VENDETTA

Part II

By Tobias Christopher

Pete Wesner’s parents had plans for him. Big plans. He was to graduate from Harvard at age 22 and become a successul laywer, catering to top paying clients. He was to become a millionaire by the age of 30, marry a pretty girl and have several children by the age of 40 before having enough money to retire and live the rest of his life on a beachfront home in Miami.

Pete was now 26, a high school dropout, and the right hand man of Vic Ritoli. The only part of his parent’s dream that he fulfilled was that he had several children in the world. Unfortunately he’s never met a single one of them.

“Well, hello,” Pete said to a pretty young girl sitting at the bar. “Is your name Amber? Because my pants are on alert.”

The girl giggled at the blond man who was obviously going to try to bed her.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“Sure,” the young brunette girl replied as Pete motioned for the bartender. He set two beers down in front of them as the girl dropped her lipstick. Pete smiled as looked down and saw it was under her stool. “Allow me.”

Pete went down to get the lipstick and saw the girl wasn’t wearing panties and was completely shaved. This was definitely his type of girl. He came back up with her lipstick and took a long swig of the beer. He set the glass down and smiled at the girl as a sudden feeling of dizziness came over him.

“What did- what did you do to my drink you little bitch?” Pete asked as his head hit the bar, trying his hardest not to lose consciousness. The girl smiled and wrapped her arm around his shoulder, leading him out of the bar, where Frank was waiting outside. He took the man from her and reached into his jacket pocket, and handed her a wad of cash, but the girl refused.

“This one’s on the house,” the girl replied. “This bastard’s the reason my sister killed herself. Make sure he suffers for me.”

“It’s a deal,” Frank replied as he put Pete’s now unconscious body in the trunk of his car before taking off.

A few hours later, Pete opened his eyes as he felt the cold night air around him. He tried to move his body around, but found his hands and feet had been bound. He felt something cold and metal against his back as he stared up into the night sky.

“Where the hell am I?” Pete asked, his voice shaking.

“You’re about to catch a train,” Frank said as he sat in a lawn chair off to the side of the train tracks that Pete was tied down to. “The hard way.”

“What do you want, man?” Pete asked nervously.

“Information,” Frank calmly replied as he leaned forward. “On the Ritoli’s. Anything and everything you know, you’re going to tell me.”

“I can’t!” Pete told him, now scared for his life. “Mr. Ritoli will kill me if I squeal!”

It was then that a train’s horn was heard in the distance.

“That’s the 12:17 to Boston,” Frank told him, looking at his watch. “Which gives you about ten minutes to tell me what I want to know.”

“No!” Pete told him. “Anything but that! Please!”

Frank stood up and folded up the lawn chair. “That’s a bullet train. It doesn’t stop. I’ll bet half of you gets splattered here, mostly your internal organs and such. But I have a feeling a good chunk of your body might make it to Boston. Ever been there? Best tea in the country.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll talk!” Pete shouted. “What do you want to know?”

“Who’s under you in the Ritoli mob?” Frank asked. “Who do I have to go through to get to the main man?”

Pete looked off into the distance as the train inched closer.

“Vic Ritoli has a lot of people under him!” Pete told him. “Specifically two bodyguards and his three sons: Bodyguard #1: Matthew Scotten. Doesn’t look like much, but he’s deadly as hell. He can use anything he can get his hands on as a weapon. Bodyguard #2: Anya. Just Anya. No last name. But she doesn’t fuck around, man, you’ll never get past her! Trust me, I’ve seen what this bitch can do!

“Then there’s Ritoli’s kid’s. His daughter is… indisposed, but his boys are still around. First off, there’s his oldest kid, Jimmy. Runs Ritoli’s casino downtown. Illegal gambling, some light prostitution, gun running, drug dealing, the works. Then there’s Tim, he oversees the ‘coffee’ warehouse where the drugs are shipped in to and out of. Not much security to make it look all the more innocent. And finally, there’s Jacob. He runs the Ritoli prostitution ring downtown. Operates out of the Blue Haven nightclub. All three of his kids don’t take any shit, they’ll kill you as soon as they see you coming!”

