Fight Me Little Pearl

Chapter 6

Chapter Six

VALENTINO

“ S omeone has been siphoning the olive oil off our trucks,” Marlboro explains as we walk to the basement where the captured man is kept.

“Diluted or undiluted?”

He grimaces. “Undiluted. They’ve been stealing in doses that are small enough to put down to wastage and careless spillage, but it is starting to add up.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” My fury is with Francesca, but I’m getting ready to dump it all on everyone else since I can’t take it out on her.

“The situation is under control. It’s not enough to cause alarm ye?—”

“When someone touches my shit, you tell me. You are not the Boss, I am. I make the decisions on what’s not enough to cause alarm. You hear me?”

“I’m sorry, Boss.”

“Continue…”

“I got a tip that it was the Moretti gang so when my men found Alban driving in our territory, we picked him up. He may have information on what Boga is doing with our stuff and which of our men are making it a possibility.”

“Take me to him.”

Marlboro rushes forward, pushing the basement door open to reveal a room with a meat hook hanging from the ceiling, a table with shiny instruments of torture laid out on it, and two chairs, one pushed against the wall and the other, badly stained and cemented to the floor. A man in his mid-twenties is tied to the stained chair. He has a busted lip, but that’s it. Since he’s been left fairly unharmed, he still looks cocky. He smirks when I walk in and I see immediately that he is high on something.

“Oh, look,” he taunts. “If it isn’t Silent Night himself, and here I am thinking I don’t matter.”

I snap my fingers, and someone appears with a chair. I straddle it, leaning my chin against the headrest as I look at Alban. He’s smiling, but it’s false bravado. That’s the problem with drugs. First, you think you’re invincible, then one taste of pain, and you become totally and absolutely paranoid with the conviction that someone is going to flay you alive.

“You are right. You don’t matter,” I say quietly.

“Fuck you.” He spits, sending bubbles of smelly saliva my way. The gob lands on the floor a few feet away from the chair I’m sitting on.

“No one will sit at the gambling table with your boss because he is a cock-sucking, cowardly thief, but you know that, seeing you’re one of the pathetic losers he uses to do his dirty business.” I push myself to my feet. In my head, Francesca is wearing a red silk dress as she storms away from me. She’s so fucking fine. Damn her for not letting me touch her.

“I know nothing about a stolen stash,” Alban shouts, just as I hoped he would.

I hold out my hand, and Vance appears beside me with an open toolbox. I play the game. Expectation is everything in moments like this. Delicately, I skim the array of tools and my fingers caress the glinting metal, before I pick a pliers. I see Alban’s eyes melt with fear as his drug-fueled swagger deserts him. I’m almost disappointed. I haven’t even started, and he’s already giving up. He’s worse than a fucking deckchair.

“I’ll ask you just once.” I glance at Alban as I run my fingers over the small pliers. “What does Bogo want with my oil?”

Alban hesitates, but not for long. There is the beginnings of real fear in his eyes. “I don’t know anything about stolen oil, I swear. I’m just a nobody.”

I nod and capture one of his fingers in my grip. He squirms and tries to pull back, but it’s hard to do that when your forearms are bound to the chair.

“Wait. Wait. Please,” he begs desperately. Beads of sweat are forming on his forehead, but he has not crossed over into pure terror country yet. “I don’t know nothing. Nobody tells me anything. I was just driving around and I got lost.”

I sigh. “If you plan to walk out of here alive you better start talking.”

“Just wait. Just wait a minute,” he yells. The idiot is stalling. Wasting my time.

I capture one of his fingernails with the pliers and before he even knows what has happened, I’ve ripped the nail off and exposed the nail bed. It is white for a second before it turns red as blood rushes out. Alban howls and writhes in pain.

“Can someone bring me some salt?” I ask. Maybe Francesca is right. I am a madman.

“Okay, okay, stop,” he screams in a panic. Urine flows down the chair legs and forms a yellow puddle. Good. He has crossed over into terror territory. “I don’t know why my boss is stealing your oil. We were just following instructions. Please, Don Barone, you have to believe me. I’m not lying. I’m not high enough in the pecking order to know anything. I just take the drums I’m told to take. That’s all.”

“You mean you steal my oil?” I ask softly, looking down at his hands.

“Me, I’ve only picked up about ten drums. I can pay you back for them. I can work for you. Anything you want. Just say it.” His eyes plead for the forgiveness that he knows will not come.

“Where do you take the stolen drums to?”

“We drop the drums off at Biovéne Health warehouse, West of the Valera. I know they are shipped, but I don’t know where to.” Alban meets my gaze. “Please, that’s all I know.”

I slip my hand into my pocket and touch the golden bracelet. “Which members of my team help to make this work?”

“I don’t know. The only names I have are Jerome and Alejandro. They take the stash off us.” He shakes his head as I loom over him. “Please, that’s everything. That’s the truth, I swear it.”

“If we catch you again, you’re a dead man. Now go tell your boss if he pinches another ounce of my oil, I’m coming for him. And for what he’s already taken, I’ll be sending him a bill with interest for it.”

I turned away from his sorry sight. Bogo needed to be taken care of and I had other pressing matters to attend to, but they all seemed far away and unimportant.