Page 39 of Taken by the Mafia King (Kings of Philly #1)

KILLIAN

T he de Luca’s warehouses were numerous. I could see the port from where we stood along the tree line. Men milled about, walking between the metal buildings, their bodies shadowed by heavy equipment and trucks loaded with goods.

Luxury goods. Stolen cars ready to be exported overseas. Drugs. Cash. Guns. Everything Gabriele had built to maintain his standing.

I would take it all. Tonight.

“How many men does he have on guard?” I asked Mikey, who primed his pistol.

“Forty,” he whispered. “He’s scared, I think. Beefed up his guards on patrol.”

I glanced at the dozen or so soldiers behind me, all of them waiting for my command. We had the place surrounded. The two roads that connected the lot to the highway were blocked off. There would be no escape.

“I want the warehouses burned down before we leave. All of the cars need to be loaded, and everything inside needs to be packed up and ready to go.”

Mikey nodded and turned to relay my orders to the men waiting behind us.

I watched the unsuspecting men below me as they went about what they believed was just another night.

Francesco came to my side. “Are we ready?”

“We’re waiting on Alonzo. Most of Giuseppe’s men will die tonight, but save a few for questioning.”

As if he were summoned, a flash of light from below skirted over the tree line. Alonzo stood there, turning the flat of a knife to catch the lights illuminating the lot.

“Now,” I commanded.

Gunfire rained down on the warehouses, and the men below started running. It took them a few moments to register that they were under attack before they returned our assault with their own bullets, but my men were already running toward the warehouses.

I gripped my pistol and followed them, the silencer sending lethal sprays of pure death into several enemies before I reached the first warehouse.

A man rushed me from the side. Kicking out, I sent him sprawling across the cement. I pressed my foot into his neck while he writhed beneath me, then sent a bullet straight between his eyes.

I pushed into the warehouse, ears ringing with every gunshot. Blood seeped over the ground as I walked into the center of the massive, open building. Crates of stolen electronics towered over me. Man after man slumped to the ground.

Maybe these men were the lucky ones. My bullets were true and full of mercy, hitting them in the hearts or the head. A quick, painless death.

A luxury their boss wouldn’t get from me.

Silence whispered over the warehouse. Only my steady breathing cut through the stillness.

By the time I’d cleared out the first warehouse, my men had taken out the other three buildings in a much messier way.

“Boss,” Mikey said breathlessly, running up to me. “You need to see this.”

I licked my lips, tasting blood, and followed after him.

My men were loading bodies into a shipping container we would ship off and dump in the ocean. Crates of goods were being loaded onto the trucks we’d used to block the exits, and the stolen luxury cars Giuseppe meant to ship overseas were being driven away into the night.

By morning, Giuseppe’s losses would be in the millions. He wasn’t dumb enough to try to come here and stop me, either.

I followed Mikey into a practically empty warehouse, but my stomach twisted into a knot as Alonzo walked toward me, his expression grave.

“I didn’t know,” he began.

“Didn’t know what?”

The answer was right in front of me then. Several frail, sickly looking women with chains around their ankles and wrists were being gathered and gently lifted into the arms of my men and carried out of the warehouse.

I ground my teeth and silently cursed Giuseppe’s name.

“Who are they?”

“Likely prostitutes. But some of them are very young,” Alonzo said heavily, spitting on the ground as anger blurred his words. “I had no idea.”

“I believe you. Where were they kept?”

“Fucking shipping containers, all of them. Stuffed in there with dead bodies.”

“Fucking Christ.” Mikey gagged.

Francesco ran inside, eyes wide. “What the fuck is going on?”

I turned to him, raising my hand. “Get Doctor Enstrom on the line and send him to my safe house outside of town.”

Francesco halted his progress toward me and nodded, his eyes flaming with bloodlust.

“Where is Giuseppe now?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level.

“Out of state. Jersey.” Alonzo’s nostrils flared and an angry vein bulged on his forehead. “I did my time, Ricci. I can’t go back.”

“You’ve been one of us for a long time now,” I said, breaking from his gaze as the last of the young women were carried out of the warehouse. “It’s over. I’m not playing games with this man anymore. He’s dead. Go back to my house with the men.”

Alonzo said nothing further and followed Mikey out of the warehouse just as Francesco ran back inside.

“Doc will be at the safehouse in half an hour.”

“I’m going to kill him,” I rasped, tightening my grip on my pistol. “I’m going to kill him with my bare fucking hands.”

“This isn’t anything new for the de Lucas,” Francesco said, catching that hint of pure death in my voice.

“He was likely going to ship them out. We should find out where. Get more information before we act. I know you’re pissed, but you’re always the one to tell me to keep a level head at a time like this. ”

I missed whatever he said next. All I could think about was that room Sera had been locked in underneath Gabriele’s house. All I could see was his body on hers and the terror in her eyes.

Giuseppe was following in his father’s footsteps in more ways than one.

I couldn’t let that continue. I had cut the head off the snake when I killed Gabriele, but the body was just as venomous.

Perhaps his son had more cruelty in him than I realized.

If left unchecked, he would continue his depravity.

Maybe I was a hypocrite for keeping Sera locked up in my house, I realized with sharp clarity.

“Boss?” Francesco called out to me as I began moving back to the cars. When I didn’t answer, he started barking orders in my stead, and my men snapped into action all around me. The world blurred in and out of focus.

I walked through an ocean of blood on my way back to my car while thinking only of her eyes, and her mouth, her taste and touch on my skin.

I couldn’t let something like this happen to her again. I couldn’t give her up. I wouldn’t. I’d kept her this long. It was time to make her mine. The mark might drag her deeper into this life, but it would also protect her. Nobody dared touch what belonged to the Hand of Death.

Not unless death was what they wanted.