by Jon Mills
Debt Collector
Vengeance
Jon Mills
Direct Response Publishing
Contents
Copyright
Also by Jon Mills
Dedication
Epigraph
Synopsis
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
A Plea
Newsletter
Jon Mills
Copyright © 2015 by Jon Mills
All rights reserved. Direct Response Publishing. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
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Debt Collector 2: Vengeance is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Also by Jon Mills
Undisclosed
Retribution
Clandestine
The Debt Collector
Debt Collector 2: Vengeance
Debt Collector 3: Reborn
Debt Collector 4: (Coming in June 2016)
The Promise
True Connection
Dark Tide (Detective Forrester and Woods Crime Thriller)
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For my Family
Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.
Samuel Johnson
Synopsis
Mobster and hitman Jack Winchester thought he had put his past behind him. When he returns to New York City and finds his friend murdered, and his sister kidnapped, Jack goes to war against the Sicilian Mafia.
1
3 Days Before New Year’s Eve
The private jet’s engine spun out a deafening roar as three of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Cosa Nostra, stepped onto the glistening tarmac at Teterboro Airport, New Jersey. The ground was covered in a thin layer of snow. While it had been a warm winter, each of them was dressed expecting the worst. A short distance away, a luxurious black Lincoln Navigator idled.
One of the tinted windows slipped down. Upon seeing their guests approach, two of Leo Carlone’s men, wearing leather jackets, stepped out and huddled together. Their breath rose like spirits leaving their bodies.
They spoke quietly with each other going over what Leo had instructed. Both were sure of themselves but nervous. A lot was riding on this. There had already been one screw up. They couldn’t afford another.
In traditional Italian fashion, they greeted the men warmly with a kiss on the cheeks. One of them opened the rear door and the three slipped inside. It wasn’t long before they were whisked away to a small Italian restaurant and lounge located on 17th Avenue in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
Leo’s Restaurant and Lounge looked modest on the outside. It resembled any one of the small restaurants found in Brooklyn. Inside however it oozed with style, sophistication, and glamour. Dark-colored hardwood floors, exposed stone walls, and a warm fireplace at the center. It wasn’t busy that day. A closed sign had been placed on the door. All of the round tables covered in pristine white covers had chairs turned upside down on them – except two in the far corner. Leo Carlone glanced up from where he was at the shrill of a bell. He sat in a booth, alone, off to the left-hand side. Beyond him was a table with four men. He wiped the corner of his mouth and cleansed his palate with a mouthful of pinot wine before rising. Leo had been running the restaurant and lounge for over twenty years. It had been in the family. Most thought it was a cover for criminal activity but it wasn’t. Leo genuinely enjoyed running a restaurant. It was upscale. A mix between a restaurant and a coffeehouse. It had been passed down through the family, and he would have passed it down to his son, Freddy, had he still been alive.
The largest, and oldest of the three Sicilian men greeted him with a kiss on both cheeks. He gripped Leo’s shoulder tightly before he spoke, “Please accept my condolences for your loss.”
“Thank you.” Leo nodded before motioning to the table. “Please. Take a seat.”
Leo snapped his fingers in the air. “Arthur, get these two gentleman what they want. And for you, Vito?”
“Just coffee. Black.”
Vito Nicchi was the boss of the Sicilian Mafia. His right-hand men were Dominick Morello and Anthony Lombardo. Both of them had been with Vito since his rise to power, eight years ago.
Leo continued eating.
“Nice place you have here. Did you sweep it?” Anthony asked.
Leo paused between bites.
“Do I look like a fucking moron?”
“Anthony.” Vito turned to him before looking back at Leo. “He didn’t mean no disrespect.”
Leo continued finishing off his plate of pasta. Truth be told it had become routine to check for bugs. The FBI were never that far behind them. Until Roy Gafino had been murdered, they only had to sweep once a week. That had now turned into a daily activity. Too many of the old-timers had been taken down and incriminated by recordings. After the death of Gafino the New York Mafia were on edge. Business after business had been raided by the FBI. They assumed that another crime family had been responsible for the hit on Gafino. Little did they realize it was the work of one man.
