Page 30 of Vincenzo (The DiMaggio Crime Family #3)

VINCENZO

A fter Amalia falls asleep, I drive back to the club, knowing I need to release the anger I’ve built up inside at the men who attacked her.

I get to security, but before the guy can frisk me and find the gun I have in my holster, I say, “Tell your boss I need to speak to him.”

The security guard, who looks big enough to fucking eat me, says, “Who are you?”

“I’m about to be your biggest fucking problem if you don’t tell your boss I’m here to see him.”

The security guard eyes me up and down before finally conceding. He presses a button and mumbles something into the mouthpiece fastened to the lapel of his suit jacket.

After a few moments, he looks at me and nods up to the camera positioned right over the entryway into the club. I smile at the flashing red light.

“Alright, Boss says to bring you on back, so follow me,” the security guard says.

“Oh, good,” I say with the biggest damn smile on my face that I imagine makes me look as unhinged as I feel. “I really didn’t want to have to ruin both of our nights by having to kick your ass.”

The big guy looks back at me and grunts his response. I’m sure he has a desire to kick my ass, but I couldn’t care less about what he thinks or wants. I’m here for one thing only, and that’s to figure out who attacked Amalia.

He leads me to a quiet room in the far corner of the club. After knocking and getting a response to come in, he opens the door and gestures for me to enter.

I glance around the spacious room that has its own stripper pole in it, a lounge area complete with three dark-blue velvet couches and a black glass table in the middle, a mini bar, and a desk with a man sitting behind it who looks to be in his late thirties, short, and has long dark hair slicked back in a ponytail.

“I sure as hell hope you have a good reason for barging into my club and demanding you meet with me tonight,” he says, eyeing me up and down with a certain regard.

As I walk up to his desk, I say, “Obviously, I fucking do. You think I want to be spending my Saturday night here with you?”

The man narrows his eyes on me. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Vincenzo DiMaggio.” I hold out my hand for him to shake it. “And you?”

That question quirks a brow from him. “You came barging into my club and you don’t even know who the fuck I am?”

“Crazy, I know, but here’s the thing…” I glance down at my hand that’s still extended out to him. “Are you going to shake my hand and tell me your name, or are you guys just rude as fuck down here in Miami?”

That remark has this dude’s brows lifted to his receding hairline. After a few moments, he finally relaxes them and takes my hand in his. “Fabien,” he says with a weak handshake.

“Mind if I sit?” I ask, pulling out the chair next to me and taking a seat before he can answer.

Crossing one leg over the other, I relax back in the uncomfortable leather chair and say, “Now, where was I? Oh, right. I don’t fucking know who you are, which goes against all protocol when I meet someone—especially under these circumstances—but here’s the thing, I’m fucking raging right now because the woman I’ve somehow fallen for was attacked in your parking lot tonight. ”

The owner’s bushy brows shoot up to his hairline once more.

“Yeah, fucking craaazy, right? Might I suggest better security back there?” I snap.

“Are you sure she was attacked here ?”

“Well, since I’m the one who picked her up right after it happened, I’m going to go with yes,” I say deadpan. “Any other stupid fucking questions you’d like to get out of the way before I tell you why I’m here?”

Fabien shakes his head.

“She was attacked in your back parking lot in the far-right corner. I need the footage.”

Sitting up in his seat, Fabien interlaces his fingers and says, “What are you going to do with the footage if I give it to you.”

Sitting up in my seat, I mimic his pose. “ If you give it to me?” I let out a deep, sinister chuckle. “ If you don’t give it to me, then I’ll be forced to use my gun on you, and I’m really not in the fucking mood for that tonight, Fabien. So can you do me a solid and just make this easy?”

“If you think coming in here and threatening me is going to?—”

I pull my jacket open, rip my gun out of its holster, and aim it right at Fabien’s head. “Alright, I tried to play nice, but your annoying high-pitched voice and uncooperative dickbag ways are fucking grating on my nerves.”

Fabien throws himself back in his chair and raises his hands in front of him in defense. “O-okay, put your gun away,” he says, sweat beads forming on his forehead.

“Oh, now you want me to cooperate? Where was the same courtesy for me from you just moments ago?”

“I-I’m sorry. I-I don’t know who you are, so you have to expect I’m going to be wary and have questions.”

“Understandable, but I don’t fucking care. My girl was just attacked outside of your establishment. Now, either you cooperate and help me, or I put a fucking bullet through your head.”

Fabien’s about to speak, but before he does, I say, “I’m known to be trigger happy, so I pray you have the correct fucking answer this time.”

“Y-yes. O-okay,” he stumbles out. “I-I’ll get you whatever you need.”

“Great,” I say, sitting back in my chair, gun still aimed at his head. “It was a couple hours ago. Work fast.”

Fabien gets to work on his computer, eyes narrowed in on it, and after a few minutes, he says, “I got it.” He turns his monitor so I’m able to see.

Leaning forward, I lock my gaze on the screen, and Amalia is walking through the parking lot on the phone…

with me. Three men in masks narrow in on her from behind, and I’m fucking kicking myself internally for allowing this to happen.

Had I not been distracting her on the phone, she would’ve been more aware of her surroundings.

She could’ve prevented this from happening.

Fuck!

I continue watching the screen, and the metallic taste of blood floods my mouth, and I realize I’ve been biting my tongue while the fucking pieces of shit attack her. But when she stabs the big one in the leg and they all run away like the little bitches they are, a smile forms on my face.

My fucking badass little hellion.

When the clip is done, I sit back in my seat. There were three of them. The one who put the bag over her head was big. Definitely had a gut on him. The other two were tall and lanky. Both had long hair that they didn’t even fucking bother to hide in their masks.

