Worth Dying For (2 page)

Chapter 2

Johnny Scala sat with his hands tied behind his back, his body shaking uncontrollably against the rickety wooden chair. He looked around the dingy, windowless room, and tried to remember how long he had been there. It could have been as short as one hour or as long as ten hours. He couldn’t remember.

Sonny Valachi grabbed Johnny’s hair. He snapped his head back, causing Johnny to groan unconsciously.

Johnny’s eyes darted fearfully back and forth between the two men. It had been a few weeks since the warehouse explosion, and he had made a grave mistake in thinking he was in the clear. He couldn’t have been more wrong, and he knew there was no way out. He was going to die—period! It was the La Cosa Nostra way of life. He broke the number one rule. He broke Omerta—the vow of silence.

Big Tony knelt down in front of him. He reached up and patted Johnny on the cheek. His voice was low, controlled, and tinged with the slightest Italian accent. “What’s the most important thing to me, Johnny? I’ll tell ya. It’s loyalty. Fucking loyalty.” He stood upright. His six-foot-two-inch frame towered over Johnny.

“I … I am loyal to you, Mr. Castrucci,” Johnny said, his voice quivering with fear.

With well-manicured hands, Big Tony slid his hands down the front of his tailored jacket. He clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I treated you like my own son and this is how you repay me?”

“I swear, Mr. Castrucci, I would never betray you,” Johnny protested as tears ran down his bloody cheeks.

Sonny leaned against the wall and laced his arms across his chest. He tried to remember how many times he had seen grown men cry and beg for their lives.
Too many times to count
, he thought as he watched Big Tony pace back and forth in front of Johnny.

Big Tony stopped and leaned forward. He brought his face within an inch of Johnny’s. “Don’t lie to me, you little cocksucker!” he yelled in Italian, all niceties gone.

With a move quicker than Sonny thought possible, Big Tony slammed his fist into Johnny’s mouth. The impact sent blood spewing against the wall.

Johnny coughed and spit his front tooth out. His head dropped against his chest, his eyes closing as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He wished he could do it all over again. He thought about that night four weeks ago and remembered how he felt standing in the warehouse with Eugene. He had been on edge. He shouldn’t have done it. If only he could take it all back.

Big Tony’s voice snapped him from his thoughts. “What do we do with rats? Huh, Johnny, what do we do?” he calmly asked. It was a question that Johnny undeniably knew the answer too.

Sonny, unable to control himself, doubled over with laughter. He pointed at Johnny’s crotch. “The little shithead pissed his pants.” He continued to laugh as the dark spot spread rapidly across the front of Johnny’s jeans.

“I need to know what else you told them, Johnny.”

Johnny shook his head vehemently back and forth. “I swear, I didn’t tell ‘em anything.”

Big Tony ran his fingers through his hair. He looked at Johnny. It was crucial that he know just how much damage had been done. He smiled. “That’s not what I heard, Johnny. I heard you had plenty to say. I want the fucking truth. If you tell me everything, I’ll think about giving you a pass. I’m not promising anything, but I just might be inclined to cut you a break, but that solely depends on how truthful you are.” He watched Johnny’s facial expression begin to change. He almost had him.
 

“Please, Mr. Castrucci, please!” he begged. “I only told about the shipment at Danco. That’s all, I swear!”

Big Tony looked at Johnny with dark, cold, and unfeeling eyes. He took a couple steps back, turned and nodded to Sonny before turning back to Johnny. “Thank you, Johnny,” he said casually.
 

Sonny pushed away from the wall and walked over to Johnny.

Johnny sobbed loudly as he watched Sonny reach inside his jacket pocket, remove a semiautomatic, and then slowly screw on a silencer.

Very calmly and without any emotion whatsoever, Sonny pulled the trigger. The gun made a swoosh sound as the bullet—along with pieces of Johnny’s brain—exploded out the side of his head. With the same calmness, Sonny pulled a knife from his pocket and clicked the blade in place. He pried Johnny’s mouth open and pulled out his tongue. With a flick of his wrist, he sliced it off. He pulled Johnny’s shirt pocket open and dropped it in.

Chapter 3

A knock on the door caused FBI Assistant Deputy Director Kyle Edwards to look up from the stack of papers on his desk.

“Come in,” he said and closed the cover on the top file.

Ron Astor pushed the door open. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I have the documents you asked for.”

“No bother at all. Please have a seat,” Edwards said, motioning toward the chair. He took the folder from Ron’s hand and laid it down on the desk.

“How are you doing, Ron?”

“Some days are better than others.”

“How’s Lynn?”

Ron shook his head. “Not too good. Six months, maybe a year at the most.”

“I’m so sorry, Ron. If there’s anything I can do, just let me know,” Edwards said with sincerity.

“Thank you. I appreciate it more than you know.”

Edwards looked at him thoughtfully. “Are you sure that you want to be included in this? Because if not—”

Ron held his hand up to stop him. “Really, Kyle, I’m fine and yes, I’m sure. Right now, this job is the only thing helping me keep my sanity.”

