Page 75 of Sweetest Sin
He walks over to the corner and grabs a bucket to fill with water, and when the man sees what he’s doing, he starts talking.
“I don’t know shit,” he says. “I swear.”
Because he had no identification on him, we don’t know who he is. Our IT person, Eddy, is hacking into police records to run facial recognition on him, but that could take a while, andeven when we know who he is, that might not explain who he’s working for.
Matteo walks around the chair and, with one hand, yanks the man’s head back. With the other, he starts to pour the water over his face, essentially drowning him.
The guy sputters at first, but when it becomes too much, he starts to choke.
“Stop,” he splutters, shaking his head back and forth.
Matteo continues to drown him for a few more seconds and nods toward me.
“You must know something,” I tell him. “You were caught trying to fuck up my shipment. And based on the footage, you’re the same one who did it last time.”
His eyes widen, like the dumbass is just now realizing we have security cameras.
“I-I don’t know who hired me,” he cries. “I was just given cash and told to fuck shit up. I thought it’d be easy money.”
“Boss,” Scotty says, walking in and dragging someone with him, “found him at the port with explosives.”
Matteo curses under his breath, but I simply nod, refusing to show any emotion. Someone is out to get us, and my guess is, when the first guy didn’t succeed, they knew we’d be busy, so they sent in another one to finish the job.
“Grab a chair,” I tell the second guy, who’s flailing about, despite being handcuffed and gagged. “Let’s get this party started.”
Scotty sets Guy Two in a chair and then goes about strapping him to it. But I’m not watching what he’s doing. I’m watching as the men glance at each other.
Matteo locks eyes with me, and I nod.
They know each other.
“Your friend was just going to go for a little swim,” Matteo says with a grin that would scare the piss out of little kids. “How about you join him?”
Without waiting, he pulls Guy Two’s head back and starts drowning him with water. He didn’t expect it, so he starts to choke, and when Matteo lets go, he throws up everywhere.
“Fuck!” Guy Two yells. “This isn’t what I signed up for.”
“Oh, really?” I say, stepping in front of him. “What did you think was going to happen when you went to a port owned by the Antonovs and tried to fuck up our shit?” I kneel in front of him and smile. “You’re going to die. But how we do it will depend on your cooperation. Tell us who hired you, and we’ll make it quick.”
He swallows thickly, but doesn’t speak, so I give Matteo a slight nod.
He goes to a cabinet and grabs gloves and pliers, and one of the guys whimpers.
With gloves on his hands, he opens Guy Two’s mouth and rips one of his teeth out. A bloodcurdling scream fills the room, and a dark spot blooms on the front of his pants. He pissed himself.
“Please,” Guy One whimpers. “Just kill me! I don’t know the man, but he has blond hair and a tattoo.” He peers up at me with a look of desperation, hoping, by some miracle, I’ll take pity on him and save his life. “A tattoo of a snake on his forearm,” he continues. “He gave us the money and told us if we succeeded, we could come back, and he’d pay us to do it again.”
“Anthony,” Matteo says, not bothering to hide what we say from the two men.
They’ll be killed shortly, and dead people can’t share information.
“Anthony doesn’t have money,” I point out. And then it hits me. “The mayor. He vouched for him at the auction. He could easily be bankrolling whatever it is Anthony’s up to.”
Matteo clenches his jaw. “Looks like we’ll be paying Mr. Mayor a visit.”
“Gentlemen,”Eric Vanderbilt says an hour later.
He’s sitting at the bar at North Harbor Point Country Club, having a drink with a couple of his friends. Once they’ve mingled with everyone, they’ll move into a private room, where they’ll play poker and be served by half-naked women while they ogle and grope them. He’ll then pick one of them to fuck and then go home to his delusional wife, who will pretend he didn’t just rail a woman half his age.
