An Offer You Can't Refuse: A Miami Mafia Crime Thriller

by Sal Bianchi

  Lorenzo had a crazed look in his eyes as he watched me.

  “All right.” He licked his lips nervously. “Just stay right where you are. Don’t move until I get to my car.”

  To my horror, he started to walk backward, carrying the little boy with him.

  “No!” His mom screamed as she lunged toward him.

  He turned the gun on her, and she stopped, tears streaming down her ashen face.

  “Put him down,” I said as I took a cautious step toward him. He turned the gun away from the woman and back toward me.

  “Good,” I said as I took another cautious step toward him. “I’m the one you want to kill, right?”

  I took another step toward him.

  “Don’t!” he barked as he thrust the gun at me.

  “Put the kid down, all right?” I stated softly as I took another step closer. “He’s got nothing to do with this. You know that, right? Put him down, and then you can shoot me. That would make you a hero within the Family, right, if you killed the tradiatore who ran off to work for the feds?”

  He swallowed, and the manic look in his eye seemed to dwindle a little.

  “Fine,” he snarled after a moment of hesitation.

  My eyes widened as he threw the kid roughly onto the ground and quickly advanced on me. He punched me in the stomach without even breaking his stride, and I fell to my knees with a huff as he knocked the air out of me.

  “I’ll give you the death you deserve,” he growled as he cocked the gun and sneered down at me. “A proper execution, befitting a traitor like you.”

  I swallowed as I stared down the barrel of a gun for the second time in less than a week. I’d only have one chance to do this right.

  The moment his finger twitched against the trigger, I threw all of my body weight forward onto his knees. His shot went wide, and he cried out in pain and surprise as I swept his legs out from under him and brought him crashing face-first into the ground.

  I rolled to the side and out from underneath him. He’d dropped the gun during the fall, and he was currently cradling his broken jaw with one hand. I didn’t waste any time. I punched him hard in the back of the head before he could head back up. His face slammed back into the ground, and he screamed with pain. I could hear a wet crunch as he did, though I was unsure if it was his bones or his teeth rattling around inside his mouth as he yelled.

  “Nick!” Jase yelled as he came running up to us.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” I sighed as I fell backward to lean on my hands. “Handcuff him, please, before I do any more damage.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked as he leaned down to do as I’d asked. “I’m sorry I took so long. That guy was bleeding out pretty badly. The ambulance is here now, though. What happened? I heard gunshots.”

  “Whoa,” I grunted as I pressed one of my hands against my eyes. “Slow down for a minute. My head is killing me.”

  I wasn’t sure when it had started hurting. I’d been so focused on the pain in my shoulder that nothing else had registered.

  “You’re probably exhausted,” Jase muttered as he shined a flashlight into my pupils. “It’s like four in the morning. Did you hit your head?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Oh, wait. Maybe I did hit my head when I tackled him. I don’t know.”

  “All right,” Jase hummed. “Well, just take it easy for a minute.”

  “Check on the kid,” I mumbled in response. “Lorenzo slammed him onto the ground, the prick.”

  “Okay.” Jase nodded before leaving to examine the mother and son pair who huddled together a few feet away on the ground.

  The next few minutes passed by in a blur of sound and colors as police lights and sirens flooded the area. Jase reappeared at some point to coax me into one of the ambulances, saying something about my shoulder bleeding. I was dazed the entire time, weak from the loss of adrenaline and counting the minutes until I’d finally be able to go to sleep.

  36

  Nick

  I woke up feeling like I’d been hit like a truck. At first, I’d thought that I must have gotten too drunk and was suffering from the effects of a hangover. Then the events of the previous night came flooding back to me, and I remembered why I was in so much pain.

  I’d torn open my stitches while trying to shoot Lorenzo and had actually made the original injury worse in doing so. I’d also apparently hit my head pretty hard against Lorenzo’s kneecap when I’d tackled him. It had all happened so fast that I honestly didn’t remember it, but I had a lump on the crown of my head and a killer headache to prove it.

