Page 32 of Taken by the Mafia King (Kings of Philly #1)

KILLIAN

E doardo Lombardi wailed, his teeth stained with blood. “Just kill me, Ricci. For the love of God, shoot me in the head or the balls, I don’t care. Just let her go. Let Delaney go, please! She was never part of this!”

He screamed as I grabbed him by the throat and bent his neck back over the metal edge of the chair. The single lightbulb flickering above his head illuminated the room, which was nothing more than a cement box covered in plastic stained with his blood.

“Tell me who you sold the blueprints of my warehouse to.”

That warehouse was a gold mine in a highly coveted location. A secret location, hidden in plain sight. It had been raided several weeks ago, before the Sera mess happened. Now I had a kingpin breathing down my neck and several bosses cowering at my feet, pleading their innocence.

Everyone knew about the three warehouses only a few miles from here. Those were decoys, a distraction, mostly empty. Giuseppe thought he was slick trying to raid those and met my wrath.

But this warehouse was different.

It had been an inside job. There was no way around that fact.

Edoardo had sold the blueprints and location to someone, and I needed to know who.

“I know it was you,” I breathed against his ear. “Tell me, or I’ll drag your precious daughter down here by her hair to witness me killing you, slowly. It’ll be a mess, Edoardo. Do you really want your blood staining her skin?”

He choked on a cry of pain but held firm.

Francesco shifted his weight behind me, growing impatient.

I let him go and reached for the metal cart lying beside the chair Edoardo was chained to, grabbing a handsaw. Francesco was thrumming with energy as he caught on to what I was about to do and wrenched Edoardo’s hand open, pressing his hand flat to the table.

“Tell me, or she meets the same fate.” I narrowed my eyes at him.

Edoardo looked at me through one eye, the other swollen shut and black with fresh bruises. Maybe he thought I was bluffing, that I wouldn’t do the same to her. Why wouldn’t he just admit that he was a rat, a liar, and a thief?

I slowly, painfully, and sloppily cut through two of his fingers, pausing and pressing the saw into his broken flesh while he screamed, begging for her to be spared.

Scum. Killing him was a mercy I wasn’t in the mood to offer him yet.

“Let me have a go,” Francesco begged, cracking his knuckles. “I don’t need the saw. I can just pull his fingers until they snap.”

Edoardo trembled, and I knew he was about to pass out. I reached down and grabbed the bucket of bloody water beneath him, dumping the icy liquid over him until he gasped for air.

“Stay awake, you fucking bastard.” I kicked him sharply in the shin. He yelped, blubbering for mercy while blood seeped from his broken fingers. “Go get her,” I said in a near whisper to Francesco. “Bring her?—”

“W-wait,” Edoardo stammered. “I’ll tell you. You gotta promise me you’ll let her go. Please.”

I stared down the length of my nose at him, my lips peeling off my teeth in a snarl of disdain. “I don’t make promises.”

“Please, Ricci.”

“Tell me who you sold the blueprints to, Edoardo. You fucking snake.”

He licked dry, cracked lips and looked up at me. Barely lucid, he said, “Bianchi. He offered me twenty grand for ‘em. I gave him the blueprints. He offered me more for your schedule and alliances but—but I couldn’t. I just wanted the money. Didn’t matter how much.”

“And where is that money, Edoardo? You gambled it away, didn’t you?”

He nodded, his breath caught in his throat. “Andre Bianchi offered me his daughter in exchange for more information about you. Your movements. Where you get your shipments.”

“What?” The air in the room went cold and still as I looked down at him. “What did you just say?”

“Seraphina Bianchi, his daughter. He offered her to me to lure you to that warehouse—” Edoardo’s eyes rolled back in his head as he passed out.

I lunged forward, grabbing his face between my hands. “Wake the fuck up!” I struck him across the jaw. The crack echoed in the concrete room, and I gave him a rough shake for good measure.

He started, taking a stuttering breath. His eyes fluttered open and darted all around the room before settling on me. He whimpered.

I had to keep pushing before the weasel lost consciousness for good. “What was Andre Bianchi planning? Why did he need the warehouse?”

“Money,” he said through thick, swollen lips. “He needed money. He owed someone too much of it, so he was desperate.”

“You’re lying.” I clutched his throat.

“Kill me,” he pleaded. “Please.”

Livid, I shoved him hard enough that the chair fell backward. I’d known there was a reason Sera was tied up in this mess, but paying her father’s debt with her body was something I’d tried to deny was the truth.

For her sake.

“He must have owed Gabriele money.” Francesco moved forward, towering over Edoardo.

“He wouldn’t have sold his own daughter,” I added. “Something else is up. Could he be working with someone?”

I licked my lips, tucking my hands in my pocket as I looked down at the mess I’d made. I locked eyes with a terrified Edoardo.

“I don’t believe you for a second,” I said firmly. I turned to Francesco. “Do what you want with him. I have some calls to make.”

I walked out of the room, my mind drifting to Sera, who was likely asleep upstairs and safe.

But her safety wasn’t a promise if Andre had made similar deals with other men, other bosses. I’d only killed one. How many more people were after the woman upstairs?

And how many people would come looking for her, only to find me?