Holton was shocked by this knowledge because he was stupid. How could he possibly think this shit would go unnoticed? Just because we worked thousands of miles apart didn’t mean I didn’t know exactly where he took a shit every day.
Holton glanced around the room, looking for an escape route.
“You want to leave?” I asked.
He stayed silent, knowing it was a trick question.
I nodded to my guys.
“No!” Holton tried to run around the table, but Maximum blocked him in. Diesel went the other way, cornering him like a scared dog. The remaining associates in their chairs didn’t look up from the table, pretending to ignore what was happening right before them.
“Hades, I’m sorry.” Holton turned to me, letting Maximum grab him and drag him away. “Please, I have a daughter. I’ll pay you every cent that I owe you, alright? Please.” Maximum dragged him to one of the large windows that was twelve stories above the sidewalk. Diesel unlocked it and pushed it open.
When Holton realized what was happening, he screamed. “Hades, don’t do this.”
“You’ve already paid me back, Holton. I saw to that.” I sauntered toward him, my hands resting in my pockets.
Knowing the ground had been pulled from underneath his feet, Holton’s eyes shone with a gloss, probably from the harshness of the wind that was blowing into the room. “My family… Please don’t hurt my family.”
I’d never been interested in torturing innocents. But of course, I never told anyone that. “If you don’t want me to hurt them, you’ll keep your mouth shut and not say a word all the way down.”
His mouth opened then his bottom lip trembled. “All the way down…?”
Maximum pulled him to the ledge.
“Hades, come on.” He tried to squirm out of his hold, but Maximum was far too big to be pushed away.
“Make a sound, and they all die.”
When Holton understood this was the end, there was such defeat in his eyes. He would have screamed like all other cowards, but knowing his family was on the line silenced him. Nothing he said could change my mind—and he knew that.
I just wanted him to shut up so we didn’t attract any unwanted attention. We’d booked a hotel room for him a few floors down. Everyone would think he’d jumped himself, that it was a sad story of suicide.
I nodded to Maximum. “Do it.”
Holton clenched his jaw tighter to control his screams. He grunted as he tried to fight back, as he tried to hold on to something as he was shoved out the window. He held on to the windowsill with a few fingers, desperate to survive.
Maximum kicked him and down he went.
We were so high up, we didn’t hear his body collide with the ground, only the shriek of a woman down below.
I turned back to the table. “Did you hear that, gentlemen? Silence.”
“So you pushed him out a fucking window?” Damien sat across from me at the dining table in my four-story home in the heart of Florence. I had a secure parking garage and a large fence around my property for privacy. There was decent land for trees and an outdoor pool, but for the most part, I spent my time indoors. I had an entire block to myself—and no neighbors were the best kind of neighbors. “I didn’t push him. Maximum did.”
“But still—hard-core.”
“He raised the price of my product and pocketed the profit. That’s stealing.”
“True…”
“People who steal from me never live long.”
“Double true.” He puffed on his cigar and let the smoke rise to the ceiling.
We shared a bottle of scotch, just the way we used to when we were young. Now we were almost thirty…but we hadn’t slowed down a bit. I liked smelling cigars more than smoking them, but when Damien lit up, I couldn’t resist the urge.
“So, everything taken care of?”
“Always.”
“If you raised the profits of that shipment and people were paying, maybe you could do the same with the rest.”
“We’re always laundering so much.”
“So?” He shrugged. “The government can’t be that dumb. They just look the other way because they don’t want to get pushed out a window.”
I grinned slightly. “You know I don’t mess with the police.”
“Because you’ve never had to. If push came to shove—”
“Everyone has a price. I’ll just pay them off.”
“Pretty soon we’ll have to pay off everyone in Italy.”
I shrugged. “So be it.” Damien and I had founded our bank years ago, with the sole intention of laundering money from our drug enterprise. But as the years passed, more men wanted a piece of the pie—including the Tuscan Rose. Sofia had no idea Gustavo was laundering the money I gave him for offering a neutral place for meetings. I’d done more deals at the Tuscan Rose than anywhere else.
I felt bad for the girl… She’d be devastated when she found out.