Off the Record (With Me in Seattle Mafia 3)

“You killed Vinnie and put an innocent man on death row,” Pop says, staring at his sister as if she were a stranger.

“Who gives a shit about that?” Claudia demands. “He was a criminal. It was so easy to hire the right judge, a dirty one, and make sure he took the fall for it. All tidied up with a pretty little bow.”

“Everything you are, everything you stand for, is exactly against what we’re taught, Claudia,” Pop says in exasperation. “My God, you’re crazy.”

“I am not crazy. I’m strong. I’m driven. And I know what I want.”

“And would you have killed Elena if you’d known where she was?” Carmine asks.

“I looked for that little brat for years. Always slipped through my fingers. Then I found out that my mother was behind hiding my daughter from me.” She examines her nails. “So, I killed her.”

Pop’s hands ball into fists. All of us want to pounce on her.

“You killed my mother,” Pop says.

“I killed my mother,” Claudia shoots back, her eyes full of anger now. “A woman who cared more about you and your three little brats than she ever did about me. She loved my child more than me. It was sickening how she fawned over all of you. She didn’t even like me. She ignored me.”

“You were never around,” Pop points out. “You spent as much time as you could away.”

“You bet your ass, I did.”

“And who do you expect was supposed to love Elena? To care for her?”

“God, you’re slow, Carlo. Try to keep up here, okay? In case you haven’t heard a word I’ve said, I’ll say it again. I don’t fucking care about that little cunt,” Claudia says, leaning forward. “It was me who didn’t get any love from anyone in that damn house. So, I came here where I was loved. Appreciated. The Carlitos worshipped me.”

“So, all of this is because you didn’t get enough attention?” Annika asks and sets her hands on her hips. “Really? That’s really stupid.”

“You’ll watch your tone with me if you want to keep that tongue in your pretty little mouth,” Claudia replies, her voice full of venom.

“You just try to touch her,” I suggest. “I beg you.”

“You blamed my family for protecting Pavlov,” Mick Sergi says coldly, now that the Martinelli side of things has been explained. “Built an entire web of lies that my men believed and had dozens of them killed because they believed they were carrying out my orders.”

“You might want to hire men who aren’t so gullible,” Claudia says with a shrug. “It’s certainly not my fault that they believed a bunch of lies. Besides, it was for the greater good, Mick. Pavlov was a mess. And he was from your city. Why didn’t you take care of him when he lived there?”

“Because I had him under control,” Mick replies. “And then, suddenly, one day he was gone. I thought he was dead and forgot him. Until my men started disappearing and ended up dead, and it all came back to me.”

“Well, I had to blame someone for it, didn’t I?” Claudia asks. “I mean, I was building an empire for my son.”

“And you killed my father,” Maceo says.

“I told you. Benji was the only man who could be the boss. The Carlitos are the only family who matter.”

“You killed my father and other families who never had a beef with you,” Maceo continues. “My mother could still die.”

“You’re not listening to me.” Claudia’s frustrated now. “No one else matters except Benji.”

“But it was just you and Benji. There is no Carlito family,” I point out.

“He would have married within a few years and started a family. We would have built from the ground up. But now you’ve ruined that. You’ve ruined everything. I should have known you would. The people I came from never did anything good for me, not once in my life. Benji was going to do great things. He had his whole life ahead of him. I just had to get a few roadblocks out of the way, and the sky was the limit for him.”

“By killing off the other families,” Igor says, shaking his head.

“Yes. You and Nadia were next, but I couldn’t pin you down. I was just going to blow you all up.”

“And us?” Pop asks.

“I was saving you for last.” She taps her lips thoughtfully. “I planned to put the bullets into your heads personally.”

“Are you finished with your story?” Pop asks.

Claudia lets out a loud, gusty sigh. “Boy, it feels good to get it all off my chest, you know? Keeping secrets is tough. Yeah, I think that’s it for now.”

Without another word, Pop raises his gun.

“It’s my bullet going in your head.” He squeezes the trigger and kills her instantly with a bullet right between the eyes.