The Italian mafia was serious.
Really fucking serious; it meant war.
“A hundred percent, brother.” He looked back at Shooter. “We got the cops on the payroll to check phone records of people in the area that night, linked it up to their men. Followed them for a few days, hacked their phones, and heard talk. Realized it was connected to the new buyers we’ve been in talks with. Told you they were from Cali, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, my scowl growing deeper.
“Big pockets, big connections, and an even bigger risk. But the payroll was worth it. Italian mafia found out and wanted in on our territory. Thought they could take out a couple of our guys and scare us off. They want our product. They want our buyers, and they want us gone.” He ran a tattooed hand down his beard, his face lined with worry.
“There’s more?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Yeah, this is where shit starts to get fucked up.” Shooter looked to Casa, who took a step closer.
“I found talk on the dark web…about that night,” he began, and I froze, dread seeping into my blood and turning it to ice. “I followed some leads and traced some shit and…” Casa stopped talking, dragging a hand over his shaved head before looking at me. “It was filmed, brother,” he said, his voice filled with apology and dismay.
“What was?” I asked with a heavy scowl, but then I knew, and I wished I didn’t.
“That night. Everything was filmed. Echo, you…all of it.” Casa cracked his knuckles and swallowed. “I’ve taken it down, but…” His words trailed off.
Dread hit my stomach like a lead balloon and I sat back down on the edge of my bed, feeling dizzy. Being tortured for hours was bad enough, but knowing that there were videos of it out there and people were watching it. Getting off on my pain. My screams. My nightmares…Echo’s death.
“Show me,” I said, my conviction weak as I looked down at the floor, shame marring every word I spoke.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, brother,” Gauge stepped in. “You did good. You never broke. You never gave shit away. You did yourself and the Highwaymen proud. There’s no shame in it, brother.”
“You watched it,” I said, my words hollow.
It shouldn’t have mattered, yet it did.
I’d relived that night a hundred times over, maybe more, and every time it morphed and changed into something worse, something more bloody and violent. My screams got more agonizing, the pain was more excruciating, the night darker, blacker, the fire brighter, hotter. And the screaming of the horses filled every space in between.
“Beast, you did good,” Shooter said.
I looked back up. “I want to see,” I growled, my tone darkening, “and then we’re going to take these motherfuckers out, one by one.”
“There’s another…complication,” Shooter said, interrupting my tirade. “The prospect says you and that nurse of yours have been gettin’ close.”
I scowled over at the prospect. “I fired her this morning.”
“How close did you get?” Gauge asked.
“What the fuck does she have to do with anything?”
Shooter dragged his hand over his short beard again, a nervous tic that he’d developed in the past couple a years, and I knew that things were about to get even worse. “Well, seems she’s been seeing someone.”
“I know,” I snapped. “Lorenzo or some shit. Just met him in the hallway downstairs. He’s a piece of shit fancy fuckboy. What does that have to do with anything?”
Gauge and Shooter exchanged a look.
“Can someone enlighten me!” I yelled, growing more and more pissed off by the second. I didn’t like being kept in the dark; it was normally my job to find out that sort of information, and being on the receiving end of it was bullshit.
“He’s Lorenzo Bianchi,” Shooter said, “younger brother of Mateo and Carlos Bianchi, who help run the mafia’s crew in Atlanta.”
The world stopped on its axis momentarily, the second turning into a minute and turning into a life sentence. My head spun at the news and everything that it meant. The splitting headache I’d woken up with grew so loud that my eyeballs throbbed.
“So, I need to ask you again, brother,” Gauge said, coming forward. “How close did you get to the nurse? Because we’re wondering if she might have been in on the whole thing from the start, and if so, she’s going to ground just like everyone else involved.”
I shook my head, stunned. Belle couldn’t have been in on it, could she? Had she been playing me with her good girl act the whole time?
