Page 12 of Dagger in the Sea

“Fascinating, huh, Turo?” Val asked me, a cold smile brightening his sour but handsome face.

Mauro’s hard gaze shot to me and back to Val. “What’s going on?”

I’d been looking forward to finally telling him about my crippling a vital artery of the Tantucci drug apparatus and now finally cutting it off at the head by killing Med. But instead, I had Val threatening me and the Boss in a snit over Med’s death.

And I needed to discuss what the hell he was doing to my mother.

I’d been lucky. Through my girlfriend I’d met Serena, a new friend of hers who came to me for a favor one day. I did a little more digging than I had to into this girl because she intrigued me, and I discovered that Serena was Med’s ex “old lady” whom he’d kidnapped as a teenager and held prisoner until she’d escaped. She owed me and we struck a bargain. Information on Med as payment for her debt to me. She agreed.

Med and his crew were vagabonds, and Serena fed me information about his hiding places, his manic thought process, his maneuvers. His insanity. I hit him over and over again as no one else ever had. One by one I’d set off explosions in Med’s path. I was Lawrence of Arabia watching and waiting for my carefully laid dynamite to ignite along the Tantucci-Smoking Gun train tracks, then I’d charged into the sand dunes on a triumphant roar, looting the spoils, humiliating them, defeating them.

Med was a drug-addicted sick fuck. Under my constant attacks, paranoia reigned supreme in his camp, affecting his trade and rattling the Tantuccis. Their dependable routines had been broken, business was down, reputations suffered, finger pointing abounded. Killings. I’d jammed their symphony with a sudden, long, driving violin solo. I was the masked conductor of this brutal orchestra.

Je ne regrette rien.Fucking truth, Edith Piaf.

My stomach hardened under Val’s gaze. A wolf waiting for a sign of his prey’s weakness.Motherfucker. I’d planned on this getting me more in to the Guardino Outfit than ever before. It was a smart plan. But I hadn’t planned on Val stalking me.

Val slid the photo on his father’s desk. “You need to see this, Pop.”

Mauro stared at it. “What the hell is this?” He lifted his fierce gaze to mine. “Did you do this?”

“Holy shit, you didn’t know?” said Val. “I thought you’d ordered the hit yourself.”

“What have you done?” Mauro bellowed at me.

“I ruined this biker’s business and his life, and made the Tantuccis miserable, and then I took him out,” I replied.

The Boss’s eyes flickered, his one cheek twitched. “You took him out?”

“Yes.”

“Without my permission? Without consulting me?”

Val crossed his arms over his chest his eyes darting between us.

I said, “I had an opportunity, and I—”

“And you took it.”

“I took it.”

Mauro chewed on his thin lips. His glare heavy.

“I told him, Dad.” Val couldn’t help but jump in and splash in our muddied waters. “I told him it was wrong. I figured it out. I had him watched. I knew it’d come to this. He just does whatever the hell he wants. It’s gotta stop, right? I mean, there’s no telling what else he’ll get up to if you give him the legroom.”

Mauro’s hand shot out and clasped the edge of the desk. “There’s something to be said for initiative and enterprise, but I’m the fucking boss, here.”

“Do something about him already!” Val raised his voice in the eerie silence, his face streaked with red. “He goes overboard. He needs to be punished.”

“Don’t you ever question me!” Mauro thundered. “At the end of the day, Turo delivers.”

And Val didn’t deliver. That I knew, we all knew. But Val was the crown prince. That I also knew.

“He delivers?” Val’s face dropped along with his tone.

“Yes, he delivers. And you’re whining, I’m sick of it!” Mauro turned to me. “You—if I had known you were taking out Med, that you had an opportunity, I would’ve told you not to. The FBI had a lead on him recently, a huge sting operation in the works. They were getting ready to arrest him and his band of nut jobs. And I was gonna sit back and watch the circus. But no, you had to go in and be the goddamn dragon slayer. What the fuck! What the fuck, Turo?”

I ground my jaw.

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