27. Alessandro

Chapter twenty-seven

Alessandro

"Why did you let her out of your sight?"

I yell as I throw a punch at James. He grunts as he staggers on his feet. His mouth is bleeding from my punches.

"One job. One fucking job and you let her get away."

I connect my fist to his jaws again before he recovers from the former. He falls to the ground this time, coughing out blood with a bleeding nose. I'm sure I broke it. He damn well deserves it. My knuckles have cut wounds from the punches and have turned white, but I don't stop teaching this idiota a lesson with more punches to the head.

"Alessandro!"

"Leave me the fuck alone, Daniel!"

I kick James hard in his stomach until he can't move anymore. My blood is filled with rage. Adriana never fucking listens. She could be in danger now and I don't know where the fuck she is.

"Ale!" Daniel yells again as I try to kick James again.

He holds my arms from behind, stopping me. I grunt angrily, pushing him away. He grips me tighter and pulls me away.

"Fuck, Daniel! I said leave me the fuck alone!"

"You'll fucking kill him."

James is groaning on the floor with a bloody face.

"He will be dead if I don't fucking find her."

"Get yourself together, stronzo (asshole)!"

I let out deep, heavy breaths. Daniel fucking pisses me off. "Fuck off, bastardo (bastard)!"

Daniel punches me in the face.

"We will find her. Chill the fuck out and follow me!"

I pinch my jaws, massaging them gently as I stare at Daniel, mad. He walks to his car and enters it.

James' eyes flutter as he lays on the ground. It takes everything in me to stop myself from giving him another punch in the face.

I walk to meet Daniel instead, still angry from the punch he gave me.

The windows of his car are down as he lets out a cloud of smoke into the air. My mouth twitches watching him take another drag, staring at me as I make my way to his car.

"Start talking," I grunt as I slide into his car.

"We have some of Gustavo's men. Mendes helped with that."

Mendes is the man Daniel put in place to infiltrate the Gustavo gang.

"Where are they?"

Daniel kills the cigar, tossing it out. He glances at me and starts the car. "That's where I'm taking you."

He makes a reverse and drives out the gates.

Losing Adriana again and the pressure of finding L'Uomo's killer are driving me fucking crazy. The other Mafia gangs are probably already aware of his death.

Tarik found him dead in his room with a bullet in his chest. He claimed to have found him after he heard a sound while he was taking a damn pee. I'm not trusting his word. Everything feels odd about the situation. Only Daniel, Tarik, and I know where the safehouse is.

Daniel and I never finished our talk about my father and getting his revenge. I'm fighting my gut so hard not to believe he did this. Killed my father. I look at him through the corner of my eyes. Daniel's gaze is fixed on the road. And I want to punch him in the face to tell me the fucking truth. But Adriana is my problem now. I have to find her. I need to.

Daniel stops the car in front of an abandoned warehouse and turns to me.

"They are here."

My fingers reach for the door in a swift moment and just before Daniel yells for me, I'm already marching to the front door.

Adriana isn't safe without me. Every minute that passes without finding her puts her in danger. A fucking asshole could have his dirty hands all over her.

I land heavy knocks on the front door.

"Open the fucking door!"

One of my men is outside at the far end of the building, watching me. He makes a whistling sound and someone from the inside opens the door.

"Boss."

"Where the fuck are they? Show me!"

He leads me to another brightly lit room with five men strapped to chairs. Daniel takes a minute to join us.

The men in chairs stare at me with bloody and swollen faces. Their shirts and pants have been stripped off, sitting there clad in boxers. By the wall is a table holding different weapons.

"None of them have spoken yet," one of my men says.

I tsk, walking around them to see their faces clearly. "They are about to. Get me buckets of water now."

The prisoner seated in the middle groans loudly, staring at me with a black eye that is half open. I angrily punch his face as I spot a fucking smirk. He falls to the ground, still strapped to the chair and coughs out blood.

"You think this is fucking funny?"

My men pull his chair back up.

I roll up the sleeves of my shirt and punch the fuck out of his stupid face till my hands hurt. A tooth flies from his mouth as I connect one last fist to his jaw. He'd think twice again before putting on a fucking smirk. His face is covered in his own blood with multiple cuts.

"Where is Adriana?" I ask the next one. He is breathing hard with his face down. I grab his hair and pull it backward to let him face me.

"Who is Adriana?"

He grunts as I slap his face hard. "Fucking answer me, you bastard!" I pull his hair harder, taking a fistful and squeezing it tighter. He yells in pain.

"I don't know. I don't fucking know."

I punch his face and a mixture of blood and saliva spews from his mouth. "Get me a knife. I'll fucking cut you open till you start speaking."

One of my men in the room with us hands me a dagger. I place it underneath the man's neck, staring at him with gritted teeth.

"Where the fuck is Adriana?"

He stares me in the eyes, his chest heaving in fear. He winces loudly as I press the sharp edge of the dagger further into his skin. Trails of blood sips through the little cut down his throat.

