Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83776 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83776 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
“At this point I’m basically a moneypig for her,” he grunts as he rolls the BMW down the bumpy driveway heading toward the warehouse.
“The fuck is a moneypig?”
He parks and kills the engine. “You know that dom/sub financial shit?”
I get out of the truck and he follows. “No fucking clue what you’re talking about.”
“It’s like a sexual kink, right? The guys get off on being like abused and shit, like it’s some arrangement where the moneypig gives some fucking dominatrix cash and shit, I guess? I’m not doing a good job at explaining it.”
I stand in front of the trunk. The banging’s gone quiet, which is a bad sign. “If you’re trying to say that Mia drains you and gives you nothing in return, I’ve been trying to tell you that for fucking years.”
Bruno groans and puts his face in his hands. He’s so goddamn dramatic sometimes. “What am I gonna do, Davide? I love the girl. I really fucking love her. But I can’t get so much as a blowjob, bro. I’m serious, I’m like humping the goddamn furniture at this point, I’m so horny.”
I rub my face very slowly. “Bruno, don’t tell me how horny you are ever again. I’m not even kidding.”
He goes on about how Mia’s killing him while I pop the trunk, and he doesn’t even skip a beat when a full-grown man tries to throw himself out onto the pavement.
I step back and watch it happen. The guy twists, grunting with effort, and flops onto the fucking blacktop like a dying fish. He moans in pain, his mouth gagged with cloth and duct tape, and hands and ankles bound by zip-ties. He struggles to get to his feet, and I kick him hard in the stomach until he stops resisting.
“You ever think about, I don’t know, finding a new girl?” I ask him as I take the guy by the arms and he takes the ankles. The fucker starts twisting again and doesn’t stop until I drop him on the ground. His head hits hard and bounces once, and that’s enough to make him stop.
“Every fucking day,” Bruno says. We carry the load into the warehouse, up the back stairs, and toward the pleasure dome. Three rooms are marked for our enjoyment with numbers one, two, and three, each circled in a little heart. That’s Angelo’s sick sense of humor. “But whenever I try it, she draws me back in by making me dinner or fucking putting on some lingerie or shit. Maybe that’s what I gotta do. Withhold money until the blowjobs return.”
“Bruno, my brother, you have a seriously twisted relationship,” I say as I kick open door number two. We bundle the guy onto a chair sitting over a lone drain. The floor and walls are covered in tarps, and a table’s set out with implements of the trade: knives, scissors, pliers, lighters.
Our guest is only half-conscious, but he’s aware enough of his situation that he’s trembling hard enough to rattle the whole floor. His name is Orlando Gallo, and we picked the bastard up when he left his favorite bar an hour earlier. He wasn’t even hard to track down. We’ve been keeping tabs on him and his entire crew for months now, and the stupid cocksucker finally did something worth punishing him for.
“I’m going to ask you one question. I’m going to ask it, over and over, until you answer it.” I lean over him and stare into his eyes. He knows who I am; he knows what coming to this room means. “Who ordered you to sink those ships?”
I don’t wait for him to say anything. I start with the knives, draw some blood, carve him up a bit, before finally taking off the duct tape and letting him spit out the cloth.
“Santoro,” he moans the instant his mouth is free. “Fuck, please, stop hurting me. I would’ve told you an hour ago. Santoro made me do it. It’s been Santoro and his fucking goons.”
I look at Bruno and toss the knife down in disgust. “He could’ve at least made me work for it.”
“Selfish prick,” Bruno says, nodding in agreement.
I check my watch. It’s a little past three in the morning and I haven’t checked in with Stefania for a while. I assume she’s asleep, but I have the sudden urge to go back home and check on her. Uncle Luciano’s been quiet for a while, but this sudden escalation of our quietly simmering war is extremely bad news. I had hoped to get those Rossi guns before Santoro made his move, but now there’s no time to wait for the first shipment. We have to return fire and quickly.
“Thank you for the information,” I say and plunge a knife into his chest. Any other time, and I would’ve spent the evening cutting, twisting, ripping, and tearing him into ever-finer pieces and pushing him for every scrap of information he had, no matter how important.