Page 40 of Cruel Tyrant

It’s a call center, but not the normal kind of call center that tries to get old people to sign up for shitty car warranties. It’s a scam center, a homegrown scam call center, one of Santoro’s signature schemes. He took the idea from the Mexican cartels, who took it from Indian crime lords, and now it’s Americans ripping off Americans and bleeding them for every dime imaginable. I hate this place—the whole idea of bankrupting gullible seniors sours my stomach, and I’m the kind of man who wouldn’t mind shoving a heroin needle into an addict’s arm if it makes my family ten more bucks. But this place is a sham, because not only does it steal money, but it also robs people of their dignity. Innocent fucking people too—not the kind of dickheads and junkies we deal with on a regular basis, but moms and dads, grandmoms and grandpops, normal folks trying to earn a regular living.

I splash the gas with relish and my men do the same. Once it reeks like a used car lot, I wave a hand in the air, and everyone backs out, except for me and Emilio. He steps forward with a match ready to strike it, but I hold out a hand to stop him.

“Let me.” He hesitates and looks at my burn scars. Everyone in the Famiglia knows how that happened, even if nobody talks about it anymore, and I don’t like the implication in his hesitation. “Give me the match.”

He hands it over and backs up to the door. I stare at the tip, thinking about the skin-melting heat as it roared against the bars of my cage, then light the match on the sole of my boot. It flares to life, and the office rug catches ablaze the second I toss it onto the floor.

The heat’s intense as the air catches and a whoosh of displaced air and smoke rushes past us. Emilio backs away, coughing into his mask, but I stay where I am and watch as the fire begins to consume everything in its path. I hold out my hand, reaching for the metal of my cage, trying to grab it and yank at it, because if I don’t get out then I’m going to burn to a crisp, but everything’s so hot and I can barely breathe, and I hear screaming and yelling from nearby but I don’t know what any of that means, and I don’t know where Uncle Luciano went or what’s going to happen to me, but I’m fucking scared, I’m goddamn terrified, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to die.

“DAVIDE!” Someone drags me backward, yanking me from the sudden onrush of a horrible memory. “You have to get out!” It’s Simon pulling me toward the door, and soon I’m aware of how much smoke there is and how the heat’s lapping at my clothes like a hungry dog.

We stagger out of the office park, coughing hard. I hack something dark onto the pavement and gasp for breath, my head spinning as I get myself under control. The call center employees are staring in horror as the flames lick out the door and smoke pours from the roof.

“Bruno,” I bark and summon my soldier. “Which one was the manager?”

“This guy.” He drags over an older, balding man in a business casual outfit. The man trembles and tries to say that this is all some misunderstanding, but I don’t hesitate.

I press my gun to his head and pull the trigger.

His body collapses and the employees start screaming. Some of them are crying, and I wish they’d shut the fuck up. If I were a worse person, I’d kill all of them too, but this is enough for now.

We heave the dead manager’s corpse back in through the front door before running back to the trucks. The employees remain where we left them in a loose circle, kneeling with their hands on their heads and their faces pressed into the blacktop. I drive away as the scream of sirens blares in the distance.

Santoro will understand this message; if we can find his most secret scam call center, we can find any of his businesses, and none of them are safe from my wrath.

Chapter 25

Stefania

There’s someone trying to break into the house.

I hear banging, rhythmic and constant, and I stumble out of bed in full-on panic mode. Suddenly, all the phone numbers Davide made me memorize when I first came to live here—the guards, his parents, his brother, his sister—they’re all gone and I can’t think of anything at all. I stagger into the bathroom and grab a hairdryer from under the sink, but I have no clue what I’m going to do with it, blast some warm air in the intruder’s face? I throw it aside and end up hefting this old statue of a dalmatian Davide has in the corner of his room and hold it up like a club by the head.

Slowly, I creep down to the first floor. The lights are on, which is weird, and the rhythmic banging sound isn’t coming from outside, which is weirder. If this is actually a break-in attempt, it has to be the worst possible burglar imaginable. I reach the bottom of the steps and nearly have a heart attack when I spot Davide holding weights on either side of him and doing squats right in the middle of the living room. Each time he comes up and goes back down, there’s a loud thump.

He’s wearing only a pair of small gym shorts and his skin glistens with sweat. I creep closer, still clutching the dalmatian, trying to decide if I’m going to brain him with it or not. But he notices me coming and puts the weights down and wipes his forehead, giving me a nice view of one muscular bicep and one incredibly gorgeous forearm, and I decide that killing him with a dog statue would be a waste of a perfectly sculpted body.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask him and gesture like a crazy person at the digital clock on the end table. “It’s three in the freaking morning.”

“Closer to four,” he corrects and leans against the couch, his eyebrows raised. “What’s with the statue?”

“I thought someone was trying to break in.”

“And you were going to fight them off with a two-hundred-year-old porcelain dog?”

“I mean—” I put it down very gently because I had no clue it was that old. “I didn’t know it was porcelain.”

“Lucky for you I’m not here to steal all our stuff.” He hefts the weights again with a grunt and starts doing curls.

Fucking hell, he’s incredible. Even with all the adrenaline coursing through my veins, I have to hand it to the guy, this late-night exercise routine is working wonders. He’s got to be some kind of genetic freak because he’s perfectly proportioned and his forearms are practically candy to my soul. I want to lick the sweat off his skin, which is how I know I’m still half-asleep, because I’m not normally such a freak.

“Uh, Davide? Back to my original question. What the hell are you doing?”

“Working out.” He pauses and frowns. “Sorry, was I being loud? You’re usually a heavy sleeper. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

I groan and collapse onto the couch. “Do you normally lift weights in the middle of the night?”

“No,” he admits, and I guess that’s a good thing. I’d probably have some serious questions about myself if I was able to sleep through multiple nights of this.

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