Don's Vendetta (The Dons Of Warrington Trilogy Book 3) - Isobel Wycherley

Don's Vendetta (The Dons Of Warrington Trilogy Book 3) by Isobel Wycherley

Book excerpt

Introduction

For months now, various Mafia families have been filling our streets with blood. Dubbed World War III, England has been the nucleus for the violent attacks, with billions of pounds-worth of damage being made in the last few weeks.

But at last, families can rest easy tonight knowing that the biggest threat from the Mafia families has been exterminated by our faultless police force. It took months, but one by one, officers picked off the foreign invaders that destroyed our livelihoods.

However, the whereabouts of a handful of Mafia members are unaccounted for, so the force asks for our continued diligence and surveillance of each other; they could be among us.

Baulsack Mafia – DECEASED AND DETAINED

Genghis Li – DECEASED

Anastacia Smirnoff – UNKNOWN

Rasmus Rasmusson – DETAINED

Leon Larsen – DECEASED

Maximus Torrio – DECEASED

Elyasaf Narkis – UNKNOWN

Dobromil Watchoutski – DECEASED

Van De Jaager Mafia – DECEASED

Dionysius Moralis – DECEASED

Paddy Quinn – DECEASED

Gyp Caruso – UNKNOWN

Brock Chadman – DETAINED

Fontana Mafia – UNKNOWN

Shelley

It’s been fifty-seven days since the killer got away. I’ve thought of nothing else since. Not even the breakdown of my marriage, nor being fired from the Met.

The walls of my lonely apartment are papered with documents, clues, pictures of the suspect. I’ve been chasing a new lead, someone spotted him in Amsterdam last week, but there’s been hundreds of so-called eyewitnesses. I’ve been all over the globe chasing their testimonies and nothing has ever been revealed.

Suspect spotted in casino, Vegas – nothing.

Suspect spotted in Colosseum, Rome – nothing.

Suspect spotted in gorilla cage, Victoria – nothing. Though there wouldn’t be.

But I can’t give up.

Rushing to my computer, I book a ticket to Amsterdam, leaving tomorrow.

Returning to my police radio, hidden in the spare room, I do what I always do every day, simply sit and listen. It’s the only talking I hear these days. Never get many visitors. Apart from Reinhold occasionally, but mainly to tell me to let things go, enjoy a peaceful “retirement”.

Who does he think he’s kidding? The only thing that can stop me caring about this case is a bullet to the head.

A couple of steady knocks at the door interrupt my thoughts. I switch the radio off and cover it with the dish cloth. As I walk through the quiet hallway, the papers on the walls rustle behind me, putting me on edge. I stare at the door behind the safety of the wall. I can see a dark figure through the frosted glass. Swallowing hard, I approach the door.

With my neck pinched in like the wary turtle I am, I open the door slowly, peeking around before it’s fully open.

“Hi, Dad,” Sonny almost whispers.

I straighten up in surprise. “Sonya, how great to see you! Come in, come in.” She looks much older than she did the last time I saw her. Don’t we both.

She smiles slightly and steps inside, already frowning at all the evidence mounting up on the walls.

“Still looking for him then?” she asks.

“I won’t stop until I find him,” I reply, closing the front door gently.

I lead Sonny into the living room. “Would you like a drink?”

“No thanks, Dad. I’m only here for a quick visit, I have something to tell you.”

I quickly take a seat on the couch in front of her. “What is it?”

“I’m… going to Italy.”

I stare at her, waiting for the rest, but she stays silent. “Oh… that’ll be nice, make sure you send me a postcard.”

She looks at her feet. “It’s not a holiday.” She elaborates this time. “Me, Luca and Stefano are going to find Mario.” She looks at me again now. “To kill him.”

“No, no, no, no, no.” I begin pacing the room. “Look what happened to your sister when you got involved with those people!”

“It was Len that killed Al, but Mario is responsible for that.”

“I am responsible for that!” I don’t know how, but suddenly I am in floods of tears, finally allowing myself to break down.