“Is that it?” Frank asked as he watched the train get closer.

“There are two guard dogs at the Ritoli mansion!” Pete shouted as the train was getting closer and closer. “That’s it, I swear! Let me up!”

Frank just casually stood up as the train got within distance. Pete yelled as the train rushed by… on the track next to him. Pete watched the train go by and started laughing as Frank picked up his chair and reached for an umbrella.

“You asshole!” Pete shouted. “I should have known you wouldn’t have the balls to—”

CRUNCH!

Frank opened the umbrella just in time as Pete’s body was decimated by the 12:18 train going in the opposite direction, sending blood and vital organs flying in Frank’s direction. He looked back at the tracks to see part of Pete’s body dragging behind the train.

“Have fun in Detroit,” Frank calmly said as he carried his lawnchair back to his car.

As Frank drove toward the Blue Haven Nightclub, his thoughts turned back to earlier that afternoon, to his discovery that he had a son in the world…

“He’s your son, Frank,” Don Martoni said as he sat in his wheelchair. The fat man could barely contain his glee.

“I should kill you for that sick joke,” Frank said as he reached for his gun.

“Nine years ago you slept with a prostitute, most likely out of grief for your dead family,” Don Martoni told him with a sneer. “Who could blame you? After all, Monique did bear a very striking resemblance to your precious Maria. Monique worked for me, Frank. And normally when I find one of my girls has been impregnated, the baby is aborted or sold on the black market, but when I found out who the father was, I couldn’t resist in raising the child as my own.”

It was a moment of weakness for Frank when he slept with the woman. It’d been a year to the day since his family had died, and he’d been badly injured taking down a murderer who was preying on hookers and selling their organs on the black market. Twelve mutilated bodies in a warehouse, and Monique was next in line, strapped to a table, screaming for help.

Frank had killed the man with only a few bullets to the chest, but not before being stabbed in the side. Between the pain of the wound, and the woman looking like his beloved Maria, Frank, for the first and only time in his career, gave into temptation while he was being treated for his wound by the woman, as he was too dazed and going into shock to do it himself. When he woke up the next morning, she was gone and it was back to business as usual. Frank had moved onto the next city that afternoon and never saw the woman again.

“Unfortunately, Monique died shortly after labor,” Don said with a sigh. “The birth killed her.”

A pillow pulled Monique’s head back as she lay in the hospital bed, suffocating her.

“I think I’ll just kill you and take my son,” Frank said as he aimed his gun at Don’s head. “And cut out the middle man.”

Don held up a small beeper like device. “You could, but then Benji would die with me. Did you see the expensive sneakers the boy was wearing? In the soles are several T-38 explosives. Each one capable of blowing up a small cow. I love Benji like a son, but I’ll gladly kill him to make you suffer.”

Frank lowered his gun. His blood or not, Benji was an innocent, and Frank had to protect him like he would any other innocent soul. But that didn’t mean that the gears in Frank’s head weren’t already turning, figuring out a way to get his son out of Martoni’s grasp.

“Just bring me back proof of Vic Ritoli’s demise and we’ll work out a deal over lunch,” Don told him as he watched Frank walk away. His butler brought him another tray of food that he continued to suck down; Frank heard the disgusting slurping sounds while he left the room.

Frank already knew how he was going to kill Don Martoni. He’d shown his hand and where he was vulnerable. Now all Frank had to do was get his son out of the line of fire.

He arrived at the Blue Haven Nightclub; a long line of people was waiting to get inside. He got to the front entrance and was immediately met by a big, burly, bouncer. He had tattoos all over his arms and an earring in his left ear.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the bouncer asked as he looked at Frank, seeing the skull adorned on his chest. “Nice shirt.”

