Page 89 of Taboo Flames
“You thought correctly.” I smile. “How’s Carlos?”
“He’s a tough bastard. He’ll be up and running in a few days time.”
“Good,” I say with a nod. Then I turn and face the groaning man before me. “On the one hand, I want this to be as easy as possible for you, but on the other hand, I want you to choose the hard way.”
I spread out the contents of the toolbox on one side of the steel table. There are different sizes of hammers, pliers, drills, whips, and a whole lot of other fun toys.
The man’s eyes widen at the selection, and then he spits out blood. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just let me go, man.”
“How disappointing,” I reply.
“I’m not loyal to Il Sguardo Nero anyway,” he says angrily. “I knew he had plans to get rid of me. Said I was a weak link or something like that. I’m not a damn weak link.”
Fiore and I exchange a look. From where I’m standing, he’s very much the weak link.
“So what do you know?” I question him.
“I know that it doesn’t matter what I tell you,” he says with a stupid-looking smirk. “He’s too powerful for you to able to touch him. He’s not your regular drug dealer kingpin.”
I’ve been suspecting that for a while.
“So what is he?” I probe.
“Don’t get me wrong. He has his hand in every piece of pie. He’s sort of a jack of all trades. He recently teamed up with the Albanians.”
Hearing that, I step forward angrily. “What the fuck did you say?”
The man laughs. “He’s been fucking you from the back long before the Vitale girl came into the equation.”
“Who is he?” My words come out low and hard. “I need a name, a real name.”
“You don’t know?” He guffaws. “You’re pathetic. I thought you were the great Giovanni Lombardi, lethal and terrifying.”
I’m tempted to just shoot him straight through the head, but I need to hear what he has to say, so I stop myself.
“I’ll find him whether you talk or not. I know he works with The Godfather and that’s an easy path to trail. But be rest assured that?—”
His maniacal laughter cuts me off abruptly, and I stare at him in surprise as he laughs so hard that tears spring up in his eyes.
“You think he works with The Godfather?” he asks, putting a strange emphasis on the question.
“I know it,” I snap impatiently. “There’s no use denying it.”
“I’m not denying it,” He laughs again, spitting out another mouthful of blood. There’s a look of unadulterated amusement on his face that I don’t understand.
“Unless you want me to revisit my tool table, I asked you a question, and I’m not a patient man. Who the fuck is Il Sguardo Nero?”
He leans forward jeeringly and finally answers, “His name is Giacob Giordano, and he’s also known as The Godfather.”
I stagger back in shock. “Impossible,” I utter.
“He’s lying!” Fiore growls.
The man just throws his head back as far as he can, considering the restraint on his neck, his laugh echoing in the empty room.
“No, he’s not,” I respond slowly as the final piece of the puzzle clicks into place. I’d assumed there was a mole in our organization taking valuable information back to the enemy, but it turns out that all this while, I’ve been the unwilling leak.
This is why the Albanians have proven to be unstoppable. Because I’ve been pouring out my frustrations about them to a man I thought I could trust. The same thing with Aurora’s case.