedly, his gaze darting between me and Figo again before he lowered his gun and backed away from his boss. To cut off the patrons from the situation on the balcony, the clever maître d’ had closed the doors, sealing off Len’s escape.
I brought my hardened gaze back to the groaning fucker in front of me. “The only reason I haven’t gutted you and left yourentrails all over this fucking table is because Lorenzo insisted I not kill any more customers, and I rarely listen to my brother especially when there’s blood to be spilt. So.” I twisted the knife and fork until he howled again. “Count this as your lucky fucking day,stronzo.”
Dread transformed his arrogance to regret. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” I released the cutlery, straightening. “The next time we meet, if you so much as blink at me, I’ll stick a fucking pole down your throat, roast you over a fire and feed your burnt flesh to your family.Capito?”
His face pale, his body rigid with panic, he nodded. “Understood.”
“Fear is a nasty fucker, don’t you agree? Separates real men from the pussies.” Accepting the suit jacket Gian held out to me, I slipped it on and couldn’t help the amusement curling my lips. Gian often said I shouldn’t smile when I tortured or killed people, it confirmed my psychotic tendencies. My smile deepened. “Lorenzo calls me unhinged, Figo, not insane.”
Shoulders slumped; the sweating fucker’s eyes flared briefly before his ass dropped to his seat. With a nod to me Len moved to Figo’s side.
As I walked away I heard Gian’s words to them, “Remo doesn’t ask for respect, Figo, his reputation fucks it dead, ass and pussy alike. Remember that.”
The maître d’, who I knew had been watching me, hurried to open the door. “Hope you enjoyed the meal, Mr. Rossi.”
“Always.” I took a step forward catching the panic-stricken eyes of some patrons and paused. “The guests on the balcony?”
“I’ll send Gian the check.” He knew the drill.
I bought their silence and he’d not only relay my threat a lot more calmly than I would, but he’d also extract their personal information with a smile.
“Have a good evening, Mr. Rossi.”
With a quick nod, I headed for the elevator with Gian on my tail. “Do we have to pay their bill?” he asked, as if it was his money I’d spent. “Judging by their level of anxiety, I think they’d be shit scared to report you to the cops.”
I looked at the idiot half tempted to smack his head. Granted he was only twenty-four, his naivety at times irritated the fuck out of me.
“The power of fear is only relative to proximity, Gian, the further you are the less it controls you.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. The day Lorenzo assigned Gian to me, four months ago, I had my gun to his family jewels within the hour, just to shut him up. I didn’t shoot because he was the youngest brother of Lorenzos’s bodyguard and we trusted Dario with our lives.
Within a week, Gian convinced me he was the right man for the job. Besides his never-ending need to learn, he seemed to grasp my indifference to everything with ease. But his eagerness to kill clinched the deal.
“The more physically close you are to a dangerous threat, the stronger your fear will be,” I explained. “The further you get away, the less it will control you.”
“Oh,” he replied, rubbing his jaw. “So, nothing stops them from reporting you if you don’t know where they are?”
“Exactly. Today I pay their bill because tomorrow I might have to kill them. At least I’ve contributed toward their funeral in some way.”
“Sei un mostro in giacca e cravatta, capo.” Calling me a monster in a suit, his laughter echoed in the steel cubicle.
“Better the one you know, Gian.” I embraced my title with pleasure.
two
. . .
Koro– 34 years old
My name was unknown and due to certain circumstances, I preferred it that way because pretty much my entire life I’d been a bad person. I firmly believed that sometimes you had to do bad things to make the world better, to right the wrongs that had gone unanswered.
Sometimes though, I was calledShinigami, better known as the God of Death and mainly by mafia families yet to catch me after I’d killed family members, friends, colleagues or soldiers.
The day he began training me, Uncle Haru called mekoro, the Japanese translation for lone wolf. He said it suited me because I was a survivor, possessing a quiet strength I was yet to discover. More importantly, a lone wolf had nothing to lose, making me a dangerous, unpredictable weapon.
