Breaking Midnight (Il Paradosso Series Book One)

Chapter fifty-one

Antonio

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Aticca Correctional Facility, New York

***

“You have ten minutes.”

I leaned back in the metal chair that was bolted to the concrete floor, perusing the rustic interior of the room. The walls that were painted cedar were coated with years of heavy smoking that stuck to them like paint, the same way the stench would cling to my suit when I left this dump.

He kept his back to me as the heavy-weight lock slid in place, black letters stretched across broad shoulders, imprinted in bold. 

“Came to finish what your brother started?” he spoke in a low tone.
He turned around, metal chains clanking at his ankles as he dragged them to the seat opposite mine, a crooked table the only thing dividing us. His cheekbones were busted and an ugly scar glistened above his right eyebrow.

“Or let me guess, you lost the little whore and now you can’t get a hold of her?”

“You don’t look too pleased by my visit,” I chaffed, examining my hands that were clasped together on my lap.

He spat at the center of the table. “You fucking Sicilians make me sick.”   

I brushed the invisible dust off of my sleeve, eyeing his movements as he lowered in to the flimsy chair with a noisy grunt.

“You don’t look too good, Jimmy.”

He spread his legs, grabbing at his crotch. His botched lips parted with a horrendous grin, one front tooth chipped and the other missing completely.

“You’re one dangerous motherfucker, aren’t you Montanari?” He leaned forward now, resting his elbows on his thighs. “Or should I say… Lucchese.”

His bloodshot eyes centered on my face, the ruptured vessels around his cornea making the white almost indistinguishable.

Jimmy was no ordinary man and he wasn’t fucking stupid. He had a reputation within the Albanian mafia but was deeply incriminated after he ratted out his own people. That’s when he jumped the fence, siding with their enemy. He wasn’t worthy of anyone’s trust. He was filth to the core. According to the information I had gathered for years, he was the one who’d helped Nina escape.

I found it hard to believe that no one from our clan knew of their foxhole. I mean it was fucking New York, how difficult could it be to find them?

Jimmy had carried his end of the bargain. He made her disappear in a more discreet manner and blamed it on her heroin addiction.

His repugnant smile dropped and he tilted his head. “When was the last time you visited Palermo after your brother broke the rules of Cosa Nostra?”

I licked my bottom lip, masking my anger, controlling the devil whispering in my ear while he smirked to my face, and reminded myself that I wasn’t here to kill him today.

His fists came down on the table with a clang. “She’s the enemy, Lucchese. Your father destroyed his legacy for the little whore’s mother and had his name dragged through the fucking mud.”

I tsked, unresponsive to his burst of outrage. “Where’s my money, Jimmy?”

He drew back, feigning shock. He paused briefly.  “What―you think I got a whiff of that eight million?”

I brushed more nonexistent dust off of my other arm, adjusting my cufflink. This was going to ruin my shirt.

I bent my knees, raising enough to slam an elbow to the side of his head with force. His face planted sideways on to the table, blood spraying against the filth crusted wall. I jumped on his back, pressing him chest down with one knee while I held an arm around his throat, forcing his head back in a chokehold. I unhooked the pocketknife from my belt strap, forcing it into his neck.

“She really played you,” he gritted through broken teeth.

“Where’s the fucking money, Jimmy! And don’t fuck with me or I’ll shove my hand into your throat and rip your jugular straight out of you fucking mouth, you rotten piece of shit!”

A guttural noise vibrated against my arm. He was laughing. “It’s in a frozen trust fund… Swiss Bank.”

More blood splattered on to the table when he coughed.

“Who put it there? Nina?”

He shook his head. “Someone made sure that the money was secured and inaccessible. Nina didn’t know shit about banks. But if you think she needs your petty cash, you’re in for a treat. That little bitch is worth more than you and I both combined.”

I still wasn’t getting a solid answer.
“Is that why you wanted to get your hands on her, Jimmy? She was your free ticket, wasn’t she? That’s why you kept her in the shadows all these years?”

He coughed up another throaty laugh. “Her mother was the free ticket; the little bitch was just a hole to wet my―” He coughed.

The heat traveled to my head. “I’ll give you two seconds to give me what I need before I send you straight to hell,” I seethed, shoving the tip of the blade into his artery.

“Fuck you,” he spurted. Drops of saliva landed on my arm and I wiped it across his forehead,

“Now look what you did, you grimy piece of shit.” A tattoo poked out from under his collar and my movements ceased. Only the first letter was visible but I already knew.

“I see you’ve found what you’re looking for,” he grunted with another guttural laugh.

I moved the collar away from his skin to expose the remaining of the letters.

“Does she still like to be choked?”
Red sparked my vision. I no longer saw a man in front of me as the rage burned the back of my eyes and blood pumped in my ears.

I sliced at the ink, cutting through flesh until the three letters were unreadable. I stuck my gloved fingers into the wound and tore away at pieces of skin.

He screamed roughly into my gloved palm. I removed my hand, slamming his nose in to the brass table by the back of his head. I did this repeatedly until he was nonresponsive and his body went limp.

“That’s enough!”

I didn’t hear the door open. The guard’s keys jangled and I moved away. My nostrils blew out hot air as I stared at the sack of orange, blood dripping from the knife in my right palm onto the cold ground.  “Lights out, you son-of-a-bitch.”

I walked out of the maximum security prison like I owned the goddamn place, passing through guards that glanced at their feet as I calmly exited to the gates. Niccolo was waiting outside of them, a cigarette hanging from his lip.

“Did the cocksucker talk?”

I whooshed past him, popping the trunk to the Audi. I shook off my suit jacket and tore the shirt open, tossing it in. I replaced it with a black t-shirt and leather.

I got into the driver’s seat and Niccolo hopped in beside me. I cranked the engine to life and roared out of the prison lot. The air was dense, the silence heftier than the concrete keeping that piece of waist secluded from the outside world.

Someone else had to finish the job.

Tonight, Jimmy would get a visit from the angel of death. She would have her revenge.