Whoever these guys are, they’re fucking amateurs.

“The car they drove off in. Get me the make, model, and plates,” I say to Fabien.

He quickly gets to work, and after a couple minutes, he writes something down on a piece of paper, then hands it to me.

I take a picture of it and send it to Cassius who better still be awake. Actually, fuck this. I’m calling him.

After what feels like the millionth fucking ring, Cassius’s muddled voice comes over the phone. “Hello?”

“I just sent you the details on a car. I need you to get me the owner’s name and address. Now.”

“It’s fucking late, Enzo.”

“Cassius, please. I will quite literally pay you however much you want. Just please get it done, and fast.”

I hang up without an answer, knowing Cassius will do it, not for the money, but because he’s a decent fucking human being who’s always been there for my family.

“Any idea who those guys are?” I ask Fabien.

He shakes his head. “No, no idea.”

With my gun still aimed at him, I say, “Are you sure? Nothing rings a bell for you there?”

Fabien throws his hands back up in front of him in defense. “No, I swear. I’ve never seen that car here before. I-I have no idea without seeing their faces,” he scrambles out.

“Alright, alright, alright. Relax. I’m not going to shoot you, you big baby.” I put my gun away. “But I do need two more things from you, and then after tonight, you’ll never see my face again. Well… that is unless I find out you did something you weren’t supposed to do.”

Fabien nods frantically, hands still in the air.

I wave at his hands. “I put the damn gun away, so put your hands down. You look fucking ridiculous.”

He slowly lowers them and says, “What else do you need from me?”

“I need you to delete that footage, and if anyone comes here looking for it, you tell them you had an issue with your security system and nothing from the past couple of days saved in your cloud or whatever the fuck it is.”

Fabien nods but doesn’t move to delete the footage.

“Now, Fabien. Delete the footage now and show me.”

“Oh, yes, sorry. I’ll do that right now.”

“And the backup,” I snap.

A few minutes pass of just the clicking of Fabien’s keyboard filling the air.

“Would it be faster if I just shoot your servers or something?” I ask.

“No, I’m just about done. I have several firewalls to get through to make sure everything is scrapped.”

After a couple more minutes, Fabien turns his attention to me, and says, “Done.”

He moves his monitor back so I can see it. “I can walk you through it to show you there’s no history.”

I assess Fabien closely to see if there’s any tell that he could be lying to me.

“There aren’t any backups left? You’re unable to get that footage back at all ? As in, if I held my gun back up to your head and demanded you recover the files, you wouldn’t be able to?”

Fabien’s eyes widen, and he frantically shakes his head again.

“No, no I swear. I deleted the footage permanently off the server. There’s nothing in there from the past couple of days.

I even went into my security log and entered in the missing footage and noted I’m in contact with IT about it so it looks like I recorded it when it happened. ”

Well, I’ll be damned. I’m even surprised at how much work he just did.

“Good,” I say. “Now, for the next thing I need from you… You don’t know me, and everything you learned after I walked into this club tonight, never fucking happened, got it?”

He nods frantically, which seems to be his MO.

“And what you saw on that footage got deleted from your memory the second it got deleted from your computer. If you open your mouth, I will come back here and do to you what I plan on doing to those men in that footage.”

Fabien swallows deeply, his Adam’s apple bobbing with each movement. “What footage?” he asks hesitantly as if he was afraid to say it.

“Good answer,” I say with a wink.

My phone dings in my hand and I look down to see it’s a text with the information I’ve been waiting on from Cassius.

“Well, it’s been fun, Fabien.” I rise from my seat. “I can see myself out.”

I walk to the door, but it bursts open and a tall man who looks to be around my age in a crisp black suit walks in. He looks at me, then slides his gaze to Fabien.

“?Senor Velasco?” Fabien says, and a smile breaks out of my face.

Velasco.

He slides his gaze back to mine and raises a brow at me. “Enzo, I presume?” he says with a smirk.

“Armando, I presume?” I say, extending a hand to him. “Nice to officially meet you.”

“You too,” he says, shaking it. “I have a feeling you’re here to do what I was about to do?”

“If that means find out who the fuckers are that jumped Amalia and get this idiot to delete the footage and pretend like tonight never happened, then yes.”

“This was for Armando Velasco?” Fabien says from behind me. “Had you just told me that in the first place, we could’ve skipped over that whole sour beginning we had.”

“You know this idiot?” I ask Armando.

“I know everyone in this city,” he says coolly.

“Right. Well, I had him delete the footage and whatever backups he has.” I go to push past him so I can go find these guys who attacked Amalia, but he moves to stand in front of me.

I raise a brow at him. “Is there something I can help you with?”

The smallest smirk lifts at the corner of his mouth. His cool demeanor is interesting. Similar to mine, but I don’t know if I like that too much.

“Amalia’s like a sister to me.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Did you see who did this to her?”

“They were wearing masks.”

“Did you get a getaway vehicle?”

I debate on whether I want to tell him. I was planning on handling this situation on my own, but being in a city I have zero experience in? It might not be the worst idea to have backup.

“I did.”

“Care to share it with the room?”

“How about we have a bonding experience, and you can come with me to skin these motherfuckers alive?”

A small smile breaks out on Armando’s face, then he steps to the side and extends a hand toward the door. “After you.”

I step past him, but before I exit the room, he says, “Forget any of this happened, Fabien, or else I’ll be back to sink a bullet in your head.”

“Already covered that, Armando. Now, chop, chop, we have three fuckers to debone.”

And I’m going to enjoy every fucking second of it.