Page 21 of Paolo DeLuca
“Good.” Paolo smirked, reaching for the knife he kept at the small of his back. He still had on the tux he wore to the gallery as he approached one of the men tied to a chair sitting in the corner of the room. His men surrounded each in a different corner so they couldn’t see one another. The men were gagged and unable to speak to each other.
He approached the first man, his knife feeling weightless in his hand. Paolo halted in front of the young man. He looked around the same age as Paolo but might have lived a much harder life by the cuts on his face. Dante slid a chair under him as he sat.
“My friend tells me you have nothing to say.”
“Vete a la mierda,” he spat. Go to hell.
“You want to tell me who hired you?” Paolo grinned, then raked his knife across the man’s cheek. “Or am I taking it to your Patrón?”
The fear in the man’s eyes told Paolo all he needed to know. The boss of the Red Barons didn’t know about this little operation. They worked alone. Now, the question was, who hired them?
“Ahhh, he doesn’t know,” Paolo said. “Now, it’s all making sense. Who hired you to push fucking fake bills into my club? Who the fuck are you to think you’d get away with it? Do you know who the fuck I am?”
Whimpers sounded from the others in the room. If this one didn’t talk, he’d fucking die.
“Nothing to say?” Paolo slit his throat, then moved to the next man, wiping the blood from his blade on the man’s jacket.
“Get him out of here,” Paolo ordered his men huddled around the now-dead Baron.
“You going to kill all of them?” Dante asked. “You know Rodriguez will consider three dead Barons an act of war. A life for a life.”
“I don’t give a fuck.” Paolo shrugged. “If he comes for the DeLucas, his entire goddamn crew will be wiped out. He knows better, especially since they were acting without his orders.”
Dante gave a curt nod as they approached one of the last two. “Then it doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Paolo echoed and sat in front of the next man. “Who hired you?” He asked the same questions he did of his now-deceased partner.
“Por favor.” The man sobbed. “Please, don’t kill me.”
“You tell me what I want to know—and I’ll think about it,” Paolo replied. “Who hired you to funnel those bills into my club?”
The man took several deep breaths before he strung together a coherent sentence. “She,” he faltered, swallowed, then tried again. “She said it was to get your attention.”
Paolo knew exactly who the man spoke of, but he wanted to hear him say it. “She who?”
“I don’t know her name.” he cried. “She only spoke to us on the phone. She called us; we didn’t call her.”
Paolo stuck his knife in the man’s thigh. “You’re lying.”
The man howled in pain as Paolo twisted his knife, driving it further into his thigh.
“I’m not lying!”
“What number was she calling from?” Paolo pulled the knife out. “How long have you been talking with her?”
The man’s chest rose and fell rapidly, grunting in pain. “A few… a few months.”
Paolo turned to Dante. “Did you confiscate phones?”
Dante held his hand out to one of the men who placed a phone in his palm. He handed it to Paolo. “We took this one off the one you killed.”
“What about the others?”
Dante tilted his head toward the man who passed out from pain sitting in the chair. “He didn’t have one, and his friend over there…” He pointed. “…had one, but it was dead. We’re charging it in the office.”
“Good.” Paolo stood. “Let’s go see who they’ve been talking to.” He walked across the concrete floor toward the door leading to the club.
Paolo paused. “Get rid of them.” His voice echoed across the barren space. It seemed eerie, now that the printing machine was silent. Paolo hoped it wasn’t a sign of things to come. He stepped through the open door, then locked it.
