Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AURORA
T he call came in two hours ago and I gave the order to go in thirty minutes after that. Sinclair and Benedict are with Leandro’s team at the safe house, and Enzo took some convincing to sit this one out and stay at the house. He’s coordinating the back up teams should we need them.
Nico and I are on our way to a new lock up Etta has been getting ready for our guest. She’s been flexing her creative muscles, designing some more discrete and easier to clean wet rooms for us around the city. When she was describing the ones she already had up and running, this one seemed like it had an element of poetic justice about it.
It’s in the bones of an old small-scale chop shop. Bigger than a garage and smaller than a warehouse, it’s in the arches of an overpass on the South side. The area is rough as fuck, but we’re still the scariest things here, so we’ll be left to our own devices by the locals.
As we drive, my calm has slowly dissolved and been replaced with a rage that flows through my veins like molten lava, elevating my temper to pressure levels of volcanic proportion. And Manny will bear the brunt of my wrath.
His betrayal was absolute and the penalty will be his slow and painful death.
We pull up and see Etta waiting for us with the shutters open. Driving in, we park off to the side, leaving room for Leandro’s team when they arrive. There’s nothing else to do other than wait for what’s coming.
I turn to Nico. He’s driven in silence the whole way. He knows me well enough by now to know when I can be pushed and when I need space. “You’re going to help me get everything we can from him. You have free rein to hurt him for as long as is necessary,” I say, with a gravel in my voice I barely recognise, “but that man's life is mine to take. Tell me you understand, Nico? I need your best work and your most solemn promise.”
“I promise, phoenix. I’ll make sure you can bathe in his blood if it’s what you need,” he replies, bowing his head like he’s some steadfast knight bound to my command. The air between us is heavy and I feel like it’s wrapping itself around me in slow, undulating currents.
I reach out and fist his shirt as he pounces on me. He presses his lips to mine and runs his tongue along the seam of mine to tease them open. He nips and bites until I relent. It’s staggering how quickly he can undo me. I’m panting as I pull away from him. “There’s time for this later. Right now, I need your game face on. Go open the tailgate so we can unload the toys.”
“Only you would call G-clamps and a baseball bat full of rusty nails, toys,” he chuckles as he pops his door open and heads out of the pick-up. I have to hop down from the running board along the side. While this car is practical, it’s a bitch to get in and out of if you’re not six foot tall.
I take the file Sinclair provided me from the footwell and head to the back, where I find Nico already retrieving what we need. I decide to leave him to it since I know he likes to have his tools laid out in a specific order. Instead, I go to find Etta, flipping the pages of the file as I go, scanning everything we dug up on Manny.
“Welcome to the chop shop, boss,” Etta says with a smile.
“You’re liking that name a little too much, Etta,” I reply with a soft chuckle.
“Well, in my defence, you’re the one who approved my designs for a custom disposal suite.”
“True. And you’ll get to use it to its full potential for the first time today.”
“The sooner this dog is put down, the better. It will be my pleasure to dispose of his body when you’re through with him,” she says, venom dripping off every syllable she utters.
“Are you going to wait? We may be some time.”
“I need to head to the house he was holed up in and supervise the clean-up there. Can’t leave anything for the De Luca’s to find. We have eight hours till the next shift change, so we have time to be thorough.”
She bows her head, and I reciprocate. While I’m completely comfortable in my position as don, the gestures and marks of respect take a little getting used to. After years of being a second-class citizen in my own home, I never dreamed I’d be back in the heart of the Bianchi family and honoured in this way.
The sacrifice I made marrying that monster was worth it.
The living hell I suffered bought the Bianchi organisation four years of peace, and despite the price we’ve paid, we’re now in a position to wipe our biggest threat off the map. There’s no way I’ll let my cunt of a husband live to see another year. I’m the organisation’s best chance at wiping the De Lucas out of existence, and my capos are backing me all the way.
It doesn’t take more than a few minutes after Etta’s car leaves for the truck we’ve been waiting for to pull in. Benny and Sinclair jump out of the back and pull the chop shop shutters down. It doesn’t matter if it’s minutes, hours, or days, my heart always pounds a little harder when any of them return to me. Now’s not the time or the place to smile and jump into their arms, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.
Leandro emerges from the cab of the truck and heads straight towards me, hitting me with the same deferential head bob. “Gabriella’s information was faultless. We were in and out within ten minutes, with one hundred per cent accuracy. There were no runners, we contained all the guards on the property ready for Etta’s team.”
“Impressive. Your father was right to recommend you for this position, cousin.”
Leandro’s eyes snap to mine like he’s shocked I would bestow him with such a compliment. “I don’t know why you’re so surprised. Your father extolled your virtues to my father for years. You were always on his radar,” I explain, trying to put him at ease.
“I guess I just never figured I would get the chance within The Syndicate.”
“The Syndicate is dead now, as are many of the archaic, nepotistic traditions.”
He laughs at that and replies, “I’m your cousin.”
