The Grandmaster’s Legacy: Masters of Love and War (A Taylor Lee HOT Historical Romantic Suspense Collection) (The Grandmaster's Legacy)

by Taylor Lee

  Rico nodded.

  “And that doesn’t count the jewels we got this time. Christ, how the hell could D’Magio’s gang think they could get away with stealin’ from a goddamn museum? Somebody said Queen fuckin’ Nefertiti wore the damn thing!”

  Sal laughed and his faced cracked with a sly grin.

  “Well, they actually did get away with it. What they didn’t get away with is thinking they didn’t have to include it in the monthly loot for Aldo.”

  He added, “And Christ, it only took choppin’ up two of their men for Aldo to demonstrate what happens when the little guys think they can hold back from the big man.”

  Baggo rolled his eyes and said what they all thought though usually no one was brave enough to say it out loud.

  “You know, we’ve been about as loyal as a group of Wops could be. Wonder when Aldo might think about shoving a little of this booty our way. Hell, we ain’t stolen so much as a fiver in two years of collecting the loot.”

  Sal grinned again, but there was no humor in his hard eyes.

  “You’d think we all like our braggioles and bollocks nestled up against our hairy asses rather than Aldo hand feedin’ em to his fuckin’ mutts.”

  The other three men nodded and each one gave a little hitch to his trousers, just to confirm why they wouldn’t think of stealing from Aldo. What was left unsaid was that even though they had worked together for more than two years, they didn’t trust each other; any one of them could be Aldo’s eyes and ears. It was a mindset, a culture that Aldo bred in the gang and it served him well. Not only were his men scared shitless of Aldo, they were all scared of each other.

  There was a rustling sound outside the door and the men looked up with mild interest.

  “It’s okay,” Baggo said. “It’s time Dante and the boys come help us load the boat.”

  “If they haven’t drank themselves to a stupor, that is. Just becuz we got that ring of off duty cops guardin’ the road, I don’t like it when Dante and the others get so bolloxed they forget we got priorities.”

  Rico guffawed with a disdainful shrug at the empty bottles against the wall.

  “Bolloxed, kinda like we do?”

  The words had barely left his mouth when his cigarette dropped from his hand and Rico hit the ground face first a ten inch blade sticking out of the back of his neck.

  “Bloody hell! What the fuck…”

  Sal shouted reaching for the gun in his pants. He got no further when a bullet hit him between the eyes and he crumpled to the ground.

  At that moment, five masked men strode though the doorway, leaving Baggo and Angelo standing wide eyed and shaking.

  The men were tall, well muscled, and all were carrying guns. They had hoods over their heads and all you could see were their eyes and mouths.

  The biggest one stepped toward Baggo and Angelo and, while they couldn’t see his grin, you could sure as hell hear it in his satisfied voice.

  “Well, well, lads, don’t tell me that fuckin’ Aldo is so confident that he’s only got you four shites handling all this swag? “

  The man next to him guffawed.

  “Don’t forget them bleedin’ arseholes we took down at the road. Sure ‘en I ain’t seen so many crooked coppers since we shagged that Wop wedding party.”

  “Well, now that they’re all knockin’ on St. Peter’s door askin for directions to hell, can’t assume they’re crooked no more. Along with those fuckin’ little clackers Aldo calls guards.”

  Two more gunshots brought Baggo and Angelo to the ground. Minutes later, stacks of dead men lined the warehouse walls, eighteen in total, counting the cops on Aldo’s payroll.

  Pawing through the crate, the tall masked man said with a grin, “Looks like Sal’s estimate was off. Even without the stolen museum necklace, this crate’s got over a million dollars of loot,”

  His cohort chortled, “This has gotta be the largest take by far in Aldo’s operation.

  Jesus, just think. Fifty one gangs contributed their hard earned cash to make that asshole rich.”

  “Yeah, but I can promise you one thing,” his tall friend guffawed, “tomorrow at the very least Aldo Marcello’s gonna have fifty-one very pissed off colleagues.

  Several hours later, as dawn was breaking, Tom Caldwell answered the door to his high rent apartment in the heart of New York’s financial district. He opened the door and nodded to the five masked men on the porch.

