The Killer (Bad Boys) (2 page)

The commissioner had been on the take for years, those who were in the know knew that. Arturo had him in his pocket, so had grandpa. He usually covered up the family’s kills and kept the heat off our asses.

For whatever reason, they had decided that my family was no longer needed, either that
, or there was something they were into that grandpa had vetoed, and this was their answer.

Dad wasn’t next in line; he wasn’t blood. Grandpa was mom’s dad, and though my father played a big part in the family, he would never have sat in the seat as head. That would’ve been my brother Vincent.

The hit had been well orchestrated from what I’d learned. They’d hit multiple places at once, in a bid to eliminate the whole family and take over our territories. These fuckers had watched The Godfather once too often it seemed.

I didn’t need a movie to direct my path, what I hadn’t learnt at my grandfather’s knee, the government had taught me. I was trained as a SEAL, I knew innumerable ways in which to kill
, and I was going to use every last one of them until I eliminated all our enemies.

I’m not the hothead that my brother is, that’s why I have the lead, but the assholes might’ve stood a better chance with Vince at the helm, than they will with me.

Now I have this pain in the ass girl on my hands, who wouldn’t shut the fuck up. Yes she just watched her old man die in front of her eyes, so the fuck what? He should’ve protected her better if he was going to get mixed up in the life.

We drove all the way to The Island instead of going to any one of our places in the city. It was too hot right now. And n
o doubt the alarm had been raised by now, on one or both of the men.

Whoever was involved
, will know that we were hitting back; hopefully it would be a while before they knew that I was the one carrying out the retaliation. My family was safe for now and I mean to keep them that way. The only way for me to do that; is to kill everyone who had a hand in the plot against my blood. Personally.

I wasn’t about to trust anyone else with that task. Everyone was a fucking suspect
, until I said different. The two men who were with me had been cleared, otherwise I would be travelling solo, but they too were on a short leash.

My companion was silently crying next to me, and I would’ve felt some sympathy for her, had it not been for the fact that her fuck of a dad had played a part in what had happened to my blood. In the old country she would’ve been considered the spoils. Maybe I will fuck her after all, get rid of some of this pent up anger that was riding my ass.

She’d exhausted herself by the time we pulled through the gates of home. I had beefed up security, choosing only those men that my dad believed to be safe. Whoever had sold us out
, will show their hand soon no doubt. I was going to keep my eyes and ears open for when that happened.

“Come.” I had to pull her out of the car and drag her into the house behind me. I hadn’t even noticed what she’d been w
earing when I took her, but now, looking at her fully for the first time, I noticed her state of undress.

She wore
silk pajama shorts, a camisole and fluffy house slippers. She looked about twelve, with her wild hair and scared eyes. “Upstairs, first door on the right. Go Natalie, and don’t make me have to repeat myself again.”

She walked away slowly, her legs a little shaky. The shock was settling in and I knew she was in for a long f
ucking day. Too bad, so was I. If her fuck of an old man hadn’t been such a fucking crook, my family wouldn’t be in fucking pieces. I had no give in me right now and that little girl was in the line of fire.

I closed myself off in my dad’s study. There was a lot of shit that needed to be done in the next few days. With grandpa gone, dad and my brothers in hiding, there was going to be a shake up. So along with taking out the fuckers who’d done this, I have to make sure that there’s no mutiny in the works.

My dad had given me a rough account of what was up the day before the shit hit the fan. I had a list of who might need to be brought to heel, and who had been under the old man’s radar for one infraction or the other.

With an operation this big, there was a shitload of things to take care of, and not enough time. I started w
ith the family holdings in AC. There was the casino and the hotel there. Then there were the places in Vegas, New York. We had homes and businesses on two continents that would need a careful eye.

I knew from growing up in the life, that when something like this happened, it was the prime time for the vultures to swoop in and try to take over. I wasn’t about to give them the chance.

I opened the safe and went through the papers I found there. Grandpa had a coded journal that not many people could read; I was one of only two people still alive, who would be able to, the other was my dad.

I was back out on the street a half hour later. The old man wasn’t as blind as they
’d thought, and now it seemed I knew why they’d taken him out. It hurt that someone so close had murdered him and tried to wipe out my family for something so fucking evil. There was only one more ‘boss’ that needed taking care of and I’m on my way to him now.

Luigi Scarpelli was a relatively young head. He’d taken over just a few months ago from his own dad
, who’d died of a heart attack. According to grandpa’s notes, the death was suspicious. The old man thinks the son killed his dad to take over on the orders of Arturo Villanova. All so they could move in drugs. Something grandpa would’ve never agreed to.

He was one of the only holdouts when it came to the drug trade.
The other had been Scarpelli’s dad. Grandpa had wanted no part of it, and had made us swear that we’d never get involved in anyway. His own mother had died of an overdose when he was a young boy, and he’d never wanted any dealings with the stuff, not the buying, selling or trafficking.

His son in law and his grandsons had promised him that they’d always respect his wishes. There was a note, about the day my own dad had been approached by the scum. Their offer was probably pretty much what Luigi’s had been.

Take out the old man and he can take over. The fact that he wasn’t next in line, was nothing in their eyes, they cold make it happen. Too bad for them, my dad isn’t a greedy fuck, so he’d told grandpa what was going on. Two days later they were hit.

Luigi still lived in Brooklyn in a brownstone walkup. He had a wife and two little kids in the house with him; that won’t stop me. We had to circle one block over a couple times, because there was a lot of his men milling around outside. No doubt the word had spread that his two cohorts had been taken out, and he wasn’t taking any chances.

