Page 34 of Fortress of the King

The warehouse is where we take prisoners, who are usually held at the Fortress, so we can question them and get any information we need. It’s also less messy, being concrete walls with no furniture to spill blood on.

Marco’s outside smoking when I arrive.

He’s a whisker shorter than me, meticulous with his appearance, there’s not even one jet black hair out of place.

Between Dante and him, I can’t tell you which one is more hung up on appearances. Pity that didn’t extend to Fynn, who flies by the seat of his pants with his looks but still reigns in all the women with ease. He has a boyish charm that none of us ever got.

“I thought the auction ended hours ago?” Is the first thing that comes out of his mouth when I walk over to him. He eyes me dubiously. “You get some tail, bro?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Why the fuck do you care?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know, you seem a little more …. relaxed than usual.”

I nod towards the door and ignore his statement. “Who’ve we got in there?”

“Oh, you’re gonna love this one, an employee of Rombaldi. Rocco snagged him, shooting his mouth off about the human cargo shipment that’s docking at the end of the week, he couldn’t keep his gums from flapping.”

“Human cargo?”

“So he says.”

“Where’s Rocco?”

“Inside with him now, he and Enzo picked him up.”

Enzo runs a tight ship with Fortress security. His main man Rocco is the brawn in most, if not all of our situations, along with Darko, my head soldier and a few other ex-military guys we call our army.

I try not to get too excited at this prospect, but I live for this shit, this is what I do.

I crack my neck side to side as I enter through the side door. It’s a large, industrial warehouse that looks like any other with no windows and a security system so advanced that it took Enzo six months to perfect.

This is where we conduct the illegal side of the business. We have a safe house basement right underneath as well, just in case. It’s bomb and fireproof and could probably withstand nuclear fallout.

There’s not much to it outside or in; an office off to the side, a bathroom, and one large open area that we use for interrogation. A table sits in the middle, and extra chairs are stacked up in one corner, depending on who or how many people we’re torturing, or as I like to call it, gathering information.

There’s two-way glass from a storage area where we get changed before the meets and greets begin. Some of these tough motherfuckers aren’t so tough when they’re tied up.

The man through the glass has been running an illegal underage prostitution ring.

My stomach fucking lurches at the thought, not just because I have a little sister, Valentina, who’s early in her early twenties. Still, she’s quite innocent, and a niece from my mother’s side, Bria, who’s twelve, and if anything ever happened to them in this kind of regard, I would find and cut the perpetrators so severely there would be nowhere on this planet they could hide.

Some of the girls I hear about are barely older than Bria. While we may have dealings in other illegal extra-circular activities, things like human smuggling, child abduction, and underage prostitution aren’t any of them. That’s where I draw the line.

We’ve cleaned up Boston as a whole, and gotten the riffraff out of our neighborhood. I can’t say it’s been easy or a quick process. These lowlife scumbags are like weeds; you rip one out, then another pops up.

Some of the low-lives we’ve dealt with have been as widespread as petty thieves and rapists to corrupt politicians and media moguls. Some of the sickest human beings pose as everyday businessmen in suits or men with a badge.

The dark side of humanity runs deep, and sometimes it even shocks me at the names that are involved. They make me fucking sick, and they keep the good people down, something I’m trying to rectify personally.

I’m far from a saint, but Fortress security doesn’t just provide twenty-four-hour surveillance, the best security cameras that money can buy, round-the-clock armored guards, fencing, security alarms - you name it - we also offer paid security services. The illegal kind.

The kind that makes bad people disappear. People far worse than us, and make no mistake, there are worse than us.

Rombaldi is a known Brazilian arms dealer, and the word on the street is that he’s been wheeling and dealing in human trafficking for some time. We’ve been wanting to get him for years and he’s slowly grown more and more powerful, that’s never good for business, and biding our time may well have just paid off.

Rumor has it he’s working with some other high-profile accomplices we haven't yet been able to pinpoint, but we’re closing in. His days are numbered.

This is my fucking town, and I say what goes.

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