  I groaned as I pulled myself out of bed to get changed. Jase and I were supposed to interrogate Lorenzo today. Normally I would have been excited at the idea of doing an interrogation, but I felt so awful that I wouldn’t have minded putting it off for another day.

  As I left my apartment and got into my car, I thought about how lucky I was that I wasn’t going to face any repercussions for what had happened. Since I wasn’t a law enforcement officer, I wasn’t technically authorized to chase or apprehend Lorenzo the way I had. However, Flint had apparently argued that I was working in good faith as a consultant for the SDCT. Furthermore, I’d acted to protect an innocent child from being hurt. In the end, Flint had been certain that nothing further would come from it.

  I was a little confused, though. I’d always assumed my purpose in the SDCT was to be the fall guy in case something went wrong. That fact that Flint had gone out of his way to defend my actions, while appreciated, was surprising to me.

  Despite how I’d felt right after waking up, I started to get pumped as soon as I pulled into the SDCT office parking lot. My head and shoulder both still hurt, but I ignored the pain and focused instead on how I would approach the interrogation. I already had a general idea about what had happened, but I still had a few questions that needed answers. Of course, I also wanted to know how this all was going to affect me personally, considering it was my former Family involved.

  I took the elevator up to the eighth floor and stepped into the office. It was as busy as ever, and I immediately spotted Jase, Bette, and Chloe gathered around Jase’s desk.

  “Hey,” I called as I approached them. “What’s up?”

  Bette rolled her eyes at my greeting and immediately walked away.

  “What’s her problem?” I asked as I watched her settle back at her own desk.

  “Who even knows,” Chloe scoffed. “Her mood is completely unpredictable.”

  “Yeah.” Jase nodded. “Anyway, you ready to go? Lorenzo’s already back there. I was just waiting for you to get here.”

  “Yeah,” I replied as I led the way back toward the interrogation room. I didn’t waste any time and walked straight through the door that led to the other side of the two-way glass. I was buzzing with too much anticipation to stall any longer.

  Lorenzo looked up at me with a sneer as I entered. I was disappointed to see that I apparently hadn’t broken his jaw after all. His nose, however, was swollen and bruised. He also had pretty heavy and dark bruises beneath both eyes.

  “Good afternoon.” I smiled as I took a seat in front of him. “How are you feeling? That looks like it hurts.”

  He glared at me but otherwise refused to answer. I wasn’t deterred, though. At least, I wasn’t, until an hour later when he still hadn’t said anything. Despite my best efforts, he’d just sat there stoically no matter what I said or did.

  Even though we’d apprehended Lorenzo, there was still the matter of the next potential victim. We didn’t know the identity of the woman who had carried out the hit on Senator Rothschild, and we didn’t know who she wanted killed off in return. Unless we could figure out a way to make Lorenzo talk, we’d be no closer to finding the next victim before it was too late.

  I groaned in frustration, and he smirked.

  “The Family will protect me,” he finally spoke. It was literally the first thing he’d said since I’d come in here.

  I slammed my fist onto th
e table and stood up. I strode out of the room without another word. I wasn’t getting anywhere this way, and at this point, I was so worked up that even Lorenzo could tell.

  “You okay?” Jase asked as he followed me out of the room.

  “Yeah,” I replied bitterly. “I’m going to go get some air and clear my head for a minute.”

  “All right.” Jase agreed. “It’s a good time to take a lunch break, anyway. How about we meet back here in another hour?”

  “Sure.” I nodded, my mind already miles away.

  I walked through the office quickly, barely registering the snide comment Bette tossed my way as I went. I’d only meant to go outside and take a few calming breaths, but now that he’d mentioned it, lunch actually did sound good.

  I decided to leave my car behind as I left the building. It wasn’t too unbearably hot today, and a short walk would help clear my head.