“Let me out here. Go to the corner and wait.” I pulled my skullcap down to just above my eyes and threw the specialty backpack over my shoulder.
I’m sure Uncle Sam didn’t intend for his training would be used for this, but what the fuck.

I kept my six foot four frame dressed in all black to the shadows of the buildings as I made my way to the building next door. The scents and sounds reminded me of my childhood, when Grandpa would bring my brothers and I to his old stomping ground to show us off. Remembering his pride in us, in his family, brought a touch of sadness to my heart. He was gone way too fucking soon.

I used the specialty scaling rope from my bag to climb up the back side of the building next door to Luigi’s.
Since there were literally streetlights on every single corner, not to mention cops here and there; I cat walked across the top of one building to the next.

I could’ve probably taken the fire escape, but there were too many things that could go wrong if I went that route. So instead, I cut a hole in the door leading from the rooftop, just one big enough to remove the lock. It was quick, fast and made no noise. No muss no fuss.

I could hear voices coming from behind his door, the sounds of a family getting ready for bed. The kids putting up a fuss because they didn’t wanna, a stressed out mom who was probably that way because her own husband was giving off vibes.

Any man in the business worth his salt, kept this shit away from his wife. She must only know from the little snippets she heard through the grapevine. Then again ma knows a lot more than she should. That’s because dad liked his balls where they were. It was weird to actually find a smile at a time like this.

I waited until I heard mother and children’s voices fading as if moving to the other end of the house, before silently making my way down the stairs. I did my trick with the door again and eased into the house.

He was sitting in his study chain smoking and checking his monitors every other second. He didn’t even know I was there until I stepped out of the corner and into his view after closing and locking the door.

I put a finger up to my lips for silence as he made to speak. “Who sold us out?” He shook his head from side to side as if to say he didn’t know. I took a quick scan of the papers on his desk and the computer screen, but none of it had anything to do with why I was here.

“You don’t know?” He kept his eyes on the weapon in my hand as beads of sweat started popping out on his fat face. If he even thought of asking me for mercy I think I would’ve done worst than I’d planned to him. Here was a man who’d killed his own blood for gain. Who’d set off the chain of events that led to grandpa being slaughtered like a dog in the streets.

His hands were still up when I plunged the knife into his throat. Blood went everywhere as I pulled it out and left it in his heart. He was dead before I even left the room. I could hear the sounds of a mother saying goodnight to her children as I headed back the way I came.

I was on the street heading back to the car when I heard the first scream. Damn, that is one loud broad.

NATALIE

I’m in shock. I know that that’s what it is, because we covered it in one of the classes dad made me take last summer. I had all the symptoms: detachment, coldness, and, a feeling of vertigo. I walked around the room he’d ordered me to, without seeing anything.

I knew I was alive, because I could feel the coolness from the air conditioner, and there was the distant sound of birds tweeting off in the distance. But there was nothing where my heart had been. My mind couldn’t
, or wouldn’t process all that happened. Each time it got close, a sense of darkness would play at the edges of my mind.

I looked towards the bed and without giving my feet the order to move, I found myself there. The last thing I remembered
was kicking off my shoes and lying back across the bed.

GIANNI

I entered the room where she was fast asleep. I hadn’t given her a thought while I was out doing what I needed to, but as soon as it was over, for some reason she was my first thought.
With some of my anger gone, I was able to keep a cool head. I’d left her there alone after the day that she’d had, that was fucked.

I’ve
spent my life protecting others, maybe that’s why she’s playing so heavy on my heart. I’ve seen the effects of death on others, seen grown men collapse into themselves after witnessing less horrors than she had today.

I still didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do with her.
There was no way I could release her, she knew too much. In truth I should’ve killed her along with her dad, the fact that I’d kept her alive told me that I’d already made up my mind whether I knew it or not.

Standing over her, I took in her beauty, all those cur
ls spread out across the pillow, her slightly tanned skin, and most of all, those lips that were full and enticing, with their natural pinkish tone.

I had no qualms about fucking her, none whatsoever, the way I felt in that moment, I would’ve awakened her and taken her then and there, knowing that she would put up a fight.

Something held me back though; some inner emotion that I couldn’t quite identify wouldn’t let me brutalize her to assuage my anger against her old man. She was so fucking gorgeous though, too beautiful to just put a bullet in her head. What a fucking waste.

I was looking dead at her when those cerulean orbs of hers opened and looked right into mine. I braced myself for her anger and venom. What I wasn’t expecting was the smile that broke out across her face. What in the fuck?

She stretched her arms above her head with no care for the tight lacy top that rode up around her middle revealing the soft flesh of her belly. What was she doing? I stood back a little from the bed when she put her feet on the floor and shoved them into her shoes.

She clutched at her head as she made to stand, and I got a feeling in the pit of my gut. I wasn’t sure if what I was thinking was wrong with her was better or worse for her. I waited for her to make the next move, only then will I know if what I suspected was true or not.

When she’d first clutched her head, I knelt at her feet. “What is it love?” I kept my voice low and non-threatening so as not to spook her.

“I don’t…are you…?” She looked at her hand and down at mine and I had no idea what she was doing. The answer wasn’t long in coming.

“Are you my husband? Of course you’re not, you’re too gorgeous.” She laughed a little at that before studying me seriously. “I’m sorry, but I seem to have forgotten who I am.”

Well fuck.