Page 132 of Matteo
CHAPTER FIFTY
NICO
Today—much like the past several weeks—had been an absolute clusterfuck.
It was close to midnight when I got a call from one of my men about suspicious activity in Havre de Grace, a little touch at the mouth of the Susquehanna River and the head of Chesapeake Bay where nothing ever happened.
I was tempted to let someone else handle it, but something urged me to rush to it. There were whispers of resurrected belles auctions and trafficking. If that was the case, I had to make sure those didn’t touch my territories.
Thirty minutes later, I pulled over at the address, expecting to see my men there, but not Luciano and Cassio King.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed when I reached them, crouching behind a vehicle merely ten feet from the building. Their men, and my own, were strategically positioned all around the building and on top of it, waiting on me to attack.
My old friend’s response was curt. “I followed a lead.”
Annoyance flared inside me. Tensions were high between Luciano and me since the trainwreck at the Vitale party. But they reached an all-time high when my daughters vanished.
“To my territory,” I grumbled. “Must I remind you that?—”
“Can we argue later?” Cassio cut in. “Or would we rather get killed because we’re busy yapping like some old men?”
“Who are you calling old?” I snapped.
“I’m in my prime,” Luciano chimed, his brows puckered in distress. “Just ask my wife.”
“I’d rather not,” I grumbled. “Now do we know what we are dealing with here?”
“Not sure,” Cassio retorted. “There are five men and a doctor inside.”
“A doctor?” An uneasy feeling crept up my spine. “Why are we alerted by a doctor?”
“Because there are organ trafficking rumors,” Luciano snapped. “It would seem they are starting to hit our territories in revenge for shutting down Benito King two decades ago.”
“Or maybe you’re being paranoid and you’re just looking for excuses to fuck with?—”
The sound of a door smashing against the wall interrupted our bickering and all our attention shifted to the dark building, light streaming out from it. The guy lit up a cigarette, leaving the door propped open and fury slithered through my veins at the sight before me.
Two women were sprawled on what looked to be a surgical table, and I found myself struggling to keep my composure. Their naked bodies were cut open, from the top of their chest all the way down to the abdomen.
“What the fuck?” Luciano’s tone was low and deadly.
My eyes snapped to Cassio and I growled, “Keep the doctor and one guard alive.”
Straightening up, we charged after them. Since they were caught off guard, it wasn’t much of a battle. Everyone except for one guard and the doctor was dead.
While my men worked on securing the doctor and guard to the chairs for their torture session, I let my gaze travel over the filthy room. Blood-stained operating tables with two dead women butchered like animals. Cooler boxes with marked organs to indicate which is which. Little notes on them to indicate where they were headed.
“They fucking slaughtered them,” Luciano growled, his eyes on the battered young women.
Rage filled me as I whipped my head to the two tied men who were whimpering like cowards. I snatched an unused scalpel from the surgical table and strode to them.
I shoved the blade against the doctor’s throat and pressed it, cutting through the skin.
“What in the fuck were you doing there and where did you get those women from?” I shouted, shoving the blade harder against his carotid artery. Being a doctor, he would know how easy it was to end his life like that. “You better start talking or I’ll slice your throat and watch you bleed out, right here and now.”
“Please,” he begged. Cassio swung a bat at the guard’s kneecaps while the doctor shook with fear, his head whipping back and forth between Cassio and me. “Don’t kill me.”
“After what you did to them, you think you deserve mercy?” I roared, my body vibrating with the need for destruction. I pushed the sharp blade harder, his throat trickling with blood.