  The SDCT office building was located in Downtown Miami in a large business park, and only a ten-minute walk away from a busy suburban shopping area. The majority of the stores were overpriced and catered to the kind of snobby people who had more money than taste, but there was one place tucked into the middle of an upscale strip mall that I’d gravitated toward ever since I’d discovered it.

  It was a small, inconspicuous cafe nestled between a pair of ritzy clothing boutiques. From the outside, it didn’t look like anything special, but inside was an entirely different story. It was called the Sambalatte, and the interior was decorated in a minimalist style. Shabby, mismatched tables dotted the main floor, and a massive continental map spanned the entire length of the wall. Best of all was the wrought iron staircase that led to a small loft area above the cafe. This area functioned as a miniature library, where guests could enjoy their coffee and snacks while they read.

  Normally I would have headed straight up to the library, but since Jase had asked me to meet him back at the SDCT office in an hour, I didn’t have the luxury of settling in with a book. Instead, I decided to sit on the outside patio after placing my order at the register. The weather was more temperate than it had been the past couple of days, so it was a good opportunity to enjoy some fresh air.

  I settled into my seat and turned to watch the people passing by. The majority appeared to be women toting around shopping bags as they flitted from store to store. One woman was screaming into a phone, her face contorted in rage and her two young kids cringing with embarrassment behind her.

  There was a group of teenagers standing by one of the cars in the parking lot. They were holding ice cream cones and seemed to talk about something really funny, judging by the way they kept bursting into laughter.

  On the other end of the shopping mall, a man was walking up and down the sidewalk. He kept looking down at his phone and then back up at the storefronts, as though he was lost and trying to find something.

  I chuckled to myself as I continued to watch the surrounding people. It was calming, in a weird way, to catch small glimpses of another person’s life and wonder what kind of person they were.

  A shadow moved into my periphery, and I turned to look, assuming they were going to ask if they could take the other chair from my table. My eyes widened with surprise when I realized it was Alessandro.

  He pulled the other chair away from the small, two-person table and took a seat across from me without bothering to utter a single word. I raised an eyebrow as he stared at me silently.

  “Well, this is a surprise,” I scoffed. “You came out in public without an entourage? And to a strip mall, no less?”

  “You never come to see me,” he replied curtly. “So I had to come to you.”

  “Ha,” I scoffed sarcastically. “The last time I went to see you, you spent the entire time berating me, and it’s not exactly safe for me to be waltzing in and out of the lion’s den either, is it?”

  “There wouldn’t be a problem if you would just come back,” Alessandro replied, his usually calm and collected demeanor cracking as he raised his voice.

  “Again with this,” I sighed. “Listen, I came here to relax. If you’re just going to annoy me again, then go away.”

  “Stop being an idiot,” he snarled at me as he slammed his hand down onto the table. He was angrier than I could remember him being in a long time. “I was up all night fixing the mess you created! Do you know what it took to convince the Family not to come after you?”

  “Enlighten me,” I replied coldly.

  He grumbled in frustration before answering me.

  “They wanted to take you out,” he told me plainly. “You worked with the feds, you took down one of the Family, and you did it all in the most scandalous way you could.”

  “Sorry I didn’t let Lorenzo shoot a toddler in the head,” I bit back sarcastically.

  “Lucky for you,” Lorenzo scoffed, “the fact that he did that is probably what saved you. The mafia does have its code, after all. He went after an innocent, and even worse, he threatened the wife and children of a fellow mafioso. After I was done making my case, I’d wager that most of them hated him even more than they hate you.”

  “Wow,” I chuckled. “That’s saying something, considering I get jumped every time I run into any of the Family. So what do you want then? You didn’t come here just to tell me that, did you?”

  “No,” he sighed. “I’m here to ask, no, plead with you to come back. I managed to convince them this time, but I won’t be able to come up with excuses for you forever. If you would just--”

  I stood abruptly before he could finish speaking.

