Page 16 of Burn this City

“Dommarco?”

Sal bared his teeth, and exchanged a glance with Enzo, who was back on his perch on the couch. “You’re going to help me. You know everything there is to know about his business. You’ll give me everything. Names, addresses, businesses, accounts.”

“Oh Christ.” Barsanti shook his head and that was the first genuinely emotional response Sal had gotten out of him—a kind of despair at the enormity of it. “You’re going to start a war.”

“Don’t worry about that part. You won’t be around to see it,” Sal snapped. “Your choice is—easy or hard?”

Judging from the state of the man’s shoulders, it would be hard. Everything about Barsanti signaled resistance.

“Is Guy Dommarco behind this?”

“I already ignored that,” Sal hissed. “You keep your mind on answeringmyquestions.”

Several seconds passed, but Sal kept his hands on Barsanti’s shoulders, finding that the man’s body was better about communicating what was going on inside of him than his voice or his words. The tension under his fingers ramped up like ropes twisting tighter.

“So?”

“You know I can’t do that.” Barsanti sounded calm, but breathy. “Besides, this could be some twisted test.”

How old school. But then, Barsanti was part of a generation where business was done face to face, and unable to fit this whole event into his neat worldview, he questioned even the most basic choices put before him. Though what an interesting piece of intel. He truly seemed to think that either Dommarco or his own fucking boss might have him snatched and beaten to test whether he’d fold under pressure. Huh.

He had no argument against it. Dommarco might have decided it was time for another war, even though business had been good, and the Prizzi wedding had overall been a demonstration of harmony. And whether Lo Cascio was stupid enough to fuck with his own consigliere—well, Sal reserved judgment on that.

He took his hands off Barsanti and stepped around the chair. If this got him to his goal faster, making the small concession might be worth it. After all, he was playing this little game to save blood and time. He reached for the black hood.

“You sure?” Enzo asked.

“Yeah.” He pulled it off.

Barsanti blinked in the comparatively bright light—that hood was a real bastard, Sal had tested it himself, and after a little while the total darkness inside got disorientating. Barsanti’s hair was a little disheveled, his skin flushed, his lip split. Barsanti must have quietly sucked in the blood and swallowed it, though there was a smear on his chin. His light blue eyes blinked again, and Sal caught all the little, fleeting expressions on his face. Relief. Recognition. Fear. Surprise. Realization.

Now, though, Barsanti gathered himself and regarded him evenly. The skin on his left cheekbone was red and swollen—that looked like it would become a hell of a shiner. The hood had also allowed Sal to forget how attractive Barsanti was—especially without his smarmy salesman grin. His stomach tightened with appreciation.

“No, I didn’t get this sanctioned by either Dommarco or Lo Cascio,” Sal said.

Barsanti looked up to him, nothing but honesty in his eyes. “I believe you.”

Hot fucking damn.

Strip the bullshit from the man, make him hurt and shake that confidence, and there was something underneath that almost shocked Sal. He’d seen that expression on Enzo’s face years ago, when Enzo had dropped his defenses and completely surrendered. Up until then, Enzo had been attractive in an abstract way, but never compelling. It took a masterful hand to reduce Enzo to that point where nothing but honesty remained.

Barsanti closed his eyes briefly. “Shit.” Though Sal felt there was an odd measure of relief in it. “I’m …” He cleared his throat and then looked at Sal, making a show of honesty. “Thanks for … taking the hood off.”

Sal laughed in his face. “Fuck you. You don’t get to thank me, you bastard.” He grabbed Barsanti around the throat. “I’m going to fuck you up and fuck up your whole family and absolutely slaughter your boss—you don’t get to saythank you, Mr. Rausa. You’re dead. Your whole fucking family is dead already.”

Barsanti recoiled and Sal let him go, pointedly. He was of a mind to punch him again, but Enzo was right. He did have questions and just draining some of the rage boiling inside him wouldn’t get them even one step closer to the goal. Which was still to make Barsanti spill everything he knew so they could finalize their plans to wipe the Lo Cascio off the map forever for what they’d done to Catia.

“You didn’t have to take it off, though,” Barsanti said in a low murmur.

“You …!” Sal got right back in Barsanti’s face. The man regarded him unblinkingly. “Fuck you.” But those two words came out without any of the venom from seconds ago. “Fascinating though that you’d think Lo Cascio would do this to you. Why’s that?”

“Maybe he wants to switch me out for a younger model,” Barsanti said with half a smile. “Somebody more in line with his thinking on some things.”

“Such as?”

Barsanti hesitated. “Violence is a young man’s game.”

“Is it?” Sal pulled back. Barsanti might be hiding behind Internet meme quips, but he hadn’t even attempted to paper over the fact that he and his boss didn’t always see eye to eye. Enough that maybe his biggest horror was that his boss had turned against him. Sure, a worrisome development for anybody in their circles, but the extent of that fear intrigued Sal. He himself hadn’t interacted much with Andrea Lo Cascio, but the received wisdom was that Andrea wasn’t boss so much for his talents as for whose son he’d been until his father had died of a stroke in his office. The Lo Cascio might have supported Andrea’s claim in part out of respect for his old man. There must have been more experienced men available, but none of those seemed to have stepped up. Barsanti could have done it—he’d just been made consigliere when it happened, if his memory served.

---