The death of Gafino had caused a domino effect. The New York Mafia was knee-deep in the advanced stages of a billion-dollar cocaine deal with the Sicilian Mafia. It would have been some of the purest smack ever to hit the streets. Stashed in shipments of canned fruit. The cargo was to be shipped from South America to Italy and then a large portion would find its way back to America via different ports, one of which was Maine. Roy Gafino had been at the heartbeat of the whole operation. He controlled what came into which city. He determined what hit the streets. Along with when and how it was distributed. Without him, business had suffered. Shipments were lost and with that large sums of money were owed.
It wasn’t long before word got back to Leo with a name on who was last seen leaving the Pig’s Ear before the explosion. Jack Winchester.
“Am I to believe your men couldn’t stop one man?”
&nbs
p; Leo snorted. “My men? Roy and I were friends, but this is on him.”
“We are owed a lot of money.”
“And you will be paid,” Leo replied.
“When?” Vito asked impatiently.
“Once we have established who will be taking the reins.”
“You expect us to wait while you squabble among yourselves for power and position?”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand very clearly. None of you have the balls to step up.”
“It’s not as simple as that.”
Vito leaned in closer. “Do you know how much money we lost?”
“We both lost.” Leo stared intently at Vito. “Do you forget? He took my son’s life.”
“And? What have you done about it?”
Leo cast his eyes to the floor. A look of dismay, or despondency crept across his face.
“We can’t find him,” Leo said.
“And so you want our help?”
Leo lifted his eyes and took a deep breath. He neither nodded nor confirmed. He wasn’t one for seeking help from others. But the arguments among the crime families in New York had created so much division. No one trusted the other. Some believed Gafino was still alive. That it was all a ploy to determine loyalty. The old-timers wanted to see his charred remains. Get confirmation from his dental records. They had heard of other crime bosses disappearing off the radar only to reappear and reclaim their throne. Stepping into another’s shoes wasn’t something that was done lightly. It was risky business.
“Tell me more about this man,” Vito continued.
Jack Winchester had been waiting for close to an hour for someone to show. He sat in his truck outside a rundown house three miles outside of Rockland Cove, Maine. He was doing a favor for a friend, well, sort of. With the winter season in full swing he hadn’t expected to experience such a slow slump.
The past few months had been tough. He didn’t need much to live. He’d sold his car to cover the cost of his boat and used a portion to buy a banged-up old truck. Nothing fancy. Just four wheels to get him from A to B. The rest of the money he used to cover a few months of docking, electricity, gas, and sanitation fees. Then of course there was winter storage. Not everyone took his or her boat out of the water but his was too small to leave in. And with Rockland Cove being a tourist area, the high cost of living had eaten into what money he did have in the first year. He sighed just thinking about it. It was costing him more to live on the water than it would if he had rented a room. A lack of funds meant he had to consider alternative ways to make money. All of this meant he needed a place to stay over the winter months.
At first Dana Grant had been accommodating, but that soon changed the closer they became. She had so many questions about his life, and there was very little he was willing to answer. The urge to return to the line of work he once knew was overwhelming. When he took on a regular job doing boat tours, he didn’t imagine it was going to be easy. Collecting debts had been his life. He was good at it. Even if it had driven him to commit heinous acts.
He flicked the remains of a half-burnt cigarette into the snow and gazed at the hole it made. He’d been in Rockland Cove for over a year. A lot had happened in that time. For the first few months he’d always kept a bag on hand, ready to leave. Jack wasn’t scared, but he knew returning to the town where he had killed five members of the mob meant keeping his eyes peeled. It would have been the first place they would look. In that time, Eddie had told him that rumors were circulating about his involvement in the murder of Gafino. Only once did he feel as if they were getting close to locating him. A few of Leo’s men had shown up seven months ago. Keith Welling, the owner of the marina, who had become a good friend of his, had covered for him. He told them he hadn’t seen Jack. His very being here wasn’t smart. If it hadn’t been for Dana, he would have never returned.
Now things were different. He had struggled to rekindle what they had before. Dana was more cautious, and rightfully so. She wouldn’t admit it, but he knew she lived in the fear of others coming. That’s why Jack hadn’t told her about the one visit they’d had. In his mind, it was routine. They would have been informed about where Freddy and the others were killed. It was the first place to check. Thankfully, very little information had been leaked out through the media on what had brought Vincent, Freddy, and the others to Rockland Cove. There was no mention of Dana Grant so they never checked in on her. And folks in this town had become wary of outsiders asking questions. After the death of the sheriff, everyone had become tight-lipped. They just wanted to forget and move on with their lives. This meant no discussing what had taken place, especially with strangers.
