The Mafia Trilogy by Jonas Saul Read Free Book Online

Rosina if I willingly walked into my execution?
     
    “Tell your theories about it being an accident to the boss,” the driver said.
     
    Andre laughed. “Yeah, see what the boss says about you killing his only son and successor. It’ll go over just fine, I’m sure.”
     
    His son? His successor? Oh shit, oh shit, oh fuck. This is worse than I thought. I’m in over my head. I need out. I need help.
     
    “Is he a reasonable man?” Darwin asked, his voice cracking.
     
    “Oh sure,” Andre said. “He’ll make sure you’re reasonably dead.” Andre turned around and looked back at Darwin. “Seriously man, what did you think? That he’d just walk away? Let it go? Man, do you believe in Santa Claus too?”
     
    Okay, I need out of here. I need my temper. I need anger. It’s the only way. If I can get out from under my stepmother, I can deal with these common hoods.
     
    “Tell me Andre, do you have a knife on you?”
     
    Andre looked over at the driver and then back to Darwin.
     
    “What’s it to you?”
     
    “I need to see one. Anything pointy. That kind of thing really pisses me off.”
     
    Andre laughed, a deep, guttural laugh. He held his stomach and leaned into the back of the passenger seat. After he finished, he wiped his eyes and looked back at the driver.
     
    “Hey, Joe, we got a knife so we can piss our guest off? Do we have anything on us that’ll make him angry?”
     
    The driver laughed too, but not as long or hard.
     
    “You are a piece of work.” Andre’s face hardened again. “You want a knife? You wanna be pissed off, is that it? Then what you gonna do? Hurt us? Steal the van, huh? Take us out? Fuck you and your little fantasy world. I’ll show you a knife.”
     
    Here we go.
     
    Andre leaned over and lifted his pant leg up, revealing a brown sheath with a hilt sticking out. Andre wrapped his finger around the hilt and slid out a four inch knife.
     
    “Here, here’s your knife. Nice, huh?”
     
    Andre edged closer on his knees, staying low, the knife extended.
     
    Darwin felt something akin to a chemical change take place. A dark shade of red blurred his vision. Nothing mattered in that moment. Death became an answer, not a question. Choices left him, options died. Nothing remained but anger so vile that an absolute rage coursed through him. Fear became him. Darwin was rage, and rage was Darwin.
     
    He spun in place, landed on his knees, placed a foot on the plywood floor and lunged with every ounce of his one hundred and eighty pound frame. His shoulder hit Andre in the stomach and propelled him forward.
     
    Odds couldn’t have played a better role in that second. As he connected with Andre, the driver who’d been watching in the rear view mirror, applied the brakes at the same exact second, propelling them toward the backs of the front seats.
     
    Andre had been in the center. He continued forward, between the seats, his back smashing into the dashboard.
     
    By this time, Darwin was a mask of rage so intense that his actions didn’t register on a conscious level. He turned with his mouth open and clamped down on the driver’s right ear. He bit so hard and so fast that his teeth severed the floppy top, cartilage and all, blood splattering his face.
     
    He screamed like stuck dog as he dove for the driver’s cheek next.
     
    His teeth missed their mark. The driver shouted in pain and, as the loss of a chunk of his ear registered, he lost control of the van.
     
    The vehicle veered to the right with such force that Darwin shot forward across the driver’s lap.
     
    In the next second, the van swerved sideways then lifted into the air and began to spin, flipping three times before it crashed down to the unforgiving cement highway.
     
    Darwin’s back was braced against the steering wheel, his stomach across the driver’s stomach. When the van landed, he was thrust sideways, out of the front seat and toward the back, away from the breaking windshield. The driver