Page 48 of The Holy Ghost
Flanged macein hand, I walked behind Randolph Masterson and rammed the weapon into his rectum allthe way the leathered handle. His screams indicating that he was nolonger disassociated from the pain his body could stillexperience.
“Goddamn it,Phoenix,” Ciro growled. “He’snot going to last long now.” He actually sounded disappointed. “Youbetter hurry up with the rest of whatever you have planned for thepoor fucker.”
“Seriously,”Luca muttered. “We went easyon him to give you extra time with him, and this is what you go anddo.”
I smiled.
The nextthirty minutes were spent making a statement. I needed the entireworld to know what would happen to them should anyone ever comenear my wife again. I knew herplace as my wife and within the organization, would be public soon,and if I wanted her to stand tall next to us, I had to step backand let her shine. However, Randy would serve as a reminder toeveryone that Frankie was never walking in this worldalone.
Iended up going with Luca’ssuggestion, and after skinning Randy’s limp dick, I sliced off hisballs and shoved them in his mouth. I didn’t shove them down histhroat suffocating him right away. I waited until after I pulledhis lover out of his rectum and dropped him on his ass. Laying onthe floor, I shattered both kneecaps with a pickax before pluckingout his left eye. It wasn’t until his right eye reflected nothingbut emptiness that I finally shoved his balls down to the middle ofhis throat, and we all stood back and watched him suffocate todeath. Ciro snapped a few pictures on a burner phone as I removedmy protective gear and headed for the showers.
Ciro’sfunhouse was an old industrial building a mile outside Morgan City.It usedto be a testing sitefor farming chemicals, and it had emergency wash stations andshowers that Ciro had converted for our use. There were only fourother members of the Benetti family who knew of this place and hadpermission to use it. They were mine, Ciro, and Luca’s personalguard, and the fourth person was Sal.
Each of us hadour own ‘locker room’ where we could shower away the blood and gutsand put on a fresh suit. The old suits and any protective gear wereburned in an incinerator. If this place ever got raided, we’d be fucked, but the building waslocked down tighter than Fort Knox. It was a block building withbars on the windows. Since it had been a chemical facility, it hadbeen designed for safety. A feature we took advantage of the secondCiro procured the building.
I let the hotwater beat down on my shoulders and wash away pieces of RandolphMasterson.He was no longer anissue, but I still had a few rounds to go with Frankie, and Iwasn’t looking forward to it. The woman hasn’t even been back twoweeks and, already, she was driving me crazy.
Was it unfairfor me to expect her to acclimate overnight? Maybe. But she’s knownwhat Luca’s been about her entire life. She had to have someinkling of what would be required of her. Or maybe thatwas our mistake. We tried sohard to shield her from the darkness that was the Benettis when wewere younger, maybe she really didn’t have a fuckingclue.
Either way, wewere going to have to have a come-to-Jesus talk, and I suspected that Luca and Ciro might haveto come along for the ride because, just like me, they weren’t thesame guys they were when Frankie left. She needed to understandthat. She needed to recognize and appreciate the world we lived innow, not the world we lived in when she left.
Thenthere was the issue of RobertaRegal.
On the driveback from Cedar Creek, Luca had Sal pull up everything he couldfind about the woman and had forwarded the details to me and Ciro.There hadn’t been anything too exciting, other than she seemed tohave terrible taste inmen.
She had brownhair, brown eyes, wasfive-foot-three, and worked as a waitress. Her parents livedin Missouri and owned a hardware store. She had no siblings tospeak of, not even a pet. Her address wasn’t in the best of CedarCreek neighborhoods, but it wasn’t located in the slums, either.She seemed rather boring, but my concern was for the men she dated.While Robbie might be a good person as Frankie insisted, she hungaround riffraff. If Frankie were going to insist on keeping Robbiein her life, it looked like Frankie wasn’t going to be the only onewho would need a come-to-Jesus talk.
I turned off thewater and took a deep breath.
Time to face thespitfire.
Chapter 24
Francesca~
Phoenixcame home, hishair wet from a recent shower. Now, most women would automaticallythink‘affair’, but I knew itwas most likely that he had to wash someone’s blood off his body.There were so many things wrong with that thought, and, therein,laid my problem.
I had plentyof time to think about everything Phoenix said, and hasbeensaying, andI realized I was acting like the six years had never happened. Ifell back into the life we lived six years ago, not the life theywere leading now.
Time changedthem.
Time changed me.
If I readbetween the linescorrectly,Luca was about to go from the Benetti Underboss to the Benetti Bosssoon. People were going to revere him. People were going to fearhim. People were going to be in awe of him the same way we had beenof Giovanni when we were kids. Luca was going to control MorganCity, if not the entire state, and Phoenix and Ciro were going tobe standing next to him as he did.
I wasgoing to stand next to him as hedid.
I got it.
I finally gotit.
I had beensitting on the couch, texting Robbie, when Phoenixhad walked in and announced,“Randy’s dead.” No greeting, or anything. Just that Randy wasdead.
I shot Robbiea quick text, letting her know Phoenix was home, and we were going to talk. I wasn’t stupidenough to put anything in text. Phoenix had told me I was going toget two new phones soon. One would be strictly for use between me,him, Luca, and Ciro, but the other could be used for everydaypurposes. I knew I’d have to use the second phone carefully and,even then, I hadn’t made a barrage of friends while I lived inCedar Creek, so there really wasn’t anyone to give my new numberout to. There was Robbie, Mona, Teddy, and Lydia, all who worked atBrighton.
“I figured,” Ireplied from where I sat on the couch. “Is this how it’s going tobe? Are you goingto come homefrom work every day and just announce your kills?” He shot me alook designed to shut a person up.
It worked.
