Page 2 of Petrichor

“Il Capoasked us to have a chat with you,” I say as I notice a door on the right that probably leads to a bedroom. With a tilt of my head, I signal Carlo to go check it out.

The woman’s terrified eyes follow him as he disappears inside the room. A couple of seconds later he comes out shaking his head, and her body relaxes against the sofa. Interesting. There must be something in there she doesn’t want us to find. More drugs? Money? As soon as we are done here, I’ll get Carlo on it.

“We-we paid for those,” the woman suddenly stutters. She means the drugs on the table.But did they?

“Shut the fuck up, Elise!” Joseph barks at her, his voice filled with rage.

“Coke, ice, heroine… There’s at least four hundred dollars on this table,” Luca states.

“Where did you get the money?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at her. My patience tonight is equal to none.

Joseph is the one to answer. “From some extra jobs.”

“Extra jobs,” I deadpan, before landing two fast, hard punches to his guts. I grab his hair in a tight fist, push my forearm against his throat, and pull his head back as I utter darkly, “Brutto idiota. We know everything about your extra jobs, raising the loan interests when you went to collect and threatening clients to keep their mouths shut. Doing whatever the fuck you want in our territory while sullying Don Massimo’s reputation. That’s fucking suicidal. Maybe I’ll let Luca have a go at your face before ending you.”

Joseph tenses as I feel Luca’s glare turn on me. But that’s his thing, slicing people until they talk, while I prefer to use my fists.

In the corner of my eye, I see Carlo standing near the front door again. Eyes wide, body stiff, the chatty kid is finally silent.

“What did you do with the girl?” Luca growls at the woman.

“G-girl?” The woman looks down, avoiding his eyes, a clear sign of deceit.

“If you think we won’t hurt you, you are wrong,” I snarl. I prefer to end women quickly, but there’s a poor little girl’s life on the line, as well as Don Massimo’s name. We need to remind people what happens when they disrespectil capoof the Leone family, remind them how he became il capo dei capi.

“Joseph took a client’s daughter, letting people think that Don Massimo needed her as collateral until her father repaid his debt.”

“Lies!” he gasps.

“Then why does it look like you’re about to shit yourself?” Luca raises his thick brow at him.

“The-the client, he-he’s the one lying. He’s upset…because Joseph roughed him up a little last time he saw him,” the woman rapidly says.

“A little.” I let out a deep grunt, sending a glower her way. She seems to shrink under my severe look. “You mean when he broke the shop window and sent the clerk to the hospital? How will the client be able to repay us if you give him more expenses?” I hiss in his face. “You know the rules, and you broke all of them and some more. Now the first to tell me where the girl is will die quickly, while the other will wish they were never born.”

When neither says a word, I take a step back, and keeping my forearm against Joseph’ neck I turn to Carlo. “Shoot his leg.”

He seems taken aback by my order at first, but then he extracts his pistol from the back of his pants and points it in Joseph’s direction.

The woman starts screaming as Joseph tries to elbow me to free himself. I land two fast blows to his side and one to his face. The gold knuckles hit hard bone as the cracking sound reaches my ears. I grab his hair once again and force him up as a gunshot reverberates through the room. It’s quickly followed by another.

I turn around in time to see Carlo leaning heavily against the wall, a red stain forming on his arm while Luca is lowering his gun after he used it on the woman, whose dead eyes are staring blankly ahead.

“Fuck!” Carlo mutters, his voice is filled with shock and pain. “She shot me!” I lower my gaze to the gun still in her hand—she must have hidden it among the sofa cushions.

Luca is quickly on the phone. He answers Doc’s questions as he helps the whimpering kid up and takes him out of the apartment. I guess I’ll finish this up by myself, then. Fuck!

I turn my attention to Joseph. The sneaky fucker has opened a kitchen drawer while I was distracted and grabbed a small kitchen knife. I stop his swinging hand and wrap my fingers around it as the tip of the blade touches my chest—without piercing the skin but ruining my shirt. It makes me royally pissed.

I twist his wrist until I hear a pop. As the knife drops on the counter with a thud he lets out a scream. I grab it, and after forcing his other hand flat on the surface, I swing it down, sliding the sharp blade into the soft flesh. His agonizing cry feeds my fury, increasing my hunger for more. I close my other hand around his throat in a tight squeeze as I twist the knife, watching more blood roll down his fingers to the floor, making a mess. His features are all scrunched up, face red, saliva dripping out of the corner of his mouth.

“Lie again, and I’ll work the blade until you have minced meat for a hand. Got it?” I hiss at him.

He nods, gritting his teeth. His angry glower doesn’t do shit to me. He’s a dirtbag. We should’ve never started working with him. I need to find out how that happened. Maybe there’ll be more cleanup to do.

His arms have no marks. I grab his limp hand, the one with the broken wrist to check under his nails. There’s scarring from a needle under his thumbnail.

“So, it’s true, you pathetic piece of filth. You turned into a junky.” He needed more money to keep up with his addiction. The table filled with drugs is proof enough. That’s why he sold the girl.

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