“Meh, second cousin.” I shrug. “But you’re fucking good at the job I’ve assigned you. If you weren’t, I’d move you,” I say with an air of humour that cushions my words without undermining the message. No one’s position is guaranteed for life anymore, nor should it be. It breeds contempt and stagnation .
Leandro nods, and I pull him in for a loose hug, patting him on the back. “Now get out of here. You’re not going to want to see this next bit.” As skilled as he is, torture is not his wheelhouse. Last time he saw Nico at work, I swear I saw him go green.
He bangs on the side of the truck and I hear movement and the scrape of something dragging along the floor. Seconds later, two of Leandro’s men practically toss Manny out of the back into the waiting arms of Benny and Sin. The disdain on their faces as Benny and Sin look him in the eye is a force to be reckoned with. I catch the flinch as Manny tries not to buckle under their scrutiny. He’s never looked smaller to me than he does right now. Bound and gagged, wearing boxers and a ratty-looking tank with scraggly greying chest hair poking above the neckline. His face is drawn and his hair greasy and lank, like he should have showered before now. I expected more from him.
Sin and Benny pull him to the centre of the room while I operate the shutters to let Leandro and his men out before following my target to the scene we have waiting for him. I stop at Nico’s neatly arranged table of toys and run my fingers along the selection, and then I drop the folder next to them.
“Hold him tight and turn him round, boys.”
With my selection made, I go to stand at Manny’s back, dropping the thick length of chain at my feet before I rip the duct tape from his mouth. Picking it back up, I loop the heavy metal around his neck, locking a padlock firmly in place. Just tight enough to make sure it squeezes uncomfortably, threatening to choke him every time he swallows.
I don’t speak as I pull on the end of the chain and lead him like the dog he is, to position him exactly where I want him. He resists, pulling back and looking like he instantly regrets it when the metal links tighten and bite into his flesh. “Help our guest, please.”
Sin drags him forward, stopping under the hoist. Manny’s eyes widen when he sees it, the realisation of how truly fucked he is obviously sinking in.
I hand the end of the chain to Nico, flicking my eyes up to the galvanised metal loop bolted into the joist in the ceiling. Being the mountain of a man that he is, it doesn’t take much for Nico to reach up and thread the chain through. He pulls harshly yanking Manny away from Sin’s hold and then securing the end to a hook on the side of the lock up. They’re designed to take the weight of an engine block, so tethering a traitor won’t be a challenge.
Manny’s forced to stand on the balls of his feet, unable to put his heels down. He looks like a yard dog, and I’m about to make him beg for scraps.
I don’t want to start in a manner he’s expecting, and I want him to underestimate me. Picking the folder back up, I flick through the pages, making a show of deciding where to start with him. I drag my index finger through the endless notes before playfully tapping on my starting point.
“So tell me about Teresa, Manny,” I ask in my cheeriest tone. His brows furrow in confusion but that doesn’t stop me continuing. “How long did you know that Salvatore was fucking Benedict’s mother?”
That was an interesting little titbit Sinclair dug up. He found out Salvatore was sleeping with a capo’s wife but it was only by digging through Manny’s emails he found out who it was. Manny was keeping tabs on them, I’m assuming so he could report back to Max. I can see Benny in my peripheral vision, clenching his jaw at his mother’s name. Although things are good with his siblings since his father’s death, he refuses to see her. She stood by his father when he disowned him and unlike Etta and Luc, never made an effort to reach out to him. In his mind, she’s dead to him.
That doesn’t mean he’s unaffected, hearing about her fucking a traitor.
“I don’t know what you’re talking abo—” he spits out, cutting off his last word because he over-balances and the leash acts like a choke chain around his neck.
I approach him slowly and hook a finger under his chin, making sure I dig my long talon as far into his jowly neck as possible. “Now, now. Be careful, I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself.”
Gripping his face firmly in one hand, my fingers grip his cheeks extending his neck to its limit. “Teresa, how long?”
“She was just his weekly fuck.”
I step back to consult the file, which has details of exactly when Teresa first started seeing Salvatore De Luca. “She was seeing him for two years, and it would seem you started monitoring her about six months ago. Sending reports on times and locations to an unknown email address.”
“She’s irrelevant. She was too fucking stupid to recognise that she was just a convenient cunt with a loose tongue. Ultimately, she was fucking worthless, just like you are, princess,” he spits, his voice dripping with venomous disdain.
The moniker doesn’t impact me like it used to, but his words irritate me enough to pull back my arm, close my fist, and put my full weight behind the punch I throw, instantly breaking his nose. His spluttering protests cause his nostrils to act like some sort of macabre sprinkler, spraying mists of blood down his white shirt, forcing me to jump back to avoid the spatter.
Shit , that’s going to stain.
I shrug out of my pale button-down shirt, leaving me in only my black tank and dark cargo pants. What can I say? I’m a sucker for pockets. Practical for both extra knives and lip balm.
“That would explain why she confessed so easily then,” I taunt, adding a playful lilt to my tone. He tries to reply but chokes on the blood obviously pooling in his mouth, forcing him to spit out what he can’t swallow.
