11. Davide

The thumping from the trunk won't shut the fuck up.

It's late and there's not much traffic as Bruno rolls the BMW toward our warehouse on the very edge of town. The old building practically straddles the city limits, and it's located in a very conveniently abandoned stretch of road without any nearby neighbors. Typically, the place is used to house various goods that need to be discreetly moved, but a few summers back my brothers and I built a few soundproofed rooms on the second floor, converting the offices into what my brother Angelo used to refer to as the pleasure dome.

"You've been married for a couple days now," Bruno says, trying to make conversation over the fucking racket coming from the back. "How's that treating you? The girl's doing good?"

I look out the window, trying to decide how to answer. Stefania seemed lost last night and I didn't know how to make her feel better except to commiserate the best I could. Today, she wasn't much better: she slept in late, didn't seem interested in eating, and mostly wandered around the house peering into the cupboards and mumbling about open floor plans.

"I think we're both getting acclimated," I tell him and choose not to elaborate. Bruno glances at me and shrugs, since he knows me well enough not to press the point any further. He's been working with me for over ten years now and he's probably my closest friend at this point, if anyone could consider themselves my friend at all, which is a sad state of affairs. Bringing Stefania into my life is making me think about myself from her perspective, and I must look absolutely bizarre.

Bruno talks about a girlfriend he's been dealing with, the same girl he's been on and off with since forever, a real troublemaker named Mia that he met in one of our strip clubs. He got hooked on her, made her quit dancing, and has been supporting her ever since.

"At this point I'm basically a moneypig for her," he grunts as he rolls the BMW down the bumpy driveway heading toward the warehouse.

"The fuck is a moneypig?"

He parks and kills the engine. "You know that dom/sub financial shit?"

I get out of the truck and he follows. "No fucking clue what you're talking about."

"It's like a sexual kink, right? The guys get off on being like abused and shit, like it's some arrangement where the moneypig gives some fucking dominatrix cash and shit, I guess? I'm not doing a good job at explaining it."

I stand in front of the trunk. The banging's gone quiet, which is a bad sign. "If you're trying to say that Mia drains you and gives you nothing in return, I've been trying to tell you that for fucking years."

Bruno groans and puts his face in his hands. He's so goddamn dramatic sometimes. "What am I gonna do, Davide? I love the girl. I really fucking love her. But I can't get so much as a blowjob, bro. I'm serious, I'm like humping the goddamn furniture at this point, I'm so horny."

I rub my face very slowly. "Bruno, don't tell me how horny you are ever again. I'm not even kidding."

He goes on about how Mia's killing him while I pop the trunk, and he doesn't even skip a beat when a full-grown man tries to throw himself out onto the pavement.

I step back and watch it happen. The guy twists, grunting with effort, and flops onto the fucking blacktop like a dying fish. He moans in pain, his mouth gagged with cloth and duct tape, and hands and ankles bound by zip-ties. He struggles to get to his feet, and I kick him hard in the stomach until he stops resisting.

"You ever think about, I don't know, finding a new girl?" I ask him as I take the guy by the arms and he takes the ankles. The fucker starts twisting again and doesn't stop until I drop him on the ground. His head hits hard and bounces once, and that's enough to make him stop.

"Every fucking day," Bruno says. We carry the load into the warehouse, up the back stairs, and toward the pleasure dome. Three rooms are marked for our enjoyment with numbers one, two, and three, each circled in a little heart. That's Angelo's sick sense of humor. "But whenever I try it, she draws me back in by making me dinner or fucking putting on some lingerie or shit. Maybe that's what I gotta do. Withhold money until the blowjobs return."

"Bruno, my brother, you have a seriously twisted relationship," I say as I kick open door number two. We bundle the guy onto a chair sitting over a lone drain. The floor and walls are covered in tarps, and a table's set out with implements of the trade: knives, scissors, pliers, lighters.

Our guest is only half-conscious, but he's aware enough of his situation that he's trembling hard enough to rattle the whole floor. His name is Orlando Gallo, and we picked the bastard up when he left his favorite bar an hour earlier. He wasn't even hard to track down. We've been keeping tabs on him and his entire crew for months now, and the stupid cocksucker finally did something worth punishing him for.

"I'm going to ask you one question. I'm going to ask it, over and over, until you answer it." I lean over him and stare into his eyes. He knows who I am; he knows what coming to this room means. "Who ordered you to sink those ships?"

I don't wait for him to say anything. I start with the knives, draw some blood, carve him up a bit, before finally taking off the duct tape and letting him spit out the cloth.

"Santoro," he moans the instant his mouth is free. "Fuck, please, stop hurting me. I would've told you an hour ago. Santoro made me do it. It's been Santoro and his fucking goons."

I look at Bruno and toss the knife down in disgust. "He could've at least made me work for it."

"Selfish prick," Bruno says, nodding in agreement.

I check my watch. It's a little past three in the morning and I haven't checked in with Stefania for a while. I assume she's asleep, but I have the sudden urge to go back home and check on her. Uncle Luciano's been quiet for a while, but this sudden escalation of our quietly simmering war is extremely bad news. I had hoped to get those Rossi guns before Santoro made his move, but now there's no time to wait for the first shipment. We have to return fire and quickly.

"Thank you for the information," I say and plunge a knife into his chest. Any other time, and I would've spent the evening cutting, twisting, ripping, and tearing him into ever-finer pieces and pushing him for every scrap of information he had, no matter how important.

Except I want to be in bed with Stefania, and this guy's only a C-tier operative at best.

Which is a problem. My new wife isn't supposed to affect my work, and here she is, already lodged deeply in my skull. I know on a rational level that she's extremely safe in the little Bianco oasis—every inch of that street is guarded by snipers and foot soldiers, and every house within a quarter mile around it is owned by friends and soldiers.

Only I can't be sure she's okay unless I'm there with her.

Uncle Luciano will pay for this provocation.

Just not tonight.

"Maybe I'll buy her some new clothes," Bruno muses as he begins the cleanup. All the plastic tarps make the process straightforward. "I mean, what if I push her away, you know? Fuck, man, I'm a mess."

"You're fucking screwed," I say, shaking my head at him.