  “Good evening, or perhaps good morning is more accurate. How did it go, Quitin?”

  “The way everything does when Bai and Wyatt plan it. Flawlessly.”

  Tom smiled and nodded to the five Chinese men as they removed their hoods.

  “Please come in. The safe is in my office. My cook prepared a light meal for you and I have some of the finest brandy you are likely to drink in this lifetime waiting for you. Congratulations. Job well done, men.

  “One more question. How many dead”

  Manchu smiled, knowing what Tom was asking.

  “Sixteen all together. We only wounded the other two.”

  Liang’s face split in a wide grin. Assuming his best Irish brogue, he added, “Sure’en we needed to leave a couple lads to give witness to the nature of the bleedin’ perpetrators. Be Jaysus, sure ‘en ye wanna give proper credit where credit is due.”

  Tom shook his head and grinned at the incongruity of the Irish nonsense coming out of the mouth of the young Chinese man.

  “Goddamn, I’m glad I’m on his team. Bai knows how to twist a knife from three thousand miles away. Friend or foe needs to be wary.”

  Chapter 28

  Aldo Marcello swore that if it was the last goddamn fuckin’ thing he did, he was going to kill the Frenchman. He sat at his desk, his eyes blazing with anger, staring at the note from Rory Calhoun.

  You’ve been had asshole. You should of known better than

  to take on the Frenchman.

  Aldo lost three days chasing after the fucking Irish, three days that allowed every goddamn gang leader in the syndicate to discover their money was gone. But that son of a bitch Calhoun convinced the other gangs he was innocent and that Aldo had stolen their money.

  Somehow the fuckin’ Mick got hold of Sal’s manifest logging in Friday nights’ payments from each of the gangs. That fuckin’ Calhoun was waving it around, crowing that as sure the hole in your arse, that gobshite Marcello had stolen their money. And goddamn if those cocksucking gang leaders didn’t believe the Irish prick and were out to get Aldo.

  The threats had gotten personal, graphic. Aldo considered making good on the money the gangs lost, but to his horror discovered he couldn’t repay them if he wanted to. Every one of his crooked bankers had closed their doors to him, as though he was the Grim Reaper rather than the man who made them rich. No amount of screaming fits or threats crashed though their wall of silence. It was as though a fucking powerful someone put up a wall that Aldo couldn’t scale.

  Later that day Marcello learned that his erstwhile banking buddies were cowering behind their closed doors afraid of more than him. Each of them received a letter detailing their transactions with Aldo.

  An accompanying invoice gave them five days to pay the amount they had received from their illegal dealings with Marcello to a bank in Switzerland:

  Capital Financier Intégré

  D’attention: Le Français et al

  The coppers he owned were as bad as the bankers. No one would return his calls and the men he sent to round them up came back empty handed. One of his men told him there was a rumor going around City Hall that the police commissioner received an anonymous note with a list of cops who were on Marcello’s payroll. The investigation turned the normal corrupt workings of the police force ass over elbows and everyone was running for cover. There wasn’t a soul left who would acknowledge his own mother, much less his relationship with Aldo.

  It was as though someone had yanked out the keystone of his organization and the whole goddamn thing was crumbling, brick
by brick. Worst of all, and what had Aldo sitting at his desk drinking alone, was the reaction of his men, fucking ungrateful bastards that they were. Half his gang hadn’t shown up in the last three days and those who did had a funny look in their eyes. Something was missing and no amount of whiskey could keep Aldo from seeing what it was. His men were no longer afraid of him.

  There was a knock on the door and Aldo looked up, assuming it was Carlos, surprised he’d knocked. Aldo had started locking the door and given Carlos the only other key. He shouted out for him to come in and heard him say something about misplacing the key. Jesus fucking Christ, Aldo thought as he padded to the door, was everyone around him as stupid as shit? With an annoyed growl, he reached the door and unlocked it. Before he could turn the knob, the door slammed open and two masked men burst in, knocking him to the ground.

  Aldo crawled back and screamed, yelling for Carlos. One of the men grabbed him by the neck and smashed him against the wall. The other man casually locked the door and turned back to face Aldo. He took off his mask and, to his shock, Aldo saw that he was Chinese. The man holding him dropped him and took off his mask, another goddamn Chink!

