Page 44 of Dark Alliance
Nope, for the first time, I’m truly flying solo. Operating without any overarching orders for once.
And this task from Cat tastes like freedom.
I’m spreading my wings. This is my mission, and I call all the shots.
Domenico Verone’s in New York City for the first time since he ratted out the Riccis a few months ago. Court hearing coming up in February.
Two phone calls later, I confirm Verone’s whereabouts. Cat nailed it.
The good news is he’s not in WITSEC. Not hiding in a treehouse in the woods, guarded round the clock by half a dozen Marshals with semiautomatics.
No one gives two shits about this guy. He’s one mobster tattling on another. Minimal security, at best.
This is a middle-of-the-night activity, when all the good guys need their beauty rest.
At exactly three in the morning, I scale Verone’s two-story penthouse, having seen the last of his guard dogs leave at midnight.
Just like I thought, the window near the kitchen sink proves easy enough to jimmy. People always open that one while cooking. No one ever considers the possibility that some tall mobster’s going to treat it as his personal front door.
I’m in and hovering over Verone before I even blink.
He’s dead asleep. Likely drunk by the smell wafting off him. The darkness hinders my vision, but I can tell he’s shorter and broader than me.
I inject him with my favorite fast-acting benzo. Dragging him to my Range Rover will be the most grueling part of this task.
Verone wakes up swinging, forcing me to duck his meaty fists. I like a good fight as much as the next guy, but I want to preserve my energy to carry his ass out.
He rolls out of bed and falls to his knees, dizzy and mumbling a string of unsavory slurs, threatening to do some very ugly things to me and my whole family.
I’m masked, so he’s really wishing long, slow, torturous deaths on the Riccis. Never in a million years would Verone believe a Gallagher lent a hand for the greater good.
What a mouth on this guy. He’d make a sailor blush. If I weren’t on the clock, I’d laugh.
The boss never cracks, though.
All his thrashing disperses the drugs into his system more quickly. No more than twenty seconds later, he’s slumped at my feet.
I secure a transfer belt under his arms and haul his ass down the stairs and out the back door to my waiting SUV. He fits in the trunk like a glove.
Ready. Set. Done.
Only once I get some information out of him will I kill him. It’d be a waste to miss the opportunity to torture a rat.
As I close the trunk, the high-pitched ring of distant sirens catches my attention.
Sirens?
And they’re getting louder.
This is bullshit. No way anyone knew about my presence here considering the lack of alarms on the windows and the fact that I didn’t break in through the door.
Someone must’ve set me up.
Catmust’ve set me up. Who else?
Son of a bitch. Betrayal stings my chest and claws my heart.
This is even worse than her not bothering to disclose the laundromat ambush.
