Page 26 of My Dark Fairy Tale
“Was there a reason you decided to bother me?” I demanded, and turned my focus back to the punching bag and the burn in my torso as I beat into it at a steady, punishing pace.
Jab, jab, right hook, uppercut, jab, jab.
“Oh, not really,” she mused blandly, pretending to check her fingernails as if she gave a shit about their appearance. “Probably nothing you’d be interested in because you don’t care much for the girl either way.”
“Spit it out, Tina,” I ordered as sweat dripped into my eyes.
“Va bene. Ludo found the man, Galasso.”
Immediately, my hands fell limply to my sides, and I turned on Martina with a snarl. “You tell me thisnow?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t know you’d be so ... invested.”
“Cut the shit,” I demanded before tearing off my gloves with my teeth and shucking them to the floor. “Where is he?”
“They have him at Trattoria Umberto, in the cellar.”
“Why so public?”
“Ludo found him in town skulking around, and it was the closest place.”
“They will be in full dinner service upstairs,” I pointed out.
Another shrug. “It’s loud with the live music, and the cellar is beneath layers of concrete. No one will hear them. Or you, if you decide to deal with him yourself.”
I ignored her, already stalking out of the room to shower and change for the reckoning with Guinevere’s would-be assaulter. A human head was much better than a punching bag for relieving stress anyway.
The trattoria was in Santa Croce and filled with locals who tried to stay away from the chaos of central Florence during the summer months, when tourists descended on the streets like locusts. We had owned the restaurant for twenty years, since the proprietor Ambrigio’s wife was diagnosed with cancer, and they had no money to pay for the bills and her treatment. My father had stepped in with an offer of help, plenty of strings attached, and the trattoria had made us a tidy profit from its legal business as well as hundreds of thousands of euros in laundered money. It was also where I met with the odd local capo to discuss business over Ambrigio’s deliciousbistecca alla Fiorentinaand a bottle of Chianti or, on occasion, where I doled out punishment to rats and other bottom dwellers who interfered with my business.
Obviously, this visit was about the latter.
When I descended the steps into my own hellish dominion, Galasso was sitting at a wobbly old wooden table against a rack of wine. Carmine stood behind him with his arms crossed, his whipcord-lean frame made threatening by the sheer number of weapons discernible on his person: a gun in his shoulder holster, brass knuckles on one fisted hand, a row of knife handles visible above his waistband. Next to him stood Renzo, his younger brother, who made up for his age by being the biggest man I’d ever known, towering over even me at six foot six, with a neck as thick as a leg of prosciutto. Ludo, the third in my trio of trusted personalsoldati, greeted me at the stairs, his heavy brow and slightly undershot jaw giving him a primitive appearance that was inherently threatening.
Sometimes, people made the mistake of underestimating me because of my good looks, which I always found utterly amusing. If Iwas attractive, it was because generations of my mafioso ancestors had been affluent enough to attract beautiful women despite their own lack of beauty until the end result was someone like me.
Beautiful and dangerous, as so many mythological beings.
Galasso muttered something behind the tape over his mouth and tried to stand up as soon as he saw me, but Renzo clamped a hand over his shoulder and forced him back down.
I ignored him completely, heading to the wine rack to pick a nice bottle of Brunello di Montalcino to share with my guest. It was the kind of expensive bottle that needed to breathe, so I moved to grab a vintage Murano decanter from a cabinet and transferred the red liquid into the glass with my back to Galasso. He watched me with wide eyes as I slid out the chair across from him and settled comfortably into it before placing the wine between us on the table. I sniffed the cork, then accepted two short glasses from my friend and poured Galasso and myself some of the fine vintage.
Sliding the glass across the table with one finger, I nodded slightly at Renzo, who reached forward to tear the tape from Galasso’s mouth.
“Figlio di puttanna,” he cursed viciously.
“Watch your mouth,” I encouraged him calmly, observing the play of the low cellar light in the garnet-red wine. “You would not want to ruin our civilized conversation by insulting my mother, would you?”
He glared at me, chin lifted pugnaciously. “What do you want with me, Gentiluomo?”
“Ah, so I see I do not have to introduce myself. That makes things easier. Though I do not know you, Galasso. Perhaps we should start with your introduction?”
When he didn’t immediately speak, I flicked my gaze to Renzo, who used the butt of his gun to pistol-whip the man.
He let out a cry, blood flying from his broken nose, but quickly after he murmured, “Galasso Pagano.”
“From?” I encouraged with a thin smile, as if this was just a polite interview.
Sometimes it was fun to play with your food before you destroyed it.
