The mook stopped screeching, inhaled sharply, and spat in Gio's face.
“You'll never know his name, motherfucker” the mook sneered, “and you'll never see him coming.”
Gio straightened up and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping his face. Christ, is this really how it's going to have to be? he asked himself, his stomach twisting around on itself. How many more goddamn times will we need to do this tonight?
He walked up to the driver's-side window and signaled for Bruno to back up the car.
But as the engine roared again, Gio saw the mook use his arms to lift his upper body and heave himself under the spinning wheels head-first, screaming defiantly.
Before Gio could do anything to stop it, the sedan jerked backward and ran over the mook's skull with a wet sound like a dropped cantaloupe squashing to the floor. The mook's arms flailed for a moment, then flopped to the ground.
“Fuck,” Gio hissed, tossing away his cigarette. Inwardly, though, he was relieved. He knew Mario would be disappointed that they hadn't gotten the name of the Fed's partner, but at least the act of killing the man had been taken out of Gio's hands.
Now he could go home, dry off, and have a drink or three. Maybe later he'd even go online to find a new playmate for his Special Room, and he could try to forget the sight of brains pancaked under tires.
Gio opened the car door. “Come on, let's grab the tarp from the trunk,” he said. “We can take him to the basement over on 57th, chop him up, and drop the pieces off in six different dumpsters. My dad wants this guy to vanish forever, so that's how it's going to be.”
Bruno and Julius nodded, getting out of the car to help with the body.
The life of Special Agent Fred Masters—alias “Francis Maserone,” alias “The Mook” (if only in Gio's mind)—was over.
But the problems his death would cause for Gio and the Mancinis were only just beginning.
Chapter 2
Carla
Now
Carla Esposito felt the recoil travel up through her arms with each pull of the trigger as she leveled her Glock at the hanging paper target. The vibration deep in her bones was satisfying and made her feel as though her feet took root more firmly with each new shot.
Through the blocky plastic safety glasses, she saw small, neat holes blossom on the target like paper flowers for every bullet she fired.
Blam. One in the forehead.
Blam. Blam. One where each eye would be.
The human-shaped targets were featureless, but Carla had no trouble picturing a face on hers. One with olive skin, large brown eyes, an aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and slicked-back black hair with a sharp widow's peak. Gio Mancini, nicknamed “Handsome Gio” by his fellow gangsters. Mario Mancini's sole heir, his pride and joy.
Blam. One in the throat, just below his square jaw and smirking lips.
Officially, Carla's partner Fred Masters had simply vanished without a trace. One minute she was wearing a headset and staring at a computer screen in a cramped back room at the Chicago FBI field office, listening to Fred trade anecdotes with the members of the Mancini family at the wedding. The next minute, the audio was eclipsed by the hiss of static and the GPS tracker in Fred's microphone went dead. The blip on the screen that indicated Fred's location blinked out of existence forever.
Blam. Blam. One through the heart to put him down. One through the right lung to give him a sucking chest wound while he dies.
When the local cops had questioned the Mancinis and their associates about the sudden disappearance of their accountant, they were mostly met with shrugs and blank stares. A couple of the capos mumbled half-assed theories about how he'd probably decided to take a last-minute vacation, while Mario himself refused to say a word without a formal criminal charge and an attorney present. For a while, Carla had to deal with the maddening possibility that she'd never be able to find out what really happened to her partner.
But gossip traveled quickly through the underworld. A Mancini enforcer told the story of what happened that night to a bag man, who told his bookie, who told his told his brother, who happened to be a snitch for the FBI. Within a few weeks, Carla had a report on her desk with an account of what had happened to Fred, including a photo of the man responsible.
Giovanni Mancini.
Blam. One low in the belly, just a few inches to the right of the spinal column. He'd spend hours bleeding out, with his nerves intact enough to feel every moment of agony.
The worst part was, every lead Fred had passed along to them during his seven months with the Mancinis somehow went up in smoke the minute they tried to investigate.
The clear-cut case of insurance fraud connected to the fire at The Raven Club owned by the Mancinis was dismissed when a key piece of evidence disappeared.