  “Thank you for the warning,” I smiled cynically. “And for the information. This little chat has actually given me an idea for how I can interrogate Lorenzo.”

  “Nick,” Alessandro called, clearly angry that I was ignoring him. “I’m not playing around right now. It would be safer and more beneficial to everyone involved if you would just come back into the fold. At the very least, can’t you promise me you’ll keep your head down and stop drawing attention to yourself?”

  “I gotta get back to work,” I continued on, pointedly ignoring his question. “I ordered a cafe latte. You can have it when it gets here.”

  I turned and stalked away before he could respond. I was a little annoyed at his sudden appearance, but the talk had actually given me the ammunition I needed to break Lorenzo finally.

  I walked quickly back to the office, eager to put my theory to the test.

  37

  Jase

  Nick was already back from his own lunch by the time I made it into the building and up to the eighth floor.

  “Hey.” He smiled as he caught sight of me. I could see Bette standing just behind him. He looked furious, and I wondered what had happened in the time it had taken me to get here.

  “Please don’t wander off without him next time,” she huffed at me. “I can hardly put up with him on a regular basis, let alone when he’s loose.”

  She stalked away haughtily, and I turned to Nick with an expectant look.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “I dunno.” Nick shrugged. “She came up to me and started whining about me being here. I pulled a Lorenzo and just ignored her. I didn’t say a single word to her.”

  “That probably just annoyed her off more,” I chuckled.

  “What doesn’t annoy her?” Nick scoffed.

  “When it comes to you?” I grinned. “Everything annoys her. Anyway, I’m surprised you’re back on time. Early, even. I’m almost impressed.”

  “Don’t be.” Nick grinned. “I would have been later, but I came into some interesting information while I was out.”

  “What do you mean ‘interesting’?” I asked suspiciously. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing!” he protested indignantly. “Why do you assume I did something?”

  “You’re always doing something,” I sighed. “And dragging me into it.”

  “Well, whatever.” Nick shrugged. “Anyway, let’s go interrogate Lorenzo. I
think I know how I can get him to break.”

  “All right,” I replied skeptically. “The guy was a rock, though. For an entire hour.”

  “Yeah.” Nick smirked. “But I’m about to take away the thing that’s making him feel so confident.”

  I led the way back into the interrogation room. Lorenzo was still sitting there, staring resolutely ahead.

  “Hello, Lorenzo.” Nick greeted him with a smile as we both sat down across the table from him. He only briefly glanced up at us before turning back to stare straight ahead. “I just had a nice chat with Alessandro.”

  That got his attention, and honestly, it got mine too. Nick hadn’t spoken to his brother in years, and now he’d had two meetings with him in almost as many days.

  For a moment, Lorenzo’s steady facade broke, and he turned to stare at Nick with a wide-eyed look of surprise. He caught himself quickly and tried to regain his former stoicism, but I could tell he was rattled.

  “Would you like to know what we talked about?” Nick smiled. “It turns out you were wrong about the Family having your back, Lorenzo. Quite the contrary, it seems like they’re all pretty mad about what you did.”

  “That’s a lie,” he growled, his stony composure finally breaking.

  “It’s not,” Nick grinned wickedly. “Seems like you forgot that one of the most important mafia commandments is to hold other member’s wives sacred. A lot of people are pretty unimpressed with what you did to poor Samuel.”

  “N-no!” Lorenzo stuttered, his face going white. “That isn’t-- I mean, I didn’t…”

  “Hey, I’m not the one you need to convince.” Nick shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m not a member of the Family anymore, remember? You should be more worried about what they’ll do to you once we let you go.”

  Nick smiled sadistically as Lorenzo started to shake. It was such an unnerving glare that I was glad it wasn’t being directed at me. I’d been curious about what Nick’s secret plan was to get Lorenzo to talk, and now I understood what his aim was. Lorenzo had felt confident because he believed that he had the support of the mafia. Now that he knew he was on his own, he’d lost his sense of security.