Page 31 of Vincenzo (The DiMaggio Crime Family #3)

VINCENZO

W hen we step out into the parking lot, I show Armando my phone. “Here’s the address. You want to meet me over there?”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

“One more question—you don’t happen to have a set of nice knives, do you?”

Armando crosses his arms and lifts a humorous brow at me. “Of course I do, and yes, they’re in my car already.”

“Great, we’re going to need those.”

“Just so we’re on the same page, we’re going to find these guys, and then skin them alive for what they did to my cousin, right? Really draw out the process?.”

“Yup. Unless you have a better idea?” I ask, lifting a humorous brow back at him.

He slowly shakes his head. “Nope, my plans exactly. I was just checking to see if you’re as unhinged as my cousin.”

That pulls a chuckle out of me. “She does like to play with knives, doesn’t she?”

“I’m assuming you were on the receiving end of her most-prized possession at one point?”

“I was indeed,” I say, thinking back to when Amalia had me shoved up against my office door with her knife against my throat.

My little hellion had no qualms with cutting me that night, and I get a little hard at the thought, if I’m being honest. There’s something fucking sexy as all hell about a woman taking charge and having your life in her hands like that.

I might sound fucked, but Amalia can hold a blade to my throat any day.

Armando chuckles. “That sounds about right.” Then he takes off toward his car.

“I’ll meet you at the address. I know the area.

Park at the top of the street, and we’ll walk.

It’s only a few houses down. It’s a rough area, so the neighbors keep to themselves.

We won’t have any issues when things get a little loud. ”

I smile to myself as I walk to my rental. Maybe Armando and I will get along just well.

When I get to the street these assholes live on, I pull up and park behind Armando’s orange McLaren.

I get out of my car and walk up to his. “I see we’re going for subtlety tonight,” I say, nodding to his car.

He laughs. “It’s my brother’s. Mine’s in the shop.”

“That the house?” I ask, pointing to the modular with a roof that’s about to cave in on itself.

“Yup. Let me grab my bag.”

Armando goes to the front of his car and takes out a bag that looks an awful lot like the bag Doc would bring to our house anytime he’s had to come over for a house call to stitch us up.

“You look like a doctor carrying around that thing,” I say to him.

“When you see what’s in here, you’re going to think I’m a surgeon.”

I laugh. “This is going to be fun, then.”

When we get to the front of the house, I peer into the large window that gives me a view of their living room. There are two guys sitting on the sofa, cutting some white powder on the little glass table.

“That’s probably payment they received from my dad,” Armando says.

That’s right. The Velascos also specialize in drug trafficking.

“They look like the guys on the security footage?”

“Definitely. They both have long hair, and the idiots who stood and rooted on their friend while he tried to suffocate Amalia didn’t bother to stuff their hair in their masks.”

“You said there were three in total, right?”

“Yep. The other one was stabbed.”

“Stabbed? Why am I not surprised.” He chuckles.

Now, where’s the other one?

As if on cue, a tall burly son-of-a-bitch limps into the living room, and there’s no doubt in my mind he’s the one who had that plastic bag wrapped around Amalia’s head.

Red-hot anger courses through my veins like lava about to erupt from a volcano. I don’t know how much longer I can keep it in. Seeing him there, still alive after what he did to my little hellion, has me wanting to storm in there and shoot him right between the eyes.

“Is that him?” Armando grinds out.

“Yep.”

“So what’s the plan?” Armando asks.

I glance at him.

“You found these guys, so you take the lead on this one. I’m just here to assist. I want to see these fuckers go down for what they did to Amalia.”

I give him a nod, then drag my gaze back to the large window. “Follow my lead,” I say, and walk up the steps to the front door.

The pitch-black dark of the night works in our favor. There aren’t any streetlights or house lights except for the dimmed lighting that reflects onto the porch through the large window.

When I get to the door, I open the screen door, which creaks in the process. I glance through the window, and the three men are so enveloped in their own conversation that they don’t even hear it.

Fucking amateurs.

“You’re going to knock?” Armando asks from behind me, surprise in his tone.

I let out a humorous scoff. “Not exactly.”

Sliding out my gun from my holster, I take a step back and bring my leg up.

With everything I have in me, I kick the door open and let out a sigh of relief knowing these guys are just as stupid as I had anticipated.

They didn’t even bother putting a deadbolt, making it extremely easy to kick the rotting door in.

I step over the threshold and take in the widened eyes and dropped jaws of the men in the room. They immediately hold up their hands when they see I have my gun aimed at them. Too bad for them that doesn’t mean shit to me.

Without hesitation, I pull the trigger, shooting the first one in the thigh, then move my aim to the one sitting next to him and shoot him in the knee cap. Their screams fill the air instantly.

Moving my gun over to the last one—the one who had the bag wrapped around my girl’s head—I aim it at his chest. The sweat shines on his bald head under the fluorescent lighting.

“Miguel,” I say, tilting my head at him.

“W-what do you want?” He slowly walks backward.

“I’d stop moving if I were you,” I say, my voice deadly steady.

He looks between me and the end table next to the couch. If I were to guess, I’d say there’s a gun in that drawer, and with the two distracted idiots struggling on the couch, he thinks he’s going to have to grab it to make it out of here alive.

