Page 110 of Cartel King

“Cut off their index fingers and thumbs, so I can get into their phones again once they lock. Take out an eyeball if needed.”

“Wait, what?!”

“Gérard, if you’ve told us all you’re willing to say, then I don’t need you anymore. I’ll get more information out of your phones. All I need you for is ways to unlock it.”

I nod to the guards, and they pull the men away. More guards step forward to help restrain the men.

“Wait, wait,wait.” Johann fights against the men, who try to pull him onto his back.

“If you have something worth saying, you better say it quickly.”

“Wait. I know more.”

“Get on with it, then.”

“There was more than one job post about you.”

“Intriguing, but not surprising. Are they recent ones?”

“Yes. There’re always posts to eliminate any of us, but recently there’ve been several placed for you. Even before this one. It’s just no one knew the mercenary we were after was a woman. I didn’t connect them to you until now. You saw the original one. It described your appearance and age, and that you were once married to a Mafioso. It said nothing about who you worked for or what you did. Once we took the job, the message told us where to find you. It never said why. We figured someone thought you knew too much.”

“Was this the highest offer?”

“No.” Gérard pipes in but shrinks back when I turn a withering stare at him for interrupting. He had his chance. I return my attention to Johann.

“If this wasn’t the best offer, then why take it if you could’ve earned more with somebody else as your client?”

“Because I don’t know who this is, and it described an ex-wife not a gun for hire. I know who some of the other clients are who wanted the unnamed mercenary, and neither of us wants anything to do with them. Neither of us wanted to go after a fellow hitman with your record.”

“Do you have the listings on here?”

“Yeah. Keep scrolling until you get to a folder icon. Tap that.”

I do as he says, and I see four posts. I open the first one and skim. I look at Enrique and quirk a brow.

“You might want to take this one down.”

“What?”

He holds out his hand for the phone and scans the post that describes but doesn’t name me. The one overwhelming inaccuracy is it assumes I’m a man. Anybody working as a top echelon international mercenary would know who the mark was, but the job would’ve entailed searching for me. Until I confessed to Enrique, the only people who’d know it was me were Tommaso, Frank, theirconsigliere—Santino—and me.

Enrique taps on the screen again and turns his hand, so I can read the new post he pulled up. This one’s from the Mancinellis. I skim that one too before Enrique moves on to a third one, which I’m certain came from the Kutsenkos, and the final one’s from the O’Rourkes.

None of their names are on there. There’s no mention of what type of syndicate, but when you’ve been in this business as long as all of us, little effort’s needed to guess which family. They included nothing clearly identifiable, but put in context, the information that’s there makes it easy to tell who’s who.

Enrique looks between the two men. “No one wanted to tangle with the New York families. This is an outsider.”

Johann nods. He’s perspiring, the sweat trickling down his cheeks. He’s growing paler by the word as he pants. I need this information fast.

“Why risk working with someone you don’t know? How can you be sure they won’t turn on you or have him turn on you?” I tilt my head toward Gérard.

“As long as I get paid, then I accept the risks that go with this. I always have.”

“Who do you suspect hired you?”

“I think it’s somebody in the Maldives.”

“What makes you think that? You said it was someone in Russia.”

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