"Answer me!"

" Ti… scongiuro . (I… beg you.)"

" Marcire All' inferno. (Rot in hell.)" I slit his throat in one swift move. His eyes bulge out of their sockets as blood splatters from the cut. After a few seconds of repressed groans, his head falls open with the slit cut in sight.

I clean the blood on his body and move to the first that I had beaten up.

"Who is ready to fucking talk?"

My gaze shifts from each of them, giving them a minute to rethink their decisions and open their damn mouths. No one does. That's the thing about mafia gangs—they'd rather die than be a ratto (rat).

" Fanculo a tutti voi (Fuck all of you)!" I drive the knife into his thigh, and he yells in pain, cursing in Italian.

" Pistola (Pistol)!" I command, stretching my palm out to one of my men. He hands over a pistol to me and I point it to the head of the man I stabbed in the thigh. I pull the trigger, sending a bullet through his head and I repeat the same for the two more by his side. I'm about to kill the last one when he stops me.

"Stop. Please fucking stop. Adriana is at her father's house."

I turn to glance at Daniel. He stares at me and walks out of the room immediately. The prisoner is breathing heavily, with sweat rolling down his face. He looks terrified, looking at me.

"He locked her in there. I swear. Please don't kill me."

"Too late, cagna (bitch)."

I send a bullet through his chest and spit on his face. "Get rid of the bodies!" Luckily one of my men's family owns a morgue, so it's just another body they can cremate.

Daniel has his back resting on the building when I walk outside. He has another lit cigar in his hand.

"Why did you leave?"

I join him by the wall, signaling to him to give me a cigar. He draws out a pack from the pocket of his brown leather jacket and opens it for me to pick one.

"I couldn't take it any longer." He grabs a lighter from the other side of his pocket and flicks it on. I fix the cigar in between my lips and bend to have Daniel light it up for me.

"You've become soft."

He stares back at the lonely street, with only the moonlight illuminating the night. It doesn't look like people still live around here.

"You've become just like your father."

I take a drag and release the cloud of smoke in the air. A moment passes between us as we both stare into the dark, empty space, smoking our cigars.

"Did you kill him?" I ask, breaking the silence.

"What do you think?"

"I don't know what to fucking believe anymore."

Daniel turns to look me dead in the eye. His eyebrows are narrowed, and his green eyes are blazing with anger.

"I wish I did but whoever the fuck did it was faster. I should have put a bullet in his fucking heart a long time ago." He takes a slow drag of his cigar. " E lui può anche marcire all ‘ inferno (And he may as well rot in hell)," he adds.

I turn to him and pin him to the wall with my elbow hooked on his neck. "Don't you fucking say that about him."

"Fuck you, Ale!" He grunts and pushes me off.

"He's gone now. You've got what you wanted."

"It wasn't my bullet through his heart. But yeah, I'm glad he's gone. I just hate to watch you become like him."

"What the fuck do you mean?" I'm restricting myself from lunging at him and delivering a punch to his fucking mouth.

"All of these. You fucking killed all five of them just to get what you wanted. I'm tired, man. There should be another way to go about business."

I run my fingers through my hair, letting out a sigh. "I'll do anything to find Adriana. And I fucking mean that."

Daniel laughs and turns to stare at me. " Madre's wishes might finally come true."

"Oh, shut the fuck up and let's go find her."

He drops his cigar on the ground and kills the fire with his feet, squashing the cigar on the floor. We walk back to his car and settle in the seats. "What do you have in mind?" He asks.

"Burst the fucking place and get her out of there."

"Are you crazy? You're only going to get yourself and the men killed."

His phone rings and distracts both of us. He takes it quickly and ends the call. But not quick enough, as I pick up the name of the caller.

"Who the fuck is Camila?"

"None of your fucking business." He inserts the key in the keyhole and starts the car. I land a soft jab on his shoulder as he begins to drive.

"You're seeing someone and you think you could hide it from me?"

"I wasn't hiding. I was just waiting for the right time. Your place?"

Daniel and I have become distant ever since the fight. It makes me realize how far apart we've grown—the lies. What else is he keeping from me? I wish we could go back to the old times when things were in black and white, simpler.

"Yes. I need to get some men to launch an attack tomorrow and save Adriana from her own fucking father."

He makes a turn and we are back on a busy street with lights from shops and clubs. People are lined up on the streets, busy trying to get home or have some fun, trooping into bars.

"We aren't enough, Ale. Mendes said he's joined the army with Aldo's. They are stronger together."

"I can't just do nothing."

"Since that double-crossing bastard has Aldo on his side, get the other Mafia gangs to fight for you. Strike a deal with them."

I nod as we glance at each other.

"I want out for real this time, Ale. After this, no more."

Daniel wants to quit. This has been the life we've grown to know and now he wants out.

War is coming, and I'm about to lose my brother.