Page 15 of Burn this City

Dommarco? He hadn’t caught a whiff of anything wrong between Cassaro and him. Why would Cassaro slather on the honey to have him killed a week later? They had nothing to gain from another war. Surely this wasn’t about that missing associate?

But if theseweremade men, why wasn’t he dead already? If they planned to torture him first, they were also taking their sweet time. Only one way to narrow the field.

“Do you know who I am?”

A snort. “Next you’ll ask to speak to the manager.”

Jack bit back on his first response. “If he can help clear things up, I’m all for talking to somebody else. The question is, do you know who I am and what this means? I can’t work with nothing.”

8

Sal caught himself grinning. He could almost see Barsanti’s gears grinding behind the black hood.

“I can’t work with nothing.”

I don’t want you to “work with” anything.But he didn’t say it out loud. Sitting on the on the armrest of one of the couches, Enzo watched the scene unfold, but he seemed a little confused. Sal found himself enjoying it all more than he’d thought he would. The evening had started strong and was only getting better. Not only had he gained control of his enemy’s queen, but if he played it right, he’d follow up his revenge with a resounding victory.

He’d lived for this for years. Which made him the damn king of delayed gratification.

Sal stepped closer to Barsanti, and punched him in the stomach, hard. The attack had the full benefit of surprise—no tension of muscles that cushioned or deflected any of the force. Barsanti doubled over, spluttering and gasping breathlessly. Enzo was off his perch like a shot, but Sal raised a hand to stay him.

“Does that answer your question, Barsanti? Whether I know who you are and how much I carewho the fuckyou are?”

Shit, the rage rose like a red wave now that he’d made his move, and the force of it committed him much more than he’d expected. Partly because Barsanti had lived the past few years without even a hint of the pain that had torn up Sal’s life, partly because Barsanti clearly believed he was untouchable, that nobody would ever make him and the others pay for what had happened, and that he’d dare to challenge him while tied to his own fucking chair. If anything, the fact that Barsanti was tied and blinded somehow stoked Sal’s rage even more.

He might have pulled back and regained control of himself if Barsanti had been in a position to fight back, if he’d posed even the slightest—actual, physical—threat. Barsanti tucked in his chin like a boxer to protect his throat, tensed instinctively, pulled his shoulders up, and pushed his knees together, but those defenses were pitiful against the hail of punches.

When Enzo placed a hand on Sal’s arm, Barsanti’s chair had toppled and the man lay on his side, gasping hard and clearly suppressing sounds of distress. Coldly, distantly, Sal remembered that people didn’t cry out when they didn’t expect to attract help or mercy. Men without hope suffered in silence. He hissed out the breath that had got stuck somewhere between his ribs, and stepped back, then looked at Enzo.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Enzo’s eyes lacked all sentimentality. “Figured you still had questions for him.”

Sal gritted his teeth, but Enzo was right. Wouldn’t do to beat the man to shit and inflict wounds that made him useless. He flexed his hands and rolled his shoulders and straightened. “Get him up.”

Enzo duly bent down and tried to right the chair with Barsanti tied to it—a hell of a lot of dead weight, and he might have eventually managed, but Sal lent him a hand. Between them, they got it done.

Barsanti didn’t move. He sat there slumped under the pain as if it were a weight. His panting breaths were the only indication he was still alive and hadn’t passed out either. Sal’s fingers itched to continue the beating, or he was just on edge as years of tension found an outlet. That said, a lot of men would have already broken—for all their hard-ass antics, quite a few members of their specific circles were cowards and perfectly happy to sell their grandmothers if it saved them a minor inconvenience. Barsanti hadn’t said a word after that first attempt to work out who had gotten the better of him.

“Do you know who I am? I can’t work with nothing.”

Well, now Barsanti knew this wasn’t a random attack. And if they were bothmen of honor, as the misnomer went, he’d also already know how this would end.

Which was the place to pick up their conversation. Sal stepped behind Barsanti and rested his hands on the man’s shoulders, felt their warmth and strength through the shirt. As he tightened his grip, he realized how stiff the muscles were—an attempt to muster whatever physical armor Barsanti had. Pointless. Steel and cordite put the lie to any man’s strength. Fuck, for many all it took was a pair of pliers.

“I can do this the hard way or the easy way,” Sal said. “Personally, I have no preference. Hard might be more fun, easy means I can go home sooner. You understand me, smart boy?” It tickled him to call Barsanti a boy, but he’d have to prod him a while to see how much fight was left in him. Besides, as Enzo had said, any psychological advantage would work in their favor. Hence the hood and ties. And doing this in the man’s own house.

“I understand.” The words were clipped, carefully controlled. Not a hint of begging. Yet. Sal felt the words in Barsanti’s shoulders, as well as the breath he took to say them.

“Good.” He let one hand crawl closer to the hood and cradled Barsanti’s jaw, drawing a full-bodied shudder of revulsion from him, but didn’t allow him to pull back or move his head away—more psychology. Training a man into helplessness was important. “Now that we’re here, having this nice time together, I’ll tell you what I want from you. I’m sure you’re dying to know.” Shifting his hands back, he dug them into the man’s shoulders and kneaded the muscle. Barsanti didn’t like that, and there was no give. “I’m going to take down Andrea Lo Cascio and his whole miserable outfit.”

“And that includes me.” Barsanti’s voice was neutral, a professor adding a footnote to a paper.

“Every one of his associates, soldiers, capos, trusted friends. Lo Cascio is going down.”

“You’re not a Fed.”

“No. Not a vigilante cop either. I’m an interested party.”

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