Submission Specialist(Still a Bad Boy #2)(65)

What a load of shit. I used the head to beat the truth out of a second guy, not to drink blood. That’s just fuckin’ weird. Not that I ever denied anything. No. The smart play was to use that reputation to get what I needed.

“No. I’ve got a couple of guys putting the word out. Are you happy for me to give the owner whatever he needs to rebuild? They trashed the place good.”

“Yeah. You handle it. When you find the dumb fuck who did this, we’ll see what assets they have that can be appropriated.”

Lorenzo laughed. “Look at you, Mr. Businessman with the fancy talk. You’re really getting used to the high life, aren’t you?”

Once, there was an Emperor who hired a servant to follow him around and, every time the Emperor received a compliment, the servant was supposed to remind him “you’re just a man.” Well, Lorenzo was about as close to that as I had.

The guy was old school, showed me the ropes when I first graduated from running packages to becoming a soldier for the Picollis. If I had a job that was too much for one person, Lorenzo was the first person I ever went to for backup.

I shrugged. “Gotta put the degree to use sometime, huh?”

A chuckle made Lorenzo shake a little bit, but the laugh didn’t quite make it all the way out. He never thought much of my business degree from a correspondence school, but it was certainly helping to keep us afloat with our legitimate fronts.

When I was studying, in between making people disappear or just very sorry, I was amazed at the parallels between business theory and the crime family. Corporate hierarchy, organizational culture, supply and demand, it was all there.

Of course, not all the rules were the same. There were family complications, and parts of it were like a cult, but once I grasped the business side of things, that was the first time in my life that I was able to envision the Picollis as a single entity. That was the first time I had anything more than a vague idea about how to fulfil my destiny.

You can kill a single entity.

“So, we’ve been avoiding something all day,” he said.

“Hmmm?”

“Don’t play dumb. We’ve got Santino duct-taped to a chair, running his mouth while the guys wait for you to get there. He’s right fuckin’ here, in Port Magnus.”

“So tape his fuckin’ mouth shut. We can afford it,” I said.

Santino Son-of-a-bitch Picolli. When I took over this city, I put the word out that anyone who’d been lucky enough to get away, better stay away. Port Magnus was off limits to them.

In reality, I had no plans to stop at Port Magnus, it was just easier to consolidate my position if they weren’t around fucking with my business. The fact that he was here was a real thorn in my side. It felt like a backwards step.

The car pulled into the underground parking lot and paused while the guard checked the ID of my driver and opened the security doors. After a moment we continued.

“Well, let’s just go there, work him over and see what we can get out of him.”

“Pick up Roydon and head over there yourself. I’m going to sit this one out,” I said.

Lorenzo raised an eyebrow. “You serious? You’re not going to handle this one yourself?”

“What’s the matter, don’t think you can crack him?”

Lorenzo puffed himself up a bit, and I knew already that the argument was over before it had even started. My empire was built on fear and paying off the right people, but a little manipulation of ego went a long way too.

“You got someplace more important to be?” he asked.

“Dinner with that sexy little journalist that visited this morning,” I said.

Just mentioning her got my blood pumping. I wondered if she already knew she was getting fucked tonight or not. I could hardly wait to rip those panties off her, feel my cock sliding in, and watching her squirm.

“That’s an about-face on the media policy,” Lorenzo said.

“She won’t get anything she can use.”

“Well, you’re the boss. So, boss, how do you want me to play Santino? The reality is that he might not be crackable.”

I brought my hand up and rubbed my jawline as I thought about it. Lorenzo was right, guys like Santino had been brought up their whole lives being told to shut the fuck up about family business, or else.

Lorenzo hit hard, and I knew Roydon wasn’t going to lose any love on the Picolli family, but it was tough conditioning to break. Still, we had to get something out of this.

“Work him for an hour, two if you think he’s getting close to talking. Get what you can, but don’t touch his face. When you’re done, empty a few clips into him and leave him in front of the old Picolli place. Make sure he’ll be found and recognized. The six o’clock news will send our message. How’s that for a fuckin’ media policy?”