Vanilla and blood

Chapter 5: Vanilla and blood

Armando

“Please, Don Denaro, I didn’t know! I swear on my mother’s life!”

I wiped my blood stained hands after gutting Luca alive. The accountant, a weasel of a man named Petrov, trembled beside his lifeless body, his suit jacket soaked through with Luca’s blood and sweat that had nothing to do with the evening’s humidity.

I slowly adjusted my platinum cufflink, the movement deliberate, a predator’s quiet gesture before the strike. I nodded once to Enzo, who stood like a granite pillar to my left. “Show him the books.”

Enzo threw the ledger and It hit the cracked pavement, the leather binding splitting to spill its contents. The pages fanned open, meticulously inked numbers and empty columns showing. Nearly half a million dollars vanished into thin air.

Petrov’s knees gave way, and he slid down the wall, a strangled sob escaping him. “It wasn’t me! I just followed orders! Mr. Bianchi said if I didn’t adjust the figures, he’d… he’d…”

“As you can see,” I pointed at the dead man beside him. “Luca Bianchi is dead,” my voice low and flat, devoid of all emotion. It was a simple statement of fact. “And you’re about to join him unless you start telling me who really took that money. Not the ghost of a dead man. I need a name.”

His eyes, wide with a terror so pure it was almost religious, darted past me into the deep shadows where two more of my men stood, silent and still. He was weighing his options, finding the scale brutally empty. He opened his mouth, a name perhaps forming on his lips.

Then I heard the sharp, frantic clatter of heels on pavement, it was too close.

Every muscle in my body went stiff. My men shifted, hands moving toward holsters. I turned, my gaze slicing through the dim light of the alley’s mouth.

And there she was.

Gwen.

Frozen ten feet away, her wide, horrified eyes didn’t see the alley, the ledger, or the cowering man. They moved from the dead bloodied body on the floor and then locked onto mine taking in my blood stained hands and clothes. In that fraction of a second, I saw the entire trajectory of her thoughts: recognition, confusion, dawning terror as the scene assembled itself in her mind.

Time didn’t just slow; it shattered.

“Gwen,” I breathed, the word leaving my lips like a prayer and a curse combined.

The sound of her name broke the spell holding her. She spun on her heel and ran.

“Find her,” I ordered, my voice a whip-crack as I slammed the car door, the luxury sedan feeling suddenly like a cage. “Now. Every man we have. Now, Enzo!”

Enzo peeled out onto the street, the tires screeching in protest. “Yes boss… but I don't think she saw anything boss.”

“She saw me,” I snarled, my knuckles bleaching white around my phone. “In an alley, with bloodstained clothes, a lifeless body and a man who will be dead by morning. You think the Rinaldis won’t use that? You think they won’t tear this city apart to find a witness who can connect me to a body?”

The thought of their hands on her, of their methods of getting people to say what they know, sent a cold, murderous rage through my veins. I couldn't let them get to her. Not now that I knew that any one of my men could be their spy.

My phone lit up on the seat beside me. It was a text from Matteo. “Spotted her. Heading east on 5th. Panicked.”

“Move to Fifth Avenue. Now.”

We cut her off at a bus stop, Gwen saw the car, saw me emerging from it, and spun toward traffic, like a wild, desperate animal ready to throw herself into the stream of oncoming headlights.

I moved faster, closing the distance in three long strides and catching her wrist. Her skin was burning.

“Let go of me, you monster! I saw what you did and I'm going to call the police.” She screamed, her voice raw with panic. She swung her purse and it connected with my shoulder with a solid thump.

She must have noticed that I wouldn’t let her go so she shouted, her voice shaking. “I’ll scream! I swear to God, I’ll scream this whole street down!”

“Do it,” I said, pulling her against me, my voice a low, vicious whisper meant for her ears only. The scent of her vanilla shampoo hit me, a devastatingly familiar fragrance that clashed violently with the alley’s stench that was still clinging to my clothes.

“And we can stand here together and see how many of these fine witnesses live long enough to give the police a description of me.”

She went limp in my arms, every muscle rigid. Her chest heaved with ragged breaths. Up close, I could see the frantic flutter of her pulse in her throat, a trapped bird beating against its cage. The vulnerability of it, the sheer terror in her eyes, was a physical pain.

“Get in the car, Gwen.”

“Fuck you and go to hell,” she spat, her eyes blazing with a hatred that was somehow easier to bear than her fear.

I sighed, the sound weary. I nodded to Enzo. He moved to the back of the sedan and popped the trunk open, getting out the dart gun.

Her eyes widened, the bravado crumbling into pure, unadulterated dread. “You wouldn’t…you couldn’t…”

The quiet sound of the dart gun's tranquilizer firing was drowned out by the city's loud noises. She gasped, her hand flying to her neck where the small dart pricked her.

Confusion clouded her eyes for a second before they rolled back in her head. I caught her as her knees gave out, her body going limp and trustingly heavy in my arms.

I gathered her up, cradling her against my chest and carried her into the car.

“I really wish you hadn’t made this difficult, Zuccherina.” I murmured into her hair, the words leaving a bitter taste.