When we uncovered proof that Teresa was communicating with Salvatore, we sent Stefano around to discuss it with her. Bearing in mind her precarious position fucking, not only a Bianchi traitor but also his puppet master, she started talking quicker than a rapper on speed. Aside from confirming that she was feeding Salvatore information on her husband, there wasn’t much she knew that was useful to us.
I don’t give a shit that she was as disloyal as her husband. What I want to know is why Manny was keeping tabs on their affair, because it sure as shit wasn’t for my father.
“About as easily as you opened your legs for these mongrels, I would imagine,” Manny hisses out once he’s caught his breath.
I lift my hand to halt the guys. I can see them seething, ready to tear him to pieces for his insolence. He’s trying to bait us. More specifically me into losing my temper, but just like every other misogynist prick I’ve known, he’s underestimating me. I broke his nose because I wanted to, not because I was losing control of my emotions. If I can withstand Max De Luca, there’s nothing this asshole can do to me that would touch the sides of the endless well of patience I have.
“After years of loyalty, why choose a De Luca over my father?” I couldn’t give two shits about what his reasons are. He’s not a difficult man to figure out. The answer is power coupled with a complete lack of loyalty. He’s a man with no honour and I couldn’t care less why he thinks he deserved more than he had .
“Fuck you,” is the only response I get.
I head back to grab one of the crowbars we brought. Swinging it in a lackadaisical fashion from the hooked end like Gene Kelly with his umbrella in Singing in the Rain . I return and slowly walk around him in circles. He spins himself on the chain, keeping his eyes on me while simultaneously trying to avoid choking himself.
It’s time to get down to business.
“Were you working for Max all along, or did you only hitch your wagon to his once he killed his father? Did you betray one don or two?”
Nothing.
I swing, cracking the flat of the bar across his ribs. He howls.
“One.” Swing. “Or.” Swing. “Two?” Swing.
He’s coughing up blood and I step back, letting his little crimson fountain display run its course. I roll my shoulders before faking another swing, watching him flinch but at the last moment, I kick his legs out from under him and his eyes bulge as the chain pulls taut, forcing him to scramble to get his feet back under him.
“Your turn,” I say to Nico and Sin and they seem to understand the assignment, taking turns holding him up while the other strikes his face and body mercilessly.
Manny lasts longer than I thought he would, but he ultimately folds like we all expected. I would die before I betrayed those I love. But maybe that's the point. This cunt doesn’t love anyone more than he loves himself.
“Stop, please stop,” he cries out weakly. “I’ll tell you.”
I hold up my hand and the beating stops instantly. “I’m listening.”
“Max, it was always Max.” Manny is wheezing hard, sounding like a broken set of bagpipes that rattle and moan in all the wrong tones. “When his father started turning your father’s capos to his cause, Max decided that to out-manoeuvre him, his best bet was to have someone further up the Bianchi food chain in his corner.”
“You’re all as bad as each other. Fighting over scraps of power with no thought for the organisation you run, for the people who work for you and depend on you,” I grate. “Never mind the betrayal of my father. You betrayed every one of your men when you traded your support to Max.”
Manny’s eyes darken. “Like I would ever take orders from a cunt and her bastards,” he screams, stopping himself only to hack the blood pooling in his throat and spit it at my feet.
Twat. I like these boots.
I plaster a malevolent smile across my features, happy to have riled him. So I continue to pick at his unravelling threads. “You’re such a fucking idiot, Manny. All these years I’ve overestimated you. Aligning yourself with Max De Luca was idiotic and thinking you would benefit in any way from it was even more ridiculous. If there’s one thing I know about my husband, it’s that he doesn’t play well with others. Did you honestly think he would ever trust you enough to elevate you to be his underboss? You, a man who betrayed his closest friend of forty fucking years for what was essentially a promise of a fraction more power?”
“ You’re fucking wrong .” He screams it so loudly it bounces off the stone walls for a few seconds after he’s finished.
“I mean, it’s obvious how much he trusts you based on how involved you are in his organisation right now.”
“He was keeping me safe.” His voice cracks and breaks under the strain of his emotion.
“He was keeping you out of his way. The only value you have now is based on how much you know about his current plans, and I’m beginning to think you’re fucking worthless to me. Do you have any information on his current plans, Manny?”
“You won’t get anything from me.”
I can see how much my words are affecting him by the way his fists clench, and the muscle in his jaw ticks. It won’t take much more to break him—for him to tell us everything he knows.
But where’s the fun in that?
I pick up the discarded duct tape and reposition it over his mouth. “I don’t think I want to hear any more from you right now,” I say as I ruffle his greasy hair. “Time for Nico to have some fun with you.”
I sneer as I wipe my hands against my top, eager to get the feel of him off me. His eyes flare wide, and fear rolls off him in waves, filling me with a glorious sense of satisfaction.
“Mind if I play with some of your toys, phoenix?” he asks, wrapping his arm around me from behind and dipping his chin to my shoulder. “I really want to see how far I can push him.”
I settle my hands on him and pat his forearms. “Go nuts, mio mostro. He’s all yours.”