Page 68 of Assassin's Heart
“I imagine you’re asking about your guards. Or warning me that they’ll catch us.” I gave him a small, grim smile. “Unfortunately for you, we know your suite is soundproof, for obvious reasons.” I glanced at the woman, sleeping peacefully on her side, facing away from Fiori. “They’ll find you, of course. When we’re ready.”
Fiori growled, anger shining from his beady eyes.
“Relax, Gramps.” I stared into those eyes, letting him see exactly how little his anger affected me. How I didn’t give a fuck if he was comfortable, if he thought he could buy his way out of this, if he swore retaliation the minute he was free. None of it mattered. He couldn’t touch me; he’d learn that soon enough.
“We are here about a little matter that may have come to your attention: Leah Windon?”
Fiori’s eyes rounded before narrowing, his face turning an interesting shade of red detectable even in the dim light of the room.
“You sent a team to recover certain”—deliberately I glanced at Levi as if considering—“evidence. Yes?”
The man on the bed jerked at his bonds, glaring at me.
“Exactly.” Reaching into the sheath at the small of my back, I drew my KA-BAR, held it in front of me. “I see you remember.”
Fiori zeroed in on the knife in my hand.
“You see…” I moved around the end of the bed, noting the cord securing Fiori’s legs in front of him, the bare feet so vulnerable to anything I needed to do. “Leah is under our protection.” The knife’s tip glinted wickedly as I lowered it to stroke the top of the nearest foot. “And we don’t like it when anyone steps into our business.Anyone, Sonny.”
A flick, and the first slice appeared just below his toes—long, shallow, barely enough to bleed. It stung, I knew, sent a shock through the man’s system, but that was nothing more than foreplay.
Fiori jerked. A single word, barked behind his gag, came through clearly.
“Who? Is that what you asked?” Fiori whined as I moved the knife to his other foot, took my sample cut from the hair-covered knob of his big toe this time. “That’s not really important, is it? Who we are will never matter if you stop pursuing what is mine. If you choose to ignore my warning”—I moved the knife to hover above foot number one, shrugged—“who we are will be equally unimportant. Because you’ll be dead.”
Another slice, deeper this time. Blood trickled toward the sheets. A warning growl came from behind Fiori’s gag.
“That is definitely not the response I was looking for.” A second cut on foot number two. “Careful, Sonny boy. Your balls are next.”
Instinctively the man’s thighs squeezed together. Ignoring the satisfaction his fear gave me, I motioned Eli forward. “You might be wondering what’s in this deal for you besides staying alive.” Eli held up the hand with the computer attached, pushed a couple of buttons. “Maybe this will help.”
Fiori’s voice fill the room. “Vincenzo is an idiot. If he’d wanted to stay alive, he’d never have crossed me. Those cement shoes were earned, a hundred percent.”
Eli stopped the recording. I kept my gaze on Fiori. “Not too incriminating, is it? How about another one?”
Eli pressed the button. “What, you think Frankie has a fucking chance in hell of taking over my routes? No one, and I do meanno one, will be horning in on the drug supply in this town. I control every step, every participant, from the cooks to the candymen on the street to the importers and most especially the exports.” Fiori boasted about his drug lines and how easy it was to control the penny-ante dealers who cluttered the DC streets. Trying to impress someone he wanted to do business with, most likely. Unfortunately he spilled a few too many details. Judging by the increasing struggles against his bonds and the alarming shade of purple creeping into his face, I was pretty sure he knew that.
“I like that one,” I said, smirking, when Eli stopped the tape again. Dragging the tip of my knife along the ridge of Fiori’s shinbone, over his knee, and up his thigh, I said, “Angelo di Cosimo was good at finding incriminating evidence, wasn’t he? He knew exactly where to hit, what to search for. When to record it. That’s not my favorite, though. This one is.”
“I want Windon dead,” Fiori said on the recording. “Do you hear me? You think I can’t touch your old man? How do you think he got the fucking job? The previous commissioner got a little too close to things he shouldn’t be close to. I took him out, and I can take your father out too, Junior. Give me a reason not to.”
Fiori’s legs trembled as I flipped the sheet off his naked lap. My knife tip dug into the crease between his thigh and flaccid, still-sticky penis. “Ross Windon Jr agreed to work for you to keep his family safe. He even, after all these years, agreed to kidnap his niece, knowing it was the only way he could keep her safe from you.” I flicked the knife, and a shallow slice appeared along the side of Fiori’s dick. “He’s dead, you know. So are your men. Want to know who killed them?”
The mobster held himself rigid, but he couldn’t control his flinch as the knife kissed his dick again. A panicked cry escaped around his gag.
“You want to know, don’t you?” I added a third cut, the high whine I received in response satisfying something primal, something dominant deep inside me. The animal beneath my veneer of civilization ate up the man’s fear like it was fucking prime rib. “That was us, Sonny.” Flick. “The men who killed your team.” Flick. “The men with the recordings you were after.” Flick. “The men who wouldn’t even flinch if we thought killing you would stop all this.”
“Castration sounds good to me,” Levi said from the dark. Fiori jerked, then cried out when the knife bit into his thigh.
I tsked. “Need to be careful there.” Wiping the blood from my blade on the man’s leg, I narrowed my gaze on him. “You have a choice. Only one.”
A bushy brow rose over one eye. I didn’t miss the strain it took to respond so nonchalantly. It was evident in the sweat popping up on Fiori’s forehead.
“You can walk away from the Windon family—not for a little while. Permanently. Walk away and it will be like none of this ever happened.”
A grunt from Fiori.
“Or…” I gestured toward Eli with the KA-BAR. “Or these recordings are going public. Not just to the commissioner—that would be far too easy to erase. No, we have copies set to deliver to every reporter in the DC area, every cop, every DA. You name them and they’re on our list. Isn’t the electronic age fun?”