It’s a dumb fucking idea when there’s still several feet of space between him and the end table and my gun is aimed directly at him with my finger pulsing on the trigger, begging to be released.

“I also wouldn’t do that if I were?—”

Before I can finish my sentence, Miguel bolts for the end table, so I take my shot, shooting him right in the ass.

“Fuck!” he cries out, falling to the floor like a heaping pile of fucking shit. “What the hell was that for? You shot me in the ass!”

“I told you to stop moving. See what happens when you don’t fucking listen?”

“What do you want? What the hell did we?—”

Miguel goes quiet when he turns on his side to face me. His eyes widen when he looks over my shoulder. “W-what are you doing here?”

“Evening, Miguel,” Armando says from behind me. “I see you’ve met my new friend here.”

“I-I don’t understand why you guys are here and why your friend had to shoot me. My ass is on fucking fire!”

“Oh, man, I really hate that for you,” Armando says, and the sarcasm makes me smile.

His tone must be telling to Miguel, because his eyes widen again and his lip quivers as if he’s unsure what to say next.

“Here’s the thing, it’s come to my attention that you and your friends here participated in an event tonight that I have a real fucking problem with,” Armando says.

“We have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I raise my gun and aim it at Miguel. “Do me a favor and stop lying. It’s just going to make me shoot you quicker, and I promise the next spot I choose will hurt a lot more than that fat ass of yours.”

“He’s telling the truth,” one of the idiots on the couch says before sucking in a sharp breath from the wound in his knee. “We’ve been here all night, cutting the most recent bag of coke we got.”

I point my gun at this asshole’s other kneecap and shoot. “Would you shut the fuck up? I’m trying to have a conversation here.”

His loud screams fill the air, and I’m sure fucking happy Armando said this area keeps to themselves, because if they didn’t, there would be cops here already.

“There’s a pattern here, and you fucking jackasses would be wise to figure it out. You keep lying, I keep shooting.”

“What do you want?” Miguel grinds out.

“Well, for starters, I would like to know who told you to take Amalia Velasco out?”

After a few moments of silence, I aim my gun at Miguel’s dick. “Choose your next words wisely, or I will shoot your fucking dick off. Can’t say I’ve ever done that before, but I’m more than happy to have you pop that cherry for me.”

“Fine,” he rushes out. “It was Manuel… Manuel Velasco.”

And there’s the confirmation we needed.

“What exactly did he say to you?”

“I didn’t ask questions. He came to me, right to my front door,” he says, nodding at the kicked-in monstrosity behind me. “Said he had a job for me and that he’d pay me in cash and a brick of coke.”

“And you just said yes?” I ask, not believing him. Anyone would be fucking curious as to why an uncle would be calling a hit on their own niece.

“When Manuel has a job for you, you don’t ask questions. Plus, the pay was great.”

I let out a breath between my teeth. “Well, I really hope the coke and money was worth it these past few hours.”

Miguel’s eyes widen when they lock in on my gun, but instead of taking a shot at him, I go for his friends, shooting them both in the heads.

“Please!” Miguel yells, cowering on the floor like the bitch he is. “Don’t fucking do this! She was just a job!”

“She’s not a fucking job, Miguel,” I grit out through my teeth. “She’s the woman I fucking love, and you chose the wrong damn side when you decided drugs and money were more important than her life.”

“I’ll do anything you want!” he scrambles out, tears starting to fall from his eyes. “Anything.”

I walk up to Miguel and squat in front of him. “There’s only one thing I want from you.” His eyes widen and twinkle under the lights in a desperate plea of hope. “Your fucking life.”

Without another word, I bring my gun up under Miguel’s chin and pull the trigger. Blood splatters all over my clothes and across my face.

Pushing myself up to a stand, I turn around and walk toward Armando who’s already holding out a handkerchief to me.

“Thanks,” I say, taking it from him. “And thanks for the backup.”

“Doesn’t seem like you really needed any,” he says with a smirk.

I chuckle. “Oh, I didn’t. But it was still nice to have it just in case.”

“I thought we were going to take our time and use these?” He holds up the bag of knives.

“Yeah… I’ve come to realize I tend to get a little trigger happy. It’s a flaw. I’ll work on it.”

Armando chuckles.

I raise a brow at him. “You know, I’m surprised you didn’t join in on the fun,” I say, nodding at the bloody scene next to us.

“Oh, I wanted to, but there was something I noticed back at the club.”

“What’s that?”

“Amalia’s basically my little sister, and I would kill anyone that lays a hand on her.

” He assesses me for a moment, shifting his gaze between my eyes.

“But I saw the rage in you at the club. You come off as nonchalant, but I knew from the darkness in your eyes that you needed to find these guys and use them as an outlet for your anger. I can step aside for someone who’s ready to go to bat for my cousin like that. ”

I give Armando a nod of understanding. “Do you have cleaners you can call for this shit?”

“They’re already on their way.”

“Good. I appreciate you, man, but I need to get back to the hotel. I don’t want Amalia waking up without me there.”

“Let her know I’ll call her tomorrow before stopping by.”

I give him a nod, then he steps aside for me to pass by.

“Oh, and one more thing,” he says, catching me right before I’m about to step over the threshold. “I never said thank you.”

“For what?” I ask over my shoulder.

“For loving my cousin the way she deserves to be loved.”