Page 54 of Caesar DeLuca
Alfredo and I have been in a ceasefire ever since. He’s no doubt plotting his next scheme for supremacy. I’m in the middle of exacting my revenge. Right down to this phone call. He just doesn’t grasp what’s happening yet.
“You’ll never guess who’s come to visit me, Alfredo,” I say, locking eyes with Rocky. He sniffles and then breaks down into full-blown sobbing. “I’ve got my old pal visiting. You’ve come to know him well. He did plot my murder with you.”
He scoffs. “Am I supposed to give a fuck? Rocky can explode into a million tiny pieces for all I care.”
“You might care after I’ve extracted all the information he knows on you. Something tells me that would be a lot. We already cracked open Rocky’s phone and found some interesting gems on your operation.”
“How do I know you’re not bluffing?”
“You sound worried all of a sudden,” I say, a rare grin inching onto my face. “Let me assure you, Alfredo. You have every reason to be worried. You have started something you’ll never be able to finish. You’re never going to win. I’m about to show you what happens when you fuck with a DeLuca. It’s about to be very unpleasant for you.”
I hang up on him on that ominous note, though I couldn’t be more pleased. Rubbing my hands together, I step out from behind my desk. My attention’s now focused on Rocky and Rocky only.
His eyes, one of them more swollen than the other, fill with understanding. He knows what’s about to happen.
“Eleven years as my confidant down the drain. Your own selfish stupidity, Rock.”
My hand hovers over the Glock clipped to my belt. I’m half a second away from drawing it and putting a bullet in Rocky’s skull.
I stop myself only when a new idea strikes me. More vindictive and possibly unreasonable considering the lengths we’ll go to. But worth it for the two birds I can hit with one stone.
It would be so poetic to do him in in the same place he did the same to me.
Then, I’ll have an excuse to check on her.
“We’re going on a field trip,” I announce. My men gathered in the room glance at one another. I gesture for somebody to seize hold of Rocky so we can bring him along. “The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized Rocky deserves to go out with dignity. How about we give it to him?”
My men slip into the roles necessary to make my latest request happen. We file out of my casino office. Two guys escort Rocky shoulder to shoulder as he tries to snivel and sob for mercy. We make it to the garage underneath the casino and pack into a couple different cars. Rocky’s stuffed in the trunk, any cries muffled for the long ride ahead. He won’t be seen or heard from again until we reach our destination.
Vasco’s my driver. He peers at me in the rear view mirror. “Where to, Caesar?”
“Lake Kittatinny.”
18
CAESAR
Lake Kittatinny is a couple hours away. The lake isn’t frozen in May like it was in February. Temperatures still carry a chill, but nothing like it’d been the night Alfredo and Rocky tried to off me.
We park on the bank of the lake and drag Rocky out of the trunk. He kicks his legs out as if it’ll magically enable him to break free of his captors and run off. Where he thinks he’d be able to go, I’m not sure.
Acres of woodland surround us. There’s miles to go before civilization. Either the road that leads back out onto the highway or the opposite direction which eventually leads to Kittatinny, the town I’d ridden a bus out of three months ago. The odds he’d be able to escape and make it out alive in his condition are slim to none.
Though I was in even worse shape than he is, and I survived.
Thanks to Ariana. She saved you.
I shake off the thought of her, if for no other reason than it makes me pensive. It takes me off my A game and drags me thinking about memories we made together. Inconvenient when I have to focus on the task at hand.
It’s unlike me, a man who often spends hours calculating every possible scenario of my business operations and every potential move of my enemies. When you’re a capo in a powerful family like the DeLucas, you don’t get those luxuries. I’ve never wanted them… until Ariana.
“What do you want us to do with him, Caesar?” asks Emilio, another one of my guys that’s come with me. “We going to beat the shit out of him?”
“Even more than we already have,” Vasco offers with a grin.
The other men in the group have assembled in a half circle and await my answer. Rocky’s on the ground before us, still bound and whimpering like the coward he is.
I take a moment to admire his injuries, the whistle of the night wind passing through.
