As the engine idled, Sergei drummed the wheel and gazed in the rearview, debating how to handle the wise guy in the backseat and the two idiots in the trunk. If they hadn’t killed the guy, they were either inept, or they’d only intended to send a message. Pity for them they’d chosen the wrong post office for that message.
And one way or another, they were inept. They were also competition. More importantly, their ineptness could get them caught, and once the cops got their hands on anybody in this fucked up underworld—especially with bodies washing up on the beach—everyone remotely attached to La Cosa Nostra were in danger, and that included independent contractors like Sergei. If these morons were stupid enough to rough someone up this brazenly with a police station six blocks away, then they were a liability to everyone.
They had to go.
Sergei got out of the car. He opened the trunk, and without any fanfare or hesitation, unloaded two bullets apiece into their foreheads. Then he slammed the lid again.
As he’d done in the alley, he smeared his footprints in the gravel. With a towel he’d found beside the two dead men, he wiped every surface to make sure he didn’t leave any fingerprints on the inside or outside of the car. There could be no trace of him here; though the rounds were nearly impossible to trace and even the .22 would be in the ocean before sunrise, he took no chances.
And now he was left with the beaten up guy in the backseat. In theory, he could’ve offed him and walked away. One less Mafioso to pollute this town.
But Sergei didn’t kill indiscriminately. Even when he was absolutely certain a man was Mafia—and thus fair game for a bullet—the fact remained that offing the wrong guy could mark him for death if anyone ever connected him. He was good at covering his tracks, but he refused to take unnecessary risks.
And besides, he only committed murder under three circumstances. One, when it was a paid hit, because even for an independent contractor, saying no to the Mafia was a death sentence. Two, when he was in actual immediate danger. Three, when the mark needed to be removed from the Mafia chessboard so Sergei could push them all one body closer to extinction.
The goons technically hadn’t put him in immediate danger, but they posed a threat to Sergei and the handful of other hired guns in this town. They’d also seen his face. They’d brought Mafia business too close to where he conducted his business. They’d had to go.
That wasn’t to say his life as a stripper and his life as a contract killer never crossed. Quite the contrary—he had a very select group of contacts who met him at the club, and through a series of coded comments, gave him work that paid a hell of a lot more than making horny bankers pant. He deliberately handled his transactions there, hiding in plain sight. No one but his contacts ever saw his face, and none of the macho Mafia assholes would ever suspect a sometimes flamboyant gay stripper of being the hitman equivalent of the boogey man. The assassin they told their children about when they wouldn’t behave.
What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
And he wanted to get back to the club tonight, but he still had one more mess to clean up.
Sergei tilted the rearview down and studied the Italian’s still form. What little he could make out in the darkness, anyway. There was no telling exactly who the semiconscious Italian was. Well-dressed—that was not an off-the-rack suit—so he probably wasn’t just some random wise guy. Involved enough with La Cosa Nostra to take a ride in the trunk of a Cadillac and have his ass kicked in a back alley. But his name? His role? What he’d done to earn a beating like that? Anyone’s guess.
Sergei’s best bet was to let him go. Besides, the guy could be someone he actually wanted alive. Not that he wanted any Mafiosi alive, but some needed to keep breathing while Sergei continued pulling strings to move people into position within the families’ hierarchies. Once the dominoes were in a row, they’d all fall in good time, but for now, some of them needed to stay alive until the pieces were in place.
He opened the car door. “Time to go.”
The Italian groaned softly and struggled to sit up. Sergei helped him, and with some cursing and grunting, the wounded man made it out of the car.
Once he was on his feet, he leaned against the car, clutching his side. “Fuck…”
Sergei gave the man a quick down-up. This was the first chance he’d had to actually look at the guy, and surprisingly the Italian wasn’t one of the greasy, weathered assholes he was used to seeing. Even with the blood and the bruises, he had a much prettier face than most of his kind. The streetlights picked out a few strands of silver in his otherwise jet black hair, but he couldn’t have been older than forty. Mid-thirties, maybe.
And he probably had that lightly tanned olive skin like the other Mafia scumbags, but between his sickly pallor and the blood and sweat glinting beneath the milky light, it was impossible to tell.
Sergei shook himself. “You need a hospital.”
The man spat blood on the pavement. “No fucking hospitals.”