Sonny wraps her arms around my shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault, Dad.” Her voice quivers.

“I should never have sent her into that place.”

We have had this conversation numerous times, there’s no convincing me otherwise. I took her out of a dangerous situation and threw her straight into another one. What kind of father does that? If it wasn’t for me, Sonya’s sister, Alice, wouldn’t be dead, she’d be starting the beginning of her career. I wonder what her profession would be. Stunt woman? Olympian? She’d always wanted to be an interpreter, but I told her to reach higher. She was too clever to recite other people’s words, too original.

“You can fight me all you want on this, Dad. I’m going, and I’m gonna kill him, he deserves it. You know this feeling,” she tells me, pointing my eyes towards the paper-scattered walls. “I’m not gonna stop until it’s over.”

After a while, I nod, my bottom lip quivering. “Okay,” I whisper, “but be careful.”

“You too.”

She pulls me up off the floor, and I walk her through the hallway, towards the front door again.

“Are you any closer to finding him?” she asks me.

My bottom teeth grip onto my lip. “I’ve got a new lead in Amsterdam, I’m flying tomorrow.”

“Good luck.” She smiles, placing her hand on my shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze.

“You too.” We look at each other with the recognition of pain.

I open the door for her, and she steps out onto the shared landing outside in the breezy Manchester air,

“She wouldn’t be happy with us living like this. That’s why it needs to end.”

I agree, silently.

“I’ll speak to you soon, I love you,” she says as she turns to leave.

“I love you too, darling.”

I slowly shut the door on myself, unsure of how to feel about the interaction. She’s so grown up now, she reminds me of my younger self, ambitious and determined.

Part of me doesn’t want to dig into this part of her life, we hardly discussed the Mafia since. But I do wonder where Sonny’s quest started.

Sonny

The thing I hate the most, really, really hate with a passion, is how my life went from guns, action, adrenaline, to paying the wages of the biggest arseholes in the paperclip manufacturing industry.

As I sit here, violently smashing the numbers on the keyboard with my finger, my boss calls me into his office.

He’s a small man, with wavy brown hair. He either waltzes up and down the office floor, walking on his little tippy toes, making sure everybody’s looking at him, or else he’s talking loudly on the phone, trying to impress female colleagues: “Oh, you do cardio? That’s cute.”

Or he’s bragging loudly to one of the male co-workers: “Yeah, I had a chick back to my place last night and my girlfriend totally walked in on us. It was so awkward, man.”

All of it is fake of, course, you can hear it in his voice, like he’s repeating everything he says from the mouth of a main character in a teen flick, or something equally as shit.

“Sonya, your performance this week… less than satisfactory.” He shakes his head with an annoying, condescending, punchable fuckin’ look on his face.

I contain my anger but not my distaste. “Okay.”

“You see, here at Mr. Clips, we appreciate the value of the small, undervalued paperclip. It holds things together,” he explains, demonstrating with his hands. “And you, Sonya, are the paperclip of this company. We need you to work to your best ability.”

“I thought my job title was Account Manager, not Paperclip,” I remark sarcastically.

He lets out the fakest laugh I’ve ever heard. “Oh, you’ve always been a funny one, Sonya.” His face drops to a level of contempt I’ve never seen him display before. “But you’re not here to make jokes. You’re here to make us money.”

“Make money? That’s not what I do.”

“You know what I mean, cook the books, no biggie.” He shrugs.

I hold my tongue for a moment. “Really, is that what I’m here for?”

“Oh, come on,” he snorts, “you did a lot worse when you were in the Mafia.” He raises his eyebrow at me like a teacher telling a child right from wrong. “You should be thanking me for giving you this job in the first place, you dirty crook.”

He takes pleasure in rolling out the last part.

“I’ll see what I can do, sir,” I reply, getting ready to leave.

“Oh, and don’t forget,” he calls after me, “you have your monthly review tomorrow, so… don’t mess up.” He smiles, as a warning.

I reenact his false grin. “I’ll try my best.”