“I’m going inside,” Frank told him calmly. “I have an appointment with Jacob Ritoli.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” the bouncer stated as he picked Frank up by his coat collar. “Except to the back of the line.”

“Nice earring,” Frank said as he looked at the bouncer. He reached into his pocket. “But I think you could use another piercing.”

Frank pulled out a small knife and stabbed the bouncer through his right earlobe, pinning him to the wall next to the door. He dropped Frank in the process, who dusted himself off and calmly walked into the door as the bouncer cried like a little girl, pleading for someone to pull the knife out.

Jacob Ritoli was sitting in a booth in the back of the club, with two of his best girls sitting next to him and third under the table. He had a rolled up hundred dollar bill in his hand, which he was using to take up the white powder laced across the tabletop, while one of the girls was pleasuring him underneath.

Jacob ran his father’s prostitution ring but that’s not where his crimes ended. Jacob was always out to make a fast buck and didn’t care who died in the process. He’d lost his only son when he OD’d on the very brand of coke Jacob was currently ingesting. Jacob merely shrugged it off when it happened, as he’d been freed from the shackles of parenthood and thus now able to pursue other ventures, such as drug running to the local high school.

The people dancing under the neon lights couldn’t help but stop and stare as Frank walked toward the back of the club in his black trench coat and body armor. He approached the table as Jacob looked up, just as he was hitting his high.

“Jacob Ritoli?” Frank casually asked as if meeting an old friend.

“Yeah,” the young man replied. Jacob had curly brown hair, and a stoned look in his eyes. “Who the fuck’re you?”

“My name’s Frank Castle. I’m here to kill you.”

Jacob started laughing as the girls joined in.

“You’re going to kill me? Do you even know who I am?” Jacob asked as he got a serious look on his face, before recognizing the man in front of him. “Wait a minute, you’re him. You’re that guy that’s all over the news. The Punisher. Well, Mr. Castle, you’re going to have a very difficult time kill—”

BLAM!

Jacob fell back against the booth with a bullet wound in his head, as blood and skull fragments started sliding down the wall. Frank just walked out of the club amid the screaming club goers.

Vic Ritoli had four children: two of them honest and two of them as dirty as he was. Vic loved all of his children, but always made sure they were in direct competition with each other. When one came home with straight A’s, Vic made sure the other three had their noses rubbed in the victory to encourage them to do better.

As they got older, the competition got fiercer, especially among the three boys. James, Tim and Jacob always tried to win their father’s love and respect by any means necessary. James and Jacob by trying to fight over who would succeed their father in the business someday.

But Tim Ritoli was different. He’d never wanted any part of the family business, like his sister. Tim just wanted to run an honest business, but was never the brightest tool in the shed. He never had the head for business, which is where his father came in.

Tim ran his father’s coffee warehouse, where the drugs were shipped in and out of. Tim could never say anything as he feared his father’s wrath if he tried to tell his father that he wanted a clean business. That’s why when Frank Castle came knocking at his door, Tim didn’t put up a fight.

Frank saw fear in the man’s face as he held his gun at him. It wasn’t the fear of paying for his sins, the look that Frank loved before sentencing the guilty to death. No, this was the fear of an innocent man who was just caught up in something beyond his control.

“Get out of here,” Frank said as he lowered his gun.

“You’re not going to kill me?” Tim asked quietly.

“If you ever cross my path again,” Frank told him. “I’d get out of town if I were you. The shit’s about to hit the fan.”

Frank walked away as Tim slowly and nervously stood up.

“You’re going to kill my father, aren’t you?” Tim asked as Frank just walked away.

Maybe now would be a good time to go to the Bahamas, Tim thought to himself as he emptied out the safe of all its cash before fleeing the warehouse. Frank had just given him the chance to live a life free of crime. Everyone would think Tim Ritoli dead in the warehouse