Page 51 of Wrong Pawn. Right Capo.

***

The smell of mold and dust hits me as soon as Francesco kicks the door to the shed open. Valente stumbles in, his boots scraping concrete as Francesco shoves him forward. I’d called in a favor with a contact in Queens, and they let me use this shed for my brief ‘meeting.’

My father had two close friends when he was alive, and I knew both of them by sight: Dean Rossi and Valente Ricci. They used to be three fearsome men when it came to both looks and deeds.

The man before me right now is a shadow of who I knew him to be. He once had rich, brown hair, but now he’s bald, his face deeply etched with wrinkles.

He’s still very well put together in his white suit and dark sunglasses, but without the shield of his entourage, I wonder if he’s still as tough.

My eyes run over him, stopping briefly at a nasty gash bleeding across his forehead now, the dark red staining the white of his suit jacket. His lower lip is also busted, blood pooling at the corner of his mouth. He struggles in vain to twist out of Francesco’s grip. Pathetic.

My knuckles flex at my side, eager to ram into his rib cage, but I still my fingers. He’s an old man, and moving without caution could do irreparable damage before I get the answers I came for.

“Any casualties?” I turn my eyes to Francesco, my jaw tightening.

“None, Capo.”

I tilt my head slightly, satisfied. “Mmm.”

Valente wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, winces, then glares at me. Anger flares behind the pain in his eyes.

Good!

“I hear you’re Bellandini’s son,” he says roughly.

I let the silence sit between us, my eyes holding his gaze without flinching until he gets uncomfortable and looks down.

“You hear correctly,” I say, pacing slowly around him. My fingers brush over a rake handle, then a shovel, and I struggle not to grab one to smash the fucker’s skull open. “And you must’ve heard you’re not here to ask questions.”

He scoffs, blood flecking his teeth. “What’s this about?”

“Five years ago.” I stop right in front of him, chin dipping, eyes lifting beneath my brows. “My father was accused of sabotaging a potential deal, and because of that, his entire family was massacred.”

He adjusts his stance, squaring his shoulders. “Unfortunate.”

I reach out to adjust his collar with slow, mocking precision. “I know you forged the evidence you handed Dean Rossi.”

He blanches, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Then he does something I already anticipated. He moves swiftly, snatching a gun from his waistband, but at the same instant, I ram one hand against his throat and slam the other down to block his pathetic attempt.

My hand clamps around his throat, squeezing until I see his eyes bulge. The gun in his hand clatters to the ground as I tighten my grip around his wrist, and Francesco picks it up instantly.

I draw my Glock, cock it, and press the muzzle hard against his temple, eliciting a defeated groan from him.

“Shut up.”

His feeble fingers scratch weakly at my hand, which is completely locked around his windpipe. “Don’t fucking play with me.” My tone drops dangerously. “The only reason you’re still breathing is because I don’t want a war just yet.”

He closes his eyes, coughing violently as I release him from the chokehold.

“I forged it,” he gasps.

I press the muzzle harder into his skin, smearing the cold steel in his blood.

“Keep talking.”

“Look, at the time I made a mistake, okay? I’d aligned with the ex-police commissioner who brought the deal to us behind Dean and Marco’s backs.” His face suddenly pales. “He promised me… and my mafia, special political immunity. And it was something I needed at the time.”

My teeth grit against my jaw. I’d have called him a pathetic old man, but that doesn’t even begin to cover it. He’s a conniving bastard.