“Fuck off,” I say to the young guy paying for a six-pack at the counter. He takes one look at me and Rinaldo, shoves some cash onto the counter, and gets the hell out of there without looking back.
The cashier stares at me and starts to tremble. He’s middle-aged, balding at the top, wearing a white button-down with yellow pit stains and ratty old jeans.
“Ah, fuck, Nico,” he says, hands held in the air. “I didn’t expect you until next week.”
“Then you lost track of time.” I approach the counter. Rinaldo walks through the store, knocking things onto the floor. He stomps on a bag of chips and it audibly pops and crunches, and the cashier jumps like a gun went off.
“I got your money. I really do, I just—I don’t got it on me, right?”
“We take Venmo.” I smile at him. We don’t actually take Venmo. “So let’s get this covered.”
“Uh, look, man, Nico—”
I lean across the counter and stare into his eyes. “You owe Don Bruno ten thousand dollars. Do you understand that, Afredo? Do you know how many collections I go on these days?”
He shakes his head. “No, man, I don’t know.”
“None. I don’t do this anymore. But you’re such an outstanding pain in my Don’s ass that he sent me here to deal with you personally. So, Afredo. I’ll ask you one more time. When can you pay?”
“Give me three days,” he says, his face ashen pale.
Rinaldo walks around the side of the counter to the gap in the back. “I don’t know, Nico. You trust this guy? He seems like a fucking slob to me.”
I glare at him. “Let me handle this.”
“I dunno. Seems like you’re not doing much.” Rinaldo slips behind the counter. Afredo backs away, his hands shaking wildly. “Seems like this guy needs to be reminded of who we are.”
“Rinaldo,” I say angrily.
But Rinaldo’s not listening. He walks to Afredo, smiling the whole time, and punches the guy in the gut. Afredo doubles over, groaning, and Rinaldo slams a knee into his face. Bone cracks and blood spurts onto the grimy floor as Afredo collapses back into a stack of gum packs and ChapStick tubes.
“There you go,” Rinaldo says, wiping his hands together. “Now you’re reminded.”
“Enough,” I say over Afredo’s sobbing.
Afredo spits blood on the floor and groans. “Three days, please. I can get it in three days.”
Rinaldo reaches down fast and grabs Afredo’s hand. He grins gleefully as he rips Afredo’s index finger back and breaks it with one smooth motion. The finger bones crack and Afredo screams in pain as Rinaldo laughs like he’s pulling the wings off a beetle. He grabs Afredo’s ring finger, and he’s about to crunch that one but I speak up.
“Rinaldo, walk away.” I stare at the young solider as rage flows through me. I ordered him to back down but he didn’t listen and now he’s torturing Afredo for fun. The little shit thinks he can stroll through this world doing as he pleases, but that’s not how things work in the Famiglia.
“Get in the fucking car,” I say with a vicious snarl on my lips.
Rinaldo smiles at me pleasantly and it’s like he didn’t just brutally break a man’s nose and finger for no good reason. Afredo’s late on a big payment, but he’s not that late. This was only supposed to be an intimidation visit—not straight violence, not yet at least.
I stare Rinaldo down as he walks past and heads outside. Once the door shuts behind him, I turn back to Afredo.
“Three days. That’s all you get. If I come back here and there isn’t a big pile of cash waiting for me, I’ll make sure I don’t stop Rinaldo next time.”
“I can do it,” Afredo says, nodding over and over. “I can do it, Nico.” Tears roll down his unshaven cheeks as he cradles his hand.
“For your sake, I hope so.”
I stride out of there. I don’t give a shit if Afredo comes through or not. It isn’t my problem. He never should’ve accepted money from Don Bruno and now he’s paying the price for it. I have no pity for a wretch like that.
But I linger out front. Rinaldo’s standing next to the Rover smoking a cigarette and looking at his phone.
My hand twitches toward the gun tucked into my waistband and I wonder if I could get rid of his body before anyone realizes we’re gone. Unfortunately, too many people saw me bring him as my backup tonight. There’d be too many questions.
That’s the man Karah thinks she wants to marry.
That psychopath right there.
In my line of work, I’ve met plenty of men like Rinaldo. Psychopaths come in two flavors—successful and unsuccessful. The unsuccessful ones end up in prison, unable to figure out how to blend in with normal society, unable to use their ruthless lack of empathy for anything other than the pursuit of base pleasure. Unsuccessful psychopaths flit around from one sensation to the next, searching for sex and drugs and violence until they’re eventually thrown in a case.