Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
“Aww, come on,” he said. “I brought all my good shit.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “I’ll let you play with him when I’m done. Cut off his pants and give me the jelly. I’m gonna burn his sack off first.”
I stepped into the other room and made the call. “I got him to talk. Send everyone to the address I’m about to text. Meet you there.”
I headed back into the room and found Vladimir pantsless and slouched over in the chair, his face stained with tears. “Gonna head over and raid the place,” I said to Rocco. “Meet me at the Pantheon when you’re done.”
“Oh, it’s gonna be a while.” He grabbed a golf club that leaned against the wall and spun it around his wrist.
“I—I told you what you wanted to know,” Vladimir said breathlessly.
“And thank you for that,” I said. “But you touched my woman, so the fun’s not over.”
“I told you everything!”
I ignored him and looked at Rocco. “Make it good, all right? Because it should be me . . . but duty calls.”
“I’ll cut off his dick before it’s over, don’t worry.”
“I told you what you wanted to know!”
“Thanks,” I said. “See you over there.”
We raided the facility, but there was no one to save. The victims were already corpses, and most of the dead had been cremated, so there were no remains to return to the families. We rounded up every asshole in that place, all fifty of them. About a dozen of them were security, and some were nurses and doctors who performed the operations, while the rest were other staff who did everything else.
We gathered all of them together, and a handful of them were women. A couple of them doctors.
“Put everyone in the van except the girls.”
The guys were dragged away and put into the vans parked outside. The girls were left in a group in the center.
I didn’t kill women, regardless of their crime. It felt like a contradiction to my principles, and it was blood I didn’t want on my hands. I fully admitted it was sexist, because women could be just as evil as men, but I didn’t have it in me.
But that didn’t mean I let them go. “Let the police know they’re here. Let’s head out.” They were all handcuffed around the wrists and the ankles, stuck on the floor. A few of my men stayed behind just to make sure there was no one we’d missed in the building who could let the prisoners go. “Enjoy your life sentences, ladies.”
We blocked off the different streets that led to the plaza outside the Pantheon. Spectators were welcome to watch, but they just couldn’t get close in case someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Forty or so men were dropped onto the cobblestone outside the ancient building with pillars made of Egyptian stone. Once they were accounted for, we pulled out the pulley systems and prepared the executions.
Bound by their hands and feet, all they could do was lie there and wet themselves, cry, or try to console one another.
I stood and watched, watched my men work to prepare forty-two nooses.
My phone rang, and I checked the name to make sure it wasn’t important—or it wasn’t Aurelia.
It was President Barsetti.
He already knew.
I took the call and didn’t speak.
“Are you out of your fucking mind, Constantine?”
“Why do you think I got the job?”
“There are people watching.”
“Good. Let the enemies of Rome see what happens when you violate the Roman Republic.”
“Constantine—”
“With all due respect, this is not your jurisdiction, Crow. It’s mine. This is how I run my city. This is how I make the rats run back into the sewers. This is how I protect my people. You may not like my tactics, but I’m the reason tourists continue to come, why people walk the streets at two in the morning—because they know I keep those streets safe. The only thing I should be hearing from you is fucking thank you.” I hung up the phone.
Rocco came to my side. “Barsetti?”
“Yeah.”
“He’ll get over it.”
“Vladimir?”
“Bled out. Wrapped him up and threw him in a dumpster.”
“Good.”
The men started to grab the assholes and tighten the nooses around their necks. Some of them tried to fight, but all they could do was wriggle like a slug. Most of them begged for their lives, asked for mercy.
I felt nothing.
“Anyone else?” he asked.
“A couple girls. Let the police handle them.”
He nodded in agreement.
All forty-two of them were hoisted up, and they started to choke the second their feet left the ground. Kicking and swaying, pointlessly trying to survive when there was no way to do so.
I stared at them all—like Christmas ornaments hanging on the tree.
Most of them were dead within a minute or less, but some of them lasted longer, turning blue in the face and swinging hard in the hope the rope would snap. Then it was down to one guy . . . like a fucking cockroach.