“Permission to speak brother?” I ask Massimo, reaching for my knife in my back pocket.
“Granted,” Massimo replies.
I step right up to Wilson and he shudders at the sight of me.
“Please… spare me. They’ll kill me if I talk,” Wilson sputters. One of his teeth falls to the ground and I frown at the sight of it.
“Shut up,” I shout. My voice carries across the room, echoing off the walls. “What do you think we’re going to do to you?”
I can’t stand idiots like this. The ones who believe we’re just going to question them and let them go.
“Please I beg you. You already have a name. Isn’t it enough?”
“It’s enough when I say it’s enough,” I inform him. “Tell us everything. I want to know everything Mortimer Viggo did.”
“There’s … too much,” he mutters.
Too much? Jesus… I wonder when too much is truly too much.
The type of sins and secrets that have shaken my family since this shit began were the kind no man would ever forget. They were the kind to change a person forever. Inside and out. I watched the change occur in my brothers almost by the second. That change already came for me when Alyssa was killed.
Everything that has happened gave us a rude awakening no one could foresee. And it all went down in one afternoon. Everything.
Not only was the Syndicate bombed but the proverbial closet door opened, and all the skeletons fell out whispering secrets on their lips, holding daggers in their hands ready to kill and claim.
In that afternoon we lost Pa. The bomb injured him, but it was Ricardo’s bullet to his head that ended him. We also learned the same devil killed our mother nearly twenty years ago, and made it look like a suicide.
Then we lost Andreas, our eldest brother. I think of everything that happened his actions cut me deepest. I always suspected if anyone were to go rogue it would be him. He did.
When Pa chose Massimo to be boss of the family, Andreas sided with Ricardo to destroy us. All an attempt to take the D’Agostino empire for himself.
All of that shit is what you call too much, and there was more. Those were just the worst parts of the disaster.
I get right up in Wilson’s face and make sure the fucker can see just how serious I am. I want him to see the real me, see I’m a man with nothing left to lose.
Men like me have no souls; they know no boundaries. All that fuels me is vengeance and the thirst for blood to sate the revenge that consumes my every thought.
I want him to see that and know I’m not a man to fuck with. As I stare him down understanding forms in his eyes. It comes along with terror when I raise my knife. I’m not so sure he’s scared enough yet though, so I’m going to have to take things up a notch.
“Wilson… I don’t know who you’re used to dealing with but now isn’t the time for shit. This is the only warning you will get from me. Talk, or I will kill you slowly. Don’t talk and it will be slower, agonizing, excruciating pain. The type where you will beg me to end you.” I smile and his eyes widen.
Just as I preempted though he keeps his silence.
I look to Massimo for more permission to act and he nods. On his approval, I ram my knife into Wilson’s shoulder. That won’t kill him, but it will cause enough pain to make the fucker cry. It certainly does.
He howls with pain and starts bawling his eyes out. He then proceeds with more pleas, begging for mercy.
“You fool, stop it. Stop asking for mercy,” I roar. “Why should we show you any? You made the fucking bomb.”
I yank my knife from his shoulder and stab him in the right side. The scream that rips from his lips pierces through me, and again when I push the knife in further and metal scrapes against bone.
“Stop! Please…” he cries.
Looks like we’re getting somewhere. “Ready to talk? Or should I start chopping off limbs?”
He says nothing. I already came in with no patience, so his silence just makes me snap. I pull my gun and shoot him in the top of his thigh. This time when he screams it’s like death has come to take him. I’m hoping that will be enough persuasion. If I do any more damage, he might not be any good to us.
I cock the hammer on the gun again and he screams once more.