Unforgivable Ties

Chapter 13

Vincenzo

T oday was a very important day. I had been out of commission since I had gotten shot, but now I was healed and ready to get back out there. I was sick of only doing boring shit like shipping organs out and meeting business partners over dinner.

Tonight I was getting revenge on the leader of the small street gang who shot me. Hell, he would have killed me if Stephanie didn’t find me. I was pissed over that, and that he thought he could steal a shipment of meth from us, when he was just a nobody.

It was finally time to get revenge. Felix and Rocco were coming with me for a personalized visit to his apartment. The man would surely have upped his security—it was only a matter of time before we paid him a visit.

Fuck, I didn’t even remember the guy’s name. Ricky? That was how small of a distributor they were to us. But it wasn’t about the meth. It was about setting a precedent for all the other distributors.

Felix, Rocco, and I hung in the shadows, assessing what security he had around his apartment. There were just two men hanging out by the front door—it looked like he was more interested in keeping people inside.

“Let’s take the stairwell,” I said, motioning the two men around the building.

These guys were idiots and had placed no security in the back. Just because there wasn’t a door, didn’t mean we couldn’t get in. Rocco and I pushed a dumpster under the fire escape, while Felix hopped on top and pulled the ladder down. Then, the three of us silently climbed the fire escape.

“I think this is the window to the hall,” I said, trying to peer through it. All the glass was tinted, and it was near impossible to see. I shoved a piece of metal under it and jimmied it until it popped open.

Fuck. It wasn’t the hall window. It was a living room window. Fortunately, it was empty, and there were no signs of the owner being around. I motioned to Felix and Rocco, silently telling them to follow me.

We traversed the dimly lit living room, stepping over scattered beer cans and dirty clothes. This place was a dump. As I was turning the lock, there was a small voice from behind us.

“Daddy?” a little girl asked.

She couldn’t have been older than three. Her pajamas were dirty, and there was no sign of her parents in sight.

“He’ll be home soon,” Felix lied. “Now go to your room and wait for him.”

“Ok,” she responded, rubbing her tired eyes.

We weren’t above killing kids. We’d done it before. But all those kids were related to men who had severely wronged us, and we executed the whole family with them. There was no way any of us would ever kill an innocent kid.

The three of us walked silently down the hall, myself in front, with Felix covering the rear. We communicated through hand signals, not knowing where Ricky had placed his security.

I got my answer when I opened the door to the stairwell. A man was there who was supposed to be on duty, but he was distracted by his phone. I rushed him and slit his throat before he could even react.

We were at a disadvantage, coming up from the bottom like this. My friends and I would just have to be careful as we made our way up.

After years of being in the mafia, we had mastered walking silently. We hugged the walls, striking the men stationed in the stairway like a viper. Finally, we reached the top.

“He’s the door on the left,” I said quietly, before opening the stairwell.

I had foreseen that he would have men stationed outside. My pistol with a silencer was ready, and I took out the men swiftly and without hesitation. Blood splattered on the old wallpaper, a gruesome contrast to the floral pattern.

As I crept closer to the door, I felt Felix and Rocco’s silent presence behind me. Their breathing was muffled by the tense air of impending violence. We reached the thin wooden door that separated us from Ricky. I locked eyes with Felix and Rocco, the silent acknowledgment passing between us that, beyond this threshold, only chaos awaited.

I kicked in the door, the wood easily splintering under the power of my strike. The room was dark, the only light coming from the flickering TV screen showing a muted football game. The man himself was sprawled across a large leather couch, a half-empty bottle of whisky in one hand and a remote in the other. A girl laid across him, high on who knows what.

Ricky barely registered our presence before I was across the room. I pushed the woman off of him, her body hitting the floor like a rag doll, and pinned Ricky to the couch beneath my knee.

The woman stood up and hit my back, trying to get me off of him, but Rocco dragged her back by the hair. She screamed as he roughly yanked her away, her high-pitched yells echoing off the grimy walls.

“Hey, leave my wife out of it, man!” Ricky said, panic in his eyes.

“Oh, that’s your wife?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. Ricky was about to learn what happened when he messed with us. “Felix, if you would.”

Felix put his pistol to her head and pulled the trigger. Blood spattered against the walls and carpet, and Rocco let go of her limp body. He shot Felix a “watch it” look, that he had put the gun a little too close to his hand, and his brother shrugged in response.

“What the fuck?” Ricky gasped, tears running down his face. “What in the actual fuck!”

“You’re lucky we didn’t make her suffer,” I said, glaring at him. “I can’t say the same for you.”

I dug my knee deeper into his chest, cutting off his air supply. He squirmed in panic, clawing helplessly at my leg. The fear in his eyes was a look I had seen many times before in my life and one that never failed to stir some sort of deep, primal satisfaction in me.

I quickly released my knee and grabbed him by the back of his head, propelling his body forward and slamming him into the coffee table. The glass shattered beneath the weight, shards piercing his skin as he screamed in pain. I couldn’t help but smile; there was an artistry in extracting pain that only few could appreciate.

Ricky squirmed on the floor, his blood mixing in with the broken glass.

“I’m sorry, man! Whatever you need, I’ll get it to you!” he gasped, fear prevalent in his eyes.

“I don’t need anything, Ricky,” I said darkly, my boot covering his throat. “I want to teach you a lesson for what you did to us. But you won’t be alive to remember it.”

His hand reached out and grabbed my boot, desperately struggling to remove the pressure from his windpipe. I was relentless, immovable. I pressed harder, cutting off his air supply entirely. The sounds of his groans were replaced by those of desperate gasps for air.

I let my foot off his throat, and he gulped down air, like a man dying of thirst getting a drink of water. Then, I took my knife and stabbed both of his eyes, blinding him before he could register what had happened.

“The last thing you see and hear,” I said calmy. “Will be me.”

Then, I punched the man so hard in his ears I deafened him. Ricky screamed in agony, thrashing wildly on the floor, his hands reaching out in the darkness I had cast him into. His pleading words now came out in a broken, guttural rasp. I could see his jaw working frantically, trying to scream, but no sound came out.

“Alright,” I said to Rocco and Felix. “Let’s call it a night.”

I shot Ricky and silenced him for good.

“You want to torch the place?” Felix asked, ever the arsonist.

I thought of the little girl alone in the lower unit. Did anyone come home? Would she make it out?

“No,” I said, putting my gun back in my holster. “Let’s leave it.”