  “Good evening, Aldo. My name is Liang and the man holding his gun on you is Manchu. We are here to bring you a message and to help you prepare for this evening.”

  Aldo hovered on the floor, terrified, struggling to get control of himself. He had to get to his gun in the desk drawer and somehow hold them off until Carlos and his men could help him. He forced himself to get to his feet and glared at them as fiercely as he could.

  “You… you don’t know what you are doing, you fucking assholes. You goddamn Chink bastards! There are twenty armed men in this building and as soon they realize I haven’t called for my dinner, they’ll be here and your goddamn yellow blood will be flowing like piss across… “

  The rest of the words stuck in his throat when the man called Manchu backhanded him across the face with the butt of his gun and knocked him to the ground.

  Liang shook his head and grinned at his colleague.

  “Feisty little prick, isn’t he? You think he actually believes that he has twenty men left in this world loyal to him instead of being the last man standing?”

  Manchu took a piece of rope out of the pack he was carrying and hogtied Aldo’s hands and feet together and threw him back to the floor. He wiped some of the blood off Aldo’s face and smiled at Liang.

  “Hell, good to see at least his blood is red. And something tells me the only yellow stuff that’s gonna flow in here tonight is this asshole pissing all over himself.”

  Liang nodded and walked over to the closet and hollered out from inside.

  “Our information’s correct. It’s right here where they said it would be. Come and help me. This goddamn thing looks like it came straight out of the inquisition.”

  Manchu helped him drag a fearsome looking apparatus out of the closet. When they had all the parts together and rigged up in the middle of the room, Liang stepped back and looked at the contraption with a mixture of anger and amazement.

  “Fuck, Manchu, Ferdinand and Isabella didn’t have a thing on this cruel son of a bitch. He really is a holdover from the Inquisition. Jesus God. Who says we don’t do the work of the righteous? Just playin’ a role in ridding the world of this despicable piece of human garbage will be one of my proudest accomplishments.”

  Manchu nodded in agreement and began unloading the rest of the tools in his pack.

  An hour later, Liang and Manchu stepped back to admire their handiwork. Aldo was stretched spread-eagled on his custom made rack. He was naked and looked like a pale, scrawny pitiful little man instead of Lucifer in the flesh.

  No matter how it sickened him, Liang had to admit the device was ingenious. There were a multitude of straps that went around the victim’s appendages and were spaced so that when one bone was broken or cut off, the rest of body part remained fastened to the rack. Each arm brace had seven individual straps, not including the glove that allowed the fingers to be broken or chopped off one at a time without freeing the rest of the arm.

  “Amazing piece of machinery, Aldo.”

  Liang’s voice dripped with scorn.

  “How long did it take you to kill a man? Or did you keep cutting off parts until the poor fucker couldn’t scream anymore and gave up the ghost? We’re told the only way you could get that pea sized prick of yours up was hearing the screams of terrified men.”

  Manchu was standing back shaking his head. His eyes were dark and wide, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “Christ, Liang, there are six straps here to hold the fucker’s cock. Where the hell do they all go?”

  “Tell you what. Let’s hook up Aldo and see if we can figure it out.”

  Many minutes of screaming and puddles of piss later, Liang and Manchu stood in the doorway looking back at the specter hanging on the rack. Neither one of them spoke, as though putting the evil they saw in words would diminish it.

  Taking a deep breath, Liang spoke in a quiet voice.

  “So you understand, Aldo. The reason we didn’t kill you ourselves is that it would have been too quick. Besides, there are so many people who want a piece of you it seemed greedy for us to take it all.

  “I have two messages for you from the Frenchman. He wanted you to contemplate them as you burn in hell for eternity. The first is that when you die and you will die tonight, a hideous death, know that your daughters and grandchildren will be in the Frenchman’s care for the rest of their lives. The second message is that we have dedicated your death to the honor of Jeng Ming and the women she represents.”

