◆ Maximiliano, The Punisher ◆

◆ MILES ◆

He fell asleep on the couch.  Again.  The third time this week.

His laptops sat on my mother's favorite coffee table, both left open and running, the cords and empty coffee cups scattered on the varnished oak.  Plus some wrinkled candy wrappers.

What a mess.  Maybe he worked till sunrise.

Besides tracking down my fugitive father,  I wasn't sure what else Nicco had been working on. I left him out here past midnight after we had a few drinks.  Mostly non-alcoholic for me.  My new shrink might shove me back in that wretched facility if she heard I went on another bender.

"Allora?"

[What now?]

I looked up from my phone. My left hand gripped a loaded handgun just waiting to feel useful. It was fairly new.  Expensive.   A nice birthday gift from someone whose neck I still wanted to slit open.

Nicco yawned and lazily sat up on the couch, his chest bare, his pants as dark as his cropped hair that never seemed to grow.  He shaved it himself most of the time.  Just always been the DIY kind of guy.

I stood near the large TV while his heavy-lidded gaze focused on me and the weapon.

He pulled a face. The confusion slightly wrinkled his thick brows and his smooth brown skin.  For someone who never had a proper  sleeping schedule, his skin still looked annoyingly flawless, save for under his tired eyes. "Dove vai?"

[Where you going?]

"To right some wrongs" sounded like a good answer in my head.  But I wasn't feeling poetic today, especially after what I just found out.  One of Ricchar's guards in the estate finally sang, confirming my days-old suspicions.

"Sonuvabitch wasn't lying."

"Which son of a bitch?" Nicco rubbed his puffy eyes and sat back.

"Her brother."

"Magnus?"

I gave him a faint nod and replied to a new text from Alessio.  Just yesterday I told Alei to go to Ricchar's place to snoop around the estate.

He already dealt with the other guards this morning.  So far two had confirmed each one of my hunches, perhaps more scared of doing time than getting a piece of my father's wrath.

"Why? What'd he say?" Nicco murmured. "Magnus called you again?"

"Few days ago."

"Why? He said something? About Ilya?"

I sighed and pocketed my phone, taking in the restrained panic in his hoarse voice.  I knew he was genuinely terrified of Ilya to this day, but what I didn't know was the exact reasons.

They often changed whenever I would ask him upfront, save for the fact that the Vinciguerras still owed the Russians a lot of dough.  "What did he say?" Nicco squinted at me.

"Something about the maze."

"Maze? Ricchar's maze?"

"Yeah."

"What about it?"

"That we should look around." I shrugged and slid the gun underneath my leather belt, my eyes centered on the door now, imagining my driver noisily chewing his Nicorettes and getting impatient in the car.  "He said I should bring enough guards and guns."

"Magnus said that?"  Nicco rubbed his fingers onto his scrunched brows.  A deep scowl made his shapely lips look more swollen than usual.  Only this time the disbelief equaled the puzzlement in his eyes.

"He mentioned it after asking if I'd found Pappa."

"Why was he asking?"

"I dunno. Just called Archambault. He said his guys just arrived in the next town. Less than an hour away from the estate. Suited up and ready to show off."

"Why call them?"

"More guns and muscle. What else..." I scoffed.

Nicco stayed hunched over on the blood-red couch,  his scowl compressing his lips. Then he shook his head, most likely pondering the details I left out.  He shouldn't get too excited.  He was a key witness;  he shouldn't go anywhere near the long-time criminal mastermind responsible for this whole shitshow from the get-go.

That hellbound crook obviously thought he was lightyears ahead of everyone else.  Maybe he never really believed someone would be better than him in this cat-and-mouse game.  Smarter.  More ambitious.  Better at manipulating and buying off people.

And maybe he truly believed his luck wouldn't run out.  That thieving redhead must be trembling in fear by now.  Cringe. The disgusting image of him burying his wrinkly old dick in that gold-digger's orifices just wouldn't leave my head.

While keeping up a cool and calm front, I walked over to the console in the corner to grab another gun.  "Archambault's team found Fierro in Antwerp, and  Ignazio's old books. Fucker hid them in a vault under his pool. The oldest ledger was dated back when Don Luciano was still fully in-charge."  Although I'd never met the don, I doubted Lorenzio and Leandro's father was as selfish and immoral as his brother, Ignazio.  That filthy old pedo.

"Still intact? All of them?" Nicco snickered.  "Impressive. And stupidly convenient."

"Prick doesn't wanna testify in court."

"Coward."

"Plea deal's gonna be pretty good, though. I imagine."

"I don't doubt it." He scowled again, his shoulders tensing up by the second.

"What's up?" I sighed.

"You really think...Stefano's been hiding out there all this time? In the estate?" Niccolo chuckled.  He didn't sound that amused, though.  The look on his face said "shocked and appalled" more than anything else.  Maybe he just couldn't accept the fact that my pathologically lying father outsmarted him again.  "With that girl?"

"Time to find out." I faked a grin and peeked out the covered windows.

So far the lawn and tall concrete fence looked the same.  Clean and boring.  All the alarms were working fine  according to my mother's guards.  She was still asleep upstairs when I checked. Finally.  The insomniac nights had been messing up her schedule the past weeks. I knew three good reasons why.

"Magnus just randomly called you and told you to look for Stefano out there?"

"Stranger things have happened," I muttered while checking the cheaper gun.  Functioning but not fully loaded.

"You're going there now?" Nicco got up in haste. He glanced around the mess he made in my mother's lemon-smelling living room.  "Gimme a minute. I'll get ready."

"No. Stay here."

"Why?"

"You can't leave."

Mamma's bodyguards would stay behind to make sure he would still be alive and in one piece when I got back here.  Besides, this was a gated village with well-paid security staff on shifts. He was much safer here than in a stupid precinct.  And safer here without me.

"Don't leave the house. I'll call you when we get there."

"Who's gonna go with you? Your Mamma knows?"

"Five guys. Alei's waiting in Ricchar's basement. Don't disturb her. She's sleeping."

"What if she asks me?"

"Just tell her what she needs to know."

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