Page 29 of His Passerotta

ANTHONY

Blood.

It’s all that I smell in the underground space just below one of our strip clubs. Settimo and Lorenzo stand to the right of me while I hover over the source of the blood with a drill pressing into the top of his hand.

His swollen face makes him unrecognizable to the man he was when he showed up here hours ago, the red oozing from a gash on his head not helping. Blood stains his teeth and sputters every time he talks. I’m pretty sure I got some on my face, which explains the overpowering smell.

“Listen to me,” I say to drag his eyes from the drill to me. His lip quivers as he whimpers, and urine mixes with the smell of his blood. One glance tells me he’s pissed himself. He held off a lot longer than the others. Good for him.

“If you don’t tell me who you were working with, I’m gonna run this drill through your balls after I’m finished with your hand. Do you understand me?”

He opens his mouth, but I don’t give him a chance to respond before I pull the trigger for the drill. His whimpers turn to shrieks, his pitch getting higher with every move of the drill. He thrashes in the chair, scraping it on concrete, but I hold one arm of it to keep it from tipping over.

When I let go of the trigger, I pull the drill away and stand up straight, letting it hang at my side. “Well?”

The street trash, Clyde, gasps and shakes profusely, his gaze aimed at the floor. “It wasn’t me,” he whines, barely comprehensible. “I swear to god, it wasn’t me.”

“Two people saw you in the vicinity around the time the fire started.”

“It wasn’t me!”

Still. Even with the two people who saw him, this thug still claims it wasn’t him. He’s had a hell of a beating, so I’m starting to believe him. Which puts me at square one.

But I’m not finished yet.

I press the drill between his legs and start it up, my jaw clenching as his eyes go wide and he screams again. His ankles and wrists are both tied to the chair, but his thrashing is so intense, it seems like the binds will break.

Blood seeps onto the rope around his wrists, and I shove the drill in farther, making the thrashing worse. I hope this guy wasn’t planning on having kids.

“The Lost Boys!” he screeches. “It was the Lost Boys!”

The Lost Boys?

I take my finger off the trigger but don’t pull the drill away, instead staring him down to gauge if he’s lying. Probably. He’s desperate. But so am I.

“Th-the-they have beef with the Irish.”

“This was a Bratva hit.”

He nods frantically, blood dripping from his nose and saliva running down his chin. “The Bratva hate the Irish. They probably wanted to start another war.”

“Probably?” I shove the drill into his crotch, my finger poised on the trigger, and Clyde lets out a horrified cry.

“I don’t know for certain it was them, but they’re pissed, and they’ve been talking about something needing to be done for a long time. I’m telling you, if there’s anyone you should be questioning, it’s them.”

“How convenient for you.”

“Please,” he cries, snot flying. “Please, it wasn’t me.”

“Who are the Lost Boys?” Lorenzo asks.

I turn my head to see him propped against the wall, his arms casually crossed.

Is he buying this?

“The-they’re a gang on the South side. When the Irish left town, they took over some of the territory. Now that the Irish are back, they’re being pushed out.”

“So why not attack the Irish?” Settimo asks, sounding as skeptical as I feel.

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