“No, unfortunately, you’ve been promised to someone else. Then I asked him to make me a Russo like Sage.” I can see a theme behind his requests. “But Lorenzo said the Russo name should never have been given to someone not of Russo blood. You were not going to survive the takeover.” He grins at Sage with glee, so I pull back my fist and punch him in the face. He starts to laugh, blood flowing from his nose.
“But the funniest thing is, both Lorenzo and Mario are plotting against one another. People forget the insignificant chemist is in the room and tend to talk about things they shouldn’t. Both of them have plans to take one another out. I can’t wait to see who will win.”
I tut sympathetically at him. “If you think you’re going to be around to see that, then you are delusional.”
I grab my blood encrusted knife from where I placed it on the countertop and walk a circle around the chemist, running the blade from the corner of his eye to the corner of his mouth. I don’t cut him, but he gets the idea. “What should I take first? The tongue that spews such awful words, or the eyes that covet everything they shouldn’t?” I ask Sage conversationally, and Anthony starts thrashing his head, almost impaling his own eye with his desperation.
“No, stop! I’m useful. I know things.”
I pull the knife away and gesture for him to go on.
“Uh, um, they are bringing in meth and fentanyl in the hopes they can distribute here. They have a deal with the Mexican cartel. The cartel provided the drugs in exchange for warm bodies they can sell.”
I assume an exaggerated pout. “Boo, we already knew all of that. You will have to do better,” I tell him.
His eyes roll around in their sockets in his panic to give me some kind of useful information.
Sage yawns and stretches. “I know you’ve been dying to do some cutting, but do you think we can get a move on? I’m getting hungry.”
I gape at him in wonder. “But you had a huge breakfast.”
He pats his flat stomach. “But I’m a growing boy, and I need my energy for fun times.” He winks at me, and I shake my head at him.
“Whore.” I guess Anthony gave up on trying to recall some useful information for me. I suppose he wasn’t as important as he thought he was.
“Sticks and stones, Anthony. Sticks and stones. Shaming someone for their sexual proclivities is low class. It smacks of jealousy. I bet if I was bending over for you, you wouldn’t be calling me a whore.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Sage mutters.
“Okay, well, I guess you’re in luck, Anthony. I’m feeling pretty fucking generous today. I’ve had a pretty outstanding start to my morning, so I’m going to take it easy on you.” I see him sag a little in his chair as some of the tension bleeds out of him and frown. “Oh no, that was not a cue for you to relax.” I reach forward and yank the forceps out of his leg.
His screams fill the warehouse like a symphony caressing my ears. I straddle his legs and lean over to whisper in his ear.
“Wait, wait, please. I know where they are keeping the people for the shipment. I can show you,” he pleads, snot and tears streaming down his face. I pause and tilt my head to the side.
“How do you know?” I ask curiously.
“I dropped the last shipment of drugs off there. It’s not far from here.” He rattles off the same address that was on the noteleft on my car, and another rush of adrenaline runs through my body. We are finally getting somewhere. I’ll still check it out tonight, but hopefully I can call Agent Garcia tomorrow and put all of that drama behind us, but first, I need to deal with this disgusting worm.
“You played fast and hard and lost, Anthony. You betrayed someone I care about very much, and that makes me mad. For that, you will lose your tongue.” He clamps his mouth shut, but I stick my knife between his lips, and he has no choice but to open them wide. I slide the bloody forceps into his mouth and clasp them around his tongue, yanking it out. He gags and flails his body, but I just pin him down with my weight and use the knife to sever the flesh. I wrinkle my nose at the bloody chunk of meat when it’s been detached and toss the forceps onto the ground as blood pools in Anthony’s mouth. He starts to choke on his own blood, and the grunts and groans coming from him sound wet and kind of gross.
I climb off his lap and look down at myself. Unfortunately, severing someone’s tongue is a little messy, and blood is splattered all over me. Thankfully I’m wearing all black, so I won’t be walking around like a Jackson Pollock painting.
“Okay, he’ll be dead by the time the cleanup crew arrives,” I tell Sage, wiping my knife on Anthony’s shirt in a spot where there is no blood. I depress the hinge and fold the blade over. I’ll clean it later tonight.
“Huh, I’ve never seen you do that before.” Sage looks a little pale as he watches Anthony’s eyes flutter, and he starts to lose consciousness. He’ll either bleed out or choke on his own blood, so my work here is done.
“To be honest, I don’t do it very often, because as you can see, they die pretty quickly after their tongue is severed. Usually, I like to drag it out, but we have things to do today. I want to drive past that address and get an idea of what we are walking intotonight, and we probably shouldn’t do it from the limo. We need something inconspicuous.”
“Hang on, I have an idea.” Sage wrinkles his nose but shoves his hand into Anthony’s pocket and pulls out a set of keys.
“He has a POS he drives here so no one sees his flashy car and gets tempted to boost it. No one will recognize us, and it won’t matter that you’re covered in blood splatter. Afterwards, we can go to the hotel, and you can change in our apartment there.” He swings the keys around his finger.
“Good thinking.” I give him a kiss on the cheek before washing my hands and the outside of my knife. Pulling some paper towels off the roll, I dry both before tucking the knife back into my cleavage. I pat the blood splatter with more damp towel, but it doesn’t do anything.
“Ugh, it’s going to have to do. I don’t think I’ll get any on the car.”
“If you do, we’ll ask the cleanup crew to make it look like he was in a car accident. They can make it appear like he severed his tongue in the crash. Maybe push it down a ravine somewhere.”
