Page 28 of Ruthless Contract
I crossed my arms over my chest and waited as he pulled out his iPad. He opened it and turned it away from me so he could type in his password.
“If I wanted in your device, hiding your password wouldn’t keep me out,” I reminded him.
“You hacker motherfuckers get on my nerves. You could destroy the world if you really put your minds to it.”
He was right about that. He turned the device my way. A video popped up. I frowned as he turned the volume up. Screams filled the air.
“Did you record yourself torturing someone?” I asked.
“Nah. That’s not me. That’s my contact. He had to torture a couple of people to get the information I needed. Torture is usually the quickest way to get intel. And he knew I needed information fast, so he skipped the chit chat and went right to torture.”
“What did he learn, or do I have to watch the entire video?”
“I’ll sum it up for you. There was definitely someone feeding Ettori Zucco information about Marcel. And they weren’t from my side of the pond.”
My jaw tightened. I’d known it was someone from my neck of the woods who’d helped the Bianchi family. Still, hearing it made me angry. Who would dare? Who had the balls to go against the Cattaneo family?
"Ettori passed the information to the Bianchi family for a hefty sum," Terzo continued. “Money he didn’t get to enjoy because they had him killed to cover their tracks. However, the Bianchis couldn’t find the person or people who’d provided information to Ettori to kill them also. But they tried to. And my contact found the person they hired to locate Ettori’s source. He’s the guy getting tortured in the video. He was also one of Ettori’s longtime associates.”
Where was the loyalty?
“Did your contact kill this longtime associate after torturing him?”
“Yeah. He’s already been cremated. But my contact got the information we needed first. Here’s where things get complicated. The guy said Ettori used two dark sites to acquire information on Marcel."
"Which sites?"
"One is called Underground Communications."
That name didn't surprise me. I'd heard of them before. I'd never worked with them directly, but I knew a few people who had. Whoever ran the site considered themselves informationbrokers. Clients hired them to find people who could find information for them.
“From the way my contact explained it, the people who own the site don’t provide the intel. They connect their clients with people who can provide intel. They’re sort of the middleman.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s how they work. They post their client’s request on their site. Then the brokers, hackers, spies, and stalkers capable of getting the intel submit offers. The client then reviews the success records of those willing to take on the job and selects one to handle it. He pays the middleman, Underground Communications. They take their cut and then pay the person who provides the intel after the job is done.”
“Precisely. They work in codes, no real names. Which will make it hard for you to find out if Ettori hired someone from that site, and who that someone is. Ettori’s associate didn’t know if Ettori chose someone from that site or the other one. Only that he’d received a few offers from that site.”
"What was the second one?" I asked.
"The Circuit."
"The what?"
"It’s called The Circuit."
“I’ve never heard of them.”
And that bothered me. I knew most of the major players operating in those circles. Maybe not personally, but by reputation. I'd never heard of The Circuit. Were they new to this?
If so, they may not have known not to cross the Cattaneos.No, fuck that.If they were from my region, they knew not to cross us. Even if they hadn’t known, it wouldn’t change their fate, but it could explain why they’d taken the job.
"What did you learn about them?" I asked.
"Nothing."
I stared at him. "Nothing?"
"Not a damn thing," Terzo stated. "The associate only knew the names of the sites Ettori used. He didn't know which one provided the information on Marcel. He knew the Underground broker contacted Ettori because his post had received some offers. But The Circuit didn’t work that way. He didn’t know how Ettori communicated with them. The man never told him."
