Some men felt that as a horror, right from the start. Trey was obviously that kind of man. He would never make an enforcer. Some men felt it as a rush of power. Those men were to be feared above all others.
Others, like Angie, felt both. His first close, cold kill, he’d felt the rush while the body was still in his arms. His heart had gone off like a Roman candle, and he’d laughed. Giddily. Not with humor, but with an overwhelming blast of emotions that had needed some kind of release and found laughter first.
Then he’d gone off and found a woman and fucked her until they’d both passed out.
The next morning, the horror had hit him, and he’d puked his guts out and locked himself alone in his apartment for the weekend.
He’d killed many men since then. Many. He knew the number but never let himself think it. Because causing death was his job, and he couldn’t do it if he felt them all. He’d had to build up a callus over that part of himself—the part that had felt the rush, and the horror. Death was his job. He was the Reaper of the Pagano Brothers.
His father had been a grocer, a butcher, and Angie had known from his earliest understanding that he never wanted to live his father’s life, spending his days in a bloody apron. But he’d become a butcher anyway. Sometimes, he even wore an apron. It was, apparently, in his blood.
Il sangue non mente.
“You good, kid?” he asked Trey.
A distracted nod was the answer. Then the kid blinked, took a breath, and nodded with more conviction. “I’m good. I’m good.”
Angie grabbed his shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze. As he did, Tony showed up on the other side of the gate. A few drops of blood on his face were the only indications that he’d just done a turn of the property and put down three men.
“Clear?” he asked Tony as they all met at the small, unlocked gate beside the larger cantilevered model that spanned the driveway.
Tony turned the lock. “Perimeter clear. Two left at the door.”
Angie stepped through the gate. “Perfect.” He pulled the burner phone from Kuzma and sent a text. A thumbs-up.
Ten seconds later, gunfire erupted inside the house.
“That concludes the stealth portion of our program,” Angie said and pulled the Makarov from his gun belt. “Time to party.”
~oOo~
The door guards had run into the house at the onset of the shooting; Angie and Tony took them out in the hallway. By the time they arrived at the dining room, the shooting was over, and bodies lay in a scatter around the table and against the far wall. An elaborate meal had been destroyed, dishes shattered and food and drink splashed over white linen. Sprays of blood and gore plumed over every surface.
Angie had never lost the sense of awe at how much damage bullets could do in so little time. Less than thirty seconds from the first shot to the last. Maybe less than twenty.
In the midst of that carnage, four men were still alive: Kuzma. A man Angie didn’t recognize but quickly guessed to be a Zelenko body man. And two older mean he’d seen only in photographs: Ilya Zelenko and Yuri Bondaruk.
Kuzma, Ilya, and the random Zelenko were standing. Yuri sat at the head of the table. Kuzma had a gun pointed at Yuri’s head.
The Zelenkos had come through.
Now it was time for the secret weapon. Angie glanced at Kuzma, who gave him a subtle, almost imperceptible, nod.
At that, Angie aimed the borrowed Makarov and shot Ilya Zelenko in the gut.
The old man let out of woof and dropped.
Yuri shouted incoherently and slammed his hands to his head, hunching into a cower.
Tony and Trey, at Angie’s side, both jumped and, out of reflex, aimed at the Zelenkos left standing. Tony yelled, “Ange! What?”
But neither Kuzma nor his body man even flinched. Kuzma kept his gun trained calmly on Yuri Bondaruk.
Ilya, Kuzma’s grandfather and pakhan, noticed that right away. He rattled off a bunch of Ukrainian in a suffering wheeze.
Kuzma returned a few words. Angie didn’t know the language, but he thought he understood the meaning well enough. Something along the lines of Nothing personal, just business, he imagined.
This was the side deal Kuzma had made—kill his grandfather to make room for him at the head of the bratva. With only his best friend—the rando Zelenko, Angie assumed, who was still breathing and clearly on the same page—in on the plan and slated to rise to Kuzma’s right hand, Kuzma could take over without controversy if the Paganos pulled the trigger. Then, sitting at the head, Kuzma controlled whether his bratva would retaliate against an apparent Pagano betrayal of this alliance.
He could use their extremely profitable partnership with the Romano Family to sideline talks of retaliation without appearing soft right out the gate.
It had been Angie’s secret weapon because they had this deal on record, and Kuzma knew it. He had a lot of reason to hold to this plan and not double-cross Angie’s team. And neither Nick nor Angie had any problem double-crossing a two-faced shithead like Ilya.
With his borrowed gun still aimed on the soon-to-be ex-pakhan, Angie went into the room, stepping over bodies and puddles of gore until he stood before Ilya Zelenko. The old man would die from that shot, but not quickly. He was in agony, which was exactly how Angie wanted him for now.
“You speak English, old man?” he asked.
Ilya didn’t answer.
“He does,” his grandson said.
“Good.” Angie crouched and faced Ilya directly. “Then you will understand me when I say Don Nicolo Pagano sends his regards. He knows you made the call to ally with the Bondaruks, and he knows it was Zelenko men serving that alliance who came through his town and desecrated it. Let this be a message to you as you die”—he looked up at Kuzma to deliver the next line—“and a lesson to those who come after you,”—he returned his attention to the old man—"that he will go to the ends of the earth to render justice. He does not forget, and he does not forgive.”
Angie stood. He shot Ilya Zelenko in both knees, let him feel that for a second or two, and then put a bullet right in the center of his forehead.
Then he turned to the other old man in the room. “And finally, Yuri Bondaruk. Zdrastuyte.” He glanced back at Trey, seeking confirmation that he’d gotten the word for ‘hello’ right. His eyes still round with shock, Trey nodded, and Angie turned back to the man he’d crossed an ocean to kill.
Bondaruk sighed and lifted weary, defeated eyes. “You kill them all. My sons. My family. My friends. All.”
“You know, I noticed that.” Angie shrugged and pulled up a chair to take a seat at the table. He leaned back as if he were relaxing after a big meal. “What can I say? This is what happens when you fuck with the Paganos. You were warned repeatedly, but I guess you’re not very bright.”
“So, you have win. And now you kill me.”
“Well, not now, exactly.” He plucked a pristine roll from a basket on the bloody table, and he took a bite. Around it, he said, “Eventually, yeah. But we got some time. And we owe you more than a death, Yuri. A lot more than a death.”
He shoved the rest of the roll in his mouth. “Huh. That’s pretty good bread.” After he swallowed, he picked up the nearest glass of vodka, ignoring the slim spiral of red working its way to the bottom, and tossed it back. Then he picked up a bloody napkin and wiped his mouth with a clean corner. He stood, dropped the napkin on the table, brushed his hands of any crumbs.