Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 118965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
My uncle clamps his lips shut, but the creases on his forehead don’t even out. He’s always been the cautious one, the handbrake of the family. My father called him careful. I call him a coward.
I don’t dislike my uncles, but I don’t have any special affection for them either. My feelings toward them are neutral. Of late, I’m finding it harder to respect them. Maybe that’s because my father dealt with them. I never had to work with them directly. I merely had to tolerate them. The only reason they’re still a part of the business is because we’re of the same blood, and I owe them respect as members of our family. I owe it to my father’s memory.
Unable to stand another minute of my uncle’s whining, I address Gianni. “Where did you spot him?”
Gianni glances at me from behind his long fringe. “He was snooping around the warehouses on the docks, taking pictures with his phone.” He turns a phone to me and swipes a finger over the screen, scrolling through a collection of photos of the warehouses from different angles. Some images feature the fence and the gate. Others show the security team patrolling the property. “We caught him in the parking lot behind the boatyard.”
I nod at the man who guards the entrance. He pulls back the bolt and opens the door.
“Go on,” I tell Gianni.
He gives me a startled look.
Uncle Enzo’s nostrils flare with the sigh he blows out, but he commands his son with a resigned tilt of his head, indicating the building.
Gianni climbs over the raised threshold with palpable hesitation. I follow and shut the door. A battery-operated lamp stands in the middle of the floor, throwing a circle of bright white light over the concrete. In the middle of that circle, a naked man dangles upside-down from a ceiling beam. A rope secures his feet to the metal bar, and his hands are tied behind his back. The stink of sweat, urine, and blood hangs thick in the air, pierced with the faint smell of ammonia.
Gianni gags. He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and slams it over his mouth and nose.
I go closer and inspect the man. Both his eyes are swollen shut. His cheekbones and lips are split. Bruises mar his face and neck. Blood dried on the lashes crisscrossing his back and torso. Uncle Enzo’s men did a number on him.
“Who’s there?” he croaks, straining his neck.
I crouch down, putting us at eye level. My voice is soft because I don’t need to raise it. I have his full attention. “What’s your name?”
“Geoffrey,” he says with a hiccup. “I told you everything I know.” He starts crying. “Fuck.” He sniffles before managing to control himself. “I already told you everything. Just let me go.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“What the fuck do you want?” he cries out, twisting his body in his bonds.
I grab his hair to still him. “What were you doing on my property?”
He freezes. His fear is so great it oozes from his pores. That’s right. Now he knows who he’s facing. No further introductions are necessary.
A great deal of slobbering ensues. “I was only following orders.”
“Whose orders?”
“Mario Marziale.”
My uncle already told me, but I wanted to hear it from this rat, from the informant who was spying on my warehouses. I take a moment to think just because I can. Just because time is on my side but his is running out.
Mario Marziale is a fucking thorn in my side. He’s a new player, a man who quickly rose to power with drug money. He’s got no business sense and even less mercy. He doesn’t abide by the rules of our kind. He probably woke up one morning and decided he wanted to make more money by controlling the seas between Asia and Corsica.
Fucking fool.
Using Geoffrey’s hair as leverage, I shake him. “What were his orders?”
“To watch the warehouses,” he exclaims. “To note your comings and goings. How many men patrol the grounds. When they change shifts. What kind of weapons.”
I put my mouth next to his ear. “Just to watch?”
He jerks his head away from the sound. “Only information.”
To find out what he’s up against. To sniff out my weaknesses.
He wants to find out what he’s up against?
He will. I vow it on my father’s grave.
I let Geoffrey go with a shove.
Turning to Gianni, I say, “Finish him.”
In the bright light of the lamp, Gianni turns ghastly white. His face freezes in a silent exclamation of shock.
Geoffrey protests with more sobbing, wiggling like a fish on a hook. “No. Wait. You said you’d let me go.”
I adjust my gloves. “I never said anything of the kind.” Addressing my cousin, I continue. “Get going. I don’t have all day.”
Gianni looks as if he’s going to throw up.