He was waiting for the explosion back on the train tracks, and with a quick glance at his watch he knew it wouldn’t be much longer. Any second now, really. It was so close to happening, he could practically hear the entire sequence in his head – a symphony of sounds, from the initial thunderous clap to the seemingly endless echo to the relentless squawking of every bird knocked off its perch within a square mile.
Finally, it came. The bomb, the echo, the birds… everything. Almost exactly as he’d imagined it would be.
But Torenzi didn’t stop and look back, not for a second. He had no interest in taking it all in. He didn’t feel the need.
He didn’t feel anything.
There was no glee, no satisfaction, and certainly no remorse – not even the slightest twinge of guilt over the innocent little girl. She had flushed out her uncle as he’d planned. She’d served her purpose from his viewpoint. That was all there was to it.
As for the Rambo who’d crashed the party on the train, Torenzi still had no idea who he was. In hindsight, though, the guy must have known Daniels was wearing a bulletproof vest. There was no way his aim was that bad, the two shots he tagged Torenzi with being evidence of some skill on his part.
Speaking of not feeling anything…
Torenzi had yanked the black leather belt from his pants, making a tourniquet and cutting off the circulation directly below his shoulder. For now, his arm was as numb as rubber in December. Later, he’d tend to it. He’d dig out the bullets with the stiletto blade he kept strapped to his shin and then stitch himself up with a dime-store needle and thread, leaving two more scars on a body littered with them. No big deal. Just another day at the office.
As Hyman Roth said to Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part II, “This is the business we’ve chosen.”
Now Torenzi’s business was done. Once again, he had won the game.
Finally, he emerged from the trees and saw the car waiting for him. Perfect timing. Things were going his way again – as they always did.
“Is he dead?” he heard as he approached the white Volvo S40.
Torenzi leaned down into the open window of the front passenger side. He smirked. “What do you think? You heard the explosion, didn’t you?”
Ian LaGrange smiled wide, his overly large mouth almost cartoonish. “Indeed I did,” he said. “Get in.”
The Volvo was parked on a deserted dead-end road, the only sign of life being two half-finished spec homes that were destined to stay that way because the builder had gone belly-up when the housing market had collapsed.
Torenzi yanked open the car door and stepped in. “Let’s go,” he said.
LaGrange motioned to Torenzi’s arm, the belt, and his bloodstained shirt beneath his jacket. “What the hell happened to you?” he asked.
“It’s nothing. There was someone else on the train.”
“Who?”
“Does it matter?”
“I’m the head of the Organized Crime Task Force,” said LaGrange. “What do you think?”
“He was most likely FBI.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No, but the bomb surely did,” said Torenzi. “What about D’zorio?”
“He didn’t make it.”
“Lucky break for you.”
LaGrange chuckled. “Better to be lucky than good.”
“Even better to be both,” said Torenzi, meaning every word of it. “You got the rest of my money?”
“Of course I do. In the trunk,” he answered with a throw of his head. “Gave you a little extra for all your troubles. You did a fine job.”
Torenzi didn’t say thank you. Instead, he was wondering why LaGrange still had the car in park.
“What are we waiting for?” he asked.
“There’s one other piece of business we need to take care of.”
“What’s that?”
“Me,” said the man outside the open car window.
How do you say revenge in Russian?
BRUNO TORENZI DIDN’T recognize the voice, but there was little doubt about the barrel of a gun jammed against the side of his head.
“Put your hands on the dashboard,” ordered Ivan Belova. “Slowly. Very, very slowly.”
Torenzi complied with disgust as LaGrange removed the keys from the ignition and opened the driver’s side door. “I’m sorry, Bruno,” he said before stepping out. “Remember the San Sebastian Hotel? You fucked up, you horny bastard.”
Belova, a better-dressed and slimmed-down version of Boris Yeltsin, kept his eyes squarely focused on Torenzi. He had no intention of giving the professional killer any opening. It was a lesson his two sons had learned the hard way at that hotel in Manhattan where they’d tried to run their scam on the Italian.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked in his heavy Russian accent. He was the head of the Belova crime family, that’s who. They were the U.S. arm of Solntsevskaya Bratva, one of the most powerful crime families in Moscow.
“No,” answered Torenzi, who knew enough to keep looking straight ahead out the windshield.
“Those were my boys you killed in that hotel room, my flesh and blood,” he said with equal parts anger and despair. He was his own Molotov cocktail ready to explode.
Belova waited for some type of reaction from Torenzi. A look of surprise, maybe even regret. “Sorry” was a long shot, as was anything else approaching an apology – Belova had no delusions about that. Not that it would’ve made a difference. There was no changing his plans. No chance of mercy for the Italian killer.
Still, Belova never would’ve imagined the response he did get from the man.
“They were punks,” said Torenzi. “They had it coming.”
“Motherfucker!” yelled Belova, pulling back the hammer on his Makarov PM.
“Wait!” yelled LaGrange even louder. He was standing behind Belova.
“What?” asked Belova impatiently over his shoulder. He still wasn’t about to take his eyes off Torenzi. He knew how lethal this man could be.
“For Christ’s sake, not in the car,” said LaGrange. “Not unless you want to clean up afterward.”
Belova reluctantly nodded, reaching out with his free hand. He opened Torenzi’s door and backed up a few steps, just to be safe.
“Get out,” he said.
For the first time, Torenzi turned to Belova. But all he gave him was a quick glance as he stepped out of the car. LaGrange, on the other hand, received a glare that would have made even the devil stutter.
“How much?” asked Torenzi. For how much did you sell me out?
LaGrange didn’t answer. He could only look down at the dirt beneath his feet.
Torenzi stared back at Belova now, unblinking. There was no plea for mercy, no begging for forgiveness.
“Turn around,” ordered Belova. “Let me see the horse’s ass.”
Torenzi shook his head adamantly. “No. You look at me when you do it,” he said.
With that, he linked his hands behind his back and dropped to his knees. As if that weren’t enough, he opened his mouth wide.
Sick and twisted to the bitter end.
Belova stepped forward, shoving the barrel of his Makarov PM straight back to Torenzi’s molars. He was the boss of his family; it had been more than a decade since he’d killed anyone himself. He was far more accustomed to giving the order, not seeing it through.
The result was a split second’s pause. A blink of the eye. The chance Torenzi was banking on, or at least hoping for.
Now!
Torenzi whipped his head to the side, forcing the gun against the inside of his cheek as a startled Belova pulled the trigger. The bullet blew a quarter-size hole in the hit man’s face, but only his flesh went flying, not his brains.
Falling backwards, Torenzi reached under his pant leg for the stiletto strapped to his shin. With the grip clenched in his fingers he lunged for the Russian asshole, stabbing him so deep in his thigh that the tip of the blade struck bone.
Belova screamed in agony as he collapsed to the ground. The gun dropped from his hand. Torenzi scooped it up and fired straight into Belova’s throat before whipping his arm around at LaGrange for his second shot.