  Liang and Manchu picked up their packs, turned, and left the room, closing the door behind them.

  ~~~

  Aldo screamed until his throat was raw. He ranged from wild screaming rage to disconsolate frantic sobbing. Still no one came. Every inch of his body throbbed and nothing he could do relieved the pain. He was immobile held in a way that nothing of substance supported him. The rack that he conceived was designed so that the victim could be suspended for hours, the weight of his body tearing at tortured shoulder joints, bent elbows, fragile wrists. The hideous supporting bands were attached to the most vulnerable of places: finger and toe joints, neck, his shriveled penis. The least motion sent a torrent of agony raging through his body.

  When several hours had passed, he heard footsteps outside in the hallway. He screamed over and over as loud as he could.

  “Help, help! Somebody, help me! Carlos, Harry, Somebody help me!”

  The door opened and he saw Carlos. He couldn’t hold back tears of relief and blubbering like a baby, he cried out, “Thank God, Carlos. Thank god. Oh God, I thought you would never come. I thought… Help me, you stupid asshole. Don’t just stand there staring at me! Get me down!”

  Carlos stood in the doorway and looked at the hideous little man hanging on the rack. His gut roiled, remembering how many men he had helped Aldo hang on that malevolent rack.

  He couldn’t say what had finally broken through his resistance to the evil. He’d been around it so long. He’d participated in it, condoned it; it was part of his life. But something broke through. Hell, maybe just the weight of it, the magnitude. Or maybe it was that last little girl Aldo sicced his dogs on after he sodomized her with his iron poker. Carrying her shattered body out to the incinerator, Carlos knew it was over, he was done.

  It was a small relief to know that, like Aldo, he would not survive the night. In some miniscule way, it assuaged his guilt to hand over Aldo’s records to Tom Caldwell when he’d learned from one of the syndicate bankers that Caldwell was the Frenchman’s financial impresario. Tonight’s activities would also help.

  He focused on Aldo’s face, concentrating on the purple fury, the enraged beady eyes, the spittle spewing from his mouth.

  “Good evening, Aldo. You have company.”

  Ignoring Aldo’s screams of rage, Carlos stepped aside to let in the enforcers of fiv
e of the gangs Aldo had terrorized. Each man represented a gang that had lost at least one man to Aldo’s torture rack. None of the men were strangers to violence or cruelty. It was the centerpiece of their lives. They were the mob’s enforcers, after all. But every one of them paled when they saw the rack and the enormity of the evil it represented.

  Aldo cried out, sobbing, begging for help.

  “Carlos, for Christ’s sake. Tell them, Carlos. Tell them it wasn’t us. Tell them or they’ll… they’ll… Christ, Carlos, help me! Carlos, please tell them it was that fuckin’ Frenchman.”

  When Carlos didn’t answer, Aldo began screaming at the other men.

  “Don’t you understand? It was that fucking Chink, the Frenchman! Don’t you see? He’s trying to make us kill each other. Can’t you see? Are you so stupid that you can’t see that Chink is trying to take us all down?”

  One of the men from D’Maggio’s gang, who had lost two men to Aldo’s rack, turned to the others and said with a sneer, “Listen to the cowardly bastard. Jesus, what a fuckin coward you are, Aldo. First you try and blame it on the Micks and now the Chinks.”

  He walked over and spit in Aldo’s face.

  Aldo screamed again, his face contorted with terror.

  “Carlos, for the love of God, help me!”

  Carlos ignored him and put a tray of ten inch knives on the table in front of the rack. He walked back to the door, then took a last look at the terrified man. Carlos’s face was emotionless, his voice flat.

  “Good night, Aldo, and good bye.”

  He turned and closed the door behind him. The screams lasted long into the night.

  Chapter 29

  Greg sat at his desk, his face tight with strain. The past ten days had been the most challenging of his life. At times, even his iron clad control slipped. He yelled at subordinates, challenged the governor, and plunged into moody bouts of self doubt. Hell, it was no wonder. What with Martin rushing hysterically in his office five or six times a day with one frantic message after another. Yeah, it was bad, but that fat little prick, weeping like a girl, convinced the end was near, didn’t help. By the end of the week, and as the Governor’s Ball approached, he had regained his equanimity and was presenting his usual composed face to the world.