Jack sank back into his seat and closed his eyes. Maybe ten minutes passed before he heard the sound of gravel. He glanced out to see an old red Pontiac muscle car tear into the driveway. Three guys jumped out along with a girl. They had to have been in their twenties. Tweakers.
Keith had casually mentioned over a beer that one of them owed him several months’ worth of rent money for a condo he rented out in the town. He’d also got wind that they were using it as a crack house.
Keith Welling was your typical businessman. He ran the marina, was married but had no kids. He invested his money into properties in and around Rockland Cove. By all accounts, he hadn’t run into trouble. Only once did he have to get the cops involved to get a squatter booted out. But these guys were different. He knew that someone in the department was allowing it. Every call he’d placed to them had just fallen on deaf ears.
Well, that wasn’t exactly the truth. The fact was the cops had been around but they could never find any sign. They were always one step ahead. And no one who knew them was saying anything.
That’s when Jack offered to help.
At first Keith laughed and turned down the offer until Pat, one of the local fishermen, had told him about Jack’s run-in with the bikers. That had made the local papers. It wasn’t something that was forgotten. In many ways it had earned Jack some respect in the town. Besides tourists, it was tough for newcomers to fit in. Local folk were tight. But that one event had given him a little leverage.
Stepping out of his truck as if he was about to go for an afternoon stroll, Jack crossed the road and walked up their short driveway. He wasn’t packing any heat. He just didn’t expect he would need it. That was one thing he had made a point to leave at the boat just in case police stopped him on his way out to the house where he had tracked the kid who rented the condo. To him this was a simple miscommunication. Keith didn’t want them out. He just wanted to get paid, and make sure the place wasn’t being used for crack.
Jack knocked twice on the dilapidated door. He heard movement inside.
“Get the door,” a gruff voice yelled out from inside.
“Why don’t you? You lazy bastard.”
Jack stepped back as the door opened, and a small girl stepped out. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. She had long blonde hair, thick eyeliner, and wore tight blue jeans torn at the knees and a white sweater.
“If you are selling, we are not buying.”
“Not here to sell.”
“Then what do you want?” she asked.
“A word with Danny,” Jack replied.
She looked him up and down as if trying to gauge whether he worked for the cops. She cast a glance over her shoulder and yelled back into the darkness.
“Danny. Get your ass out here.”
“Who is it?”
She turned back.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Jack.”
She shouted his name. There was a rustle inside and a skinny guy with long dirty blond hair poked his head around the corner. He was dressed as if it was the summer.
“Don’t know no Jack. What the fuck do you want?”
He stepped forward and the girl stepped to one side. He wore what might have resembled a white muscle shirt at one time, though now it was stained and looked as if it had bec
ome part of his skin. His jeans weren’t that much better. Torn, covered in oil stains, and scrunched up over the top of his work boots. Jack spotted small red bruises all over his forearms. They were needle tracks. He was tattooed all over. One tattoo was of a dragon that ran up the side his neck. In the corner of his mouth hung a cigarette.
“Keith sent me. He says you owe him six months’ rent on the condo.”
“And I told him. He’ll get paid when I get the time to get down there.”
He turned to go back inside the house.
“Yeah, about that. You see, he has been trying to call your phone and he’s not getting through.”
“That’s because it’s turned off. Listen. You tell him. I’ll pay him when I’m ready. Not before.”
With that he turned and slammed the door. Jack nodded slowly, breathed in deeply, and then drove his foot hard against the door. The brittle wood groaned on impact. The door burst open, sending wooden shrapnel in every direction. Danny barely had a chance to react before Jack had a hold on the back of his neck.
“Now. The money.”
“Shit. man. I’ll get it.” He shrank back in fear.
“Lead the way.”
He kept a firm grip on him as they went deeper into the house. The place was a complete shithole. As they passed by the kitchen, Jack glanced in. Piles of unwashed dishes were stacked high, others remained on the table. The floor looked as if it hadn’t seen water in a decade. Trash bags were tied and shoved into a corner. The smell of piss and marijuana hung heavy in the air. He had only turned his head for a second when he heard a gun cocked by his ear.
The voice spoke slowly. “Let. Him. Go.”
It was the girl.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about, Rachael,” Danny said.
Two other guys came out of the living area and both of them were packing Glocks. One of them had a thick beard. The other looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week. His eyes sank back into his face.
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