Edwards nodded and opened the folder. “Okay, Ron. I won’t ask again, but I do have one other question I’d like your opinion on.”

“Sure.”

“What do you think about Agent Sorento? Do you think I made the right decision?”

“I think she’s the perfect candidate for this assignment,” Ron answered without hesitation.

“Good. I was hoping you’d say that, because I think she is, too.” Edwards glanced down at the papers in the folder. “Is there anything in here I should be worried about?”

Ron shook his head. “Not really. I did an extensive check on their bank accounts, credit ratings, past job reviews, just like you asked, and anything else I could find. They’re all clean. The only thing worth noting is Artie’s wife, Alice. She’s an alcoholic, which I’m sure you already know.”

Edwards nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard the rumors.” He leaned back in the chair and laced his hands behind his head. “Do you think it’s enough to scrap him?”

Ron shook his head. “Maybe Artie needs his job as much I do right now.”

“All right, but keep an eye on his situation and let me know if you change your mind about him.”

“I will.”

“Okay, how about our other matter?”

“I finally received the corresponding data tied to the informants and let me tell you, we have tons. It won’t be an easy task.”

Edwards massaged the sides of his temples with his index fingers. “What’s your plan of action?” he asked.

“I’ve written a new program to search for a common link between the men.”

“And how long will it take before you have answers?”

“Days, maybe weeks,” Ron answered.

Edwards frowned. “That long?”

Ron nodded. “Like I said, we have tons of data. Most of the informants have been on our payroll for years.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs at the ankle. “I hope you don’t mind, but I expanded our initial blueprint a little.”

“How so?” Edwards asked, his eyebrows rising slightly.

“I decided to include suspicious deaths as part of the equation. So far, I have four accidentals spanning two decades. Each one had been an informant with the bureau at one time or another. Two died as a result of a car accident, one from electrocution, and the other from a home invasion gone bad.”

“Okay, Ron. I don’t care how small it appears. You keep me posted on anything relevant you find.”

“You got it,” Ron said as he stood to leave.

Edwards glanced at his watch. “I’ll see you in twenty.”

As soon as Ron left, Edwards jerked off his tie and tossed it on top of the paper-strewn desk. Normally, he didn’t drink while on duty, but decided to make an exception. He grabbed a beer from the small fridge and twisted off the cap. He walked over to the window and took a long swig. He looked out onto Pennsylvania Avenue and his thoughts turned to the meeting he would be having in twenty minutes.

He was determined not to lose a member of his team on this operation. The Director had given him full control, allowing him to handpick each member of his team. He should be excited to get the chance to nail Castrucci, to put a huge dent in the armor of the Mafia operating in the California region. Bringing down Massino’s family would no doubt cause a ripple effect on the New York bunch. However, for some reason he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in his gut. He had learned to trust his gut early on in the first days of his illustrious career with the FBI, and so far, it had served him well.

He had applied for a job with the bureau and to his delight was accepted at the tender age of twenty-two, and he was one of the first African-American men to graduate from the academy. Now, at the age of fifty-five, he had been with the bureau for thirty-two years.

He was promoted to Executive Assistant Deputy Director three years ago and was now in charge of the Organized Crime Division. Normally, someone in his position wouldn’t be directly involved in an undercover assignment, but this case was different. He knew all the players, and the possibility of an internal leak made his decision that much easier. He was confident it wasn’t any of the members he picked for this operation, and that’s why he chose them.

He glanced at the personnel folders on his desk and sat down in the leather chair, propped his feet up on the desk, took another swig of beer, and opened the top folder. On the inside flap, a paperclip held a photo of Rheyna.

She stood five-foot-nine with black, shoulder-length hair, piercing grey eyes, and mocha-colored skin. He laughed out loud as he thought of the words often used to describe her by men in the department—probably a couple of women, too. ‘She’s built like a brick shit house’ pretty much summed it up. He never understood where the expression came from and reasoned that a brick shit house was superior to a wooden one.

He admitted to himself that Rheyna’s looks had played a small part in him choosing her for this assignment, but it wasn’t the only factor. She was Italian and spoke the language fluently, which was an added benefit, but more importantly, her record within the bureau spoke for itself. Over the past fifteen years, she had received several commendations for her work in the field, including one for bravery when she took a bullet in the leg while shielding a child with her body during a pornography sting.

With all that factored in, the recommendation by Special Agent Laura Forrest had more than cemented his decision and an easy one it had been. He knew that both women were lesbians and didn’t care. As a black man in a white man’s world, he had dealt with discrimination in one form or another all his life, and he would be damned if he would tolerate it by anyone under his command.

He grabbed another beer from the fridge and tossed the cap in the wastebasket. Ah, Forrest, what a firecracker—what she lacked in size, she more than made up for with heart and attitude. After graduating from the academy, she had been assigned to the Forensic Unit in Quantico, Virginia and reported directly to him. That was over twenty years ago.

In addition to her duties at Quantico, she was also responsible for the FBI recruiting at the local colleges. To this day, every person she recruited had excelled and prospered in the bureau. Over the years, they had become very good friends. Edwards trusted her judgment, but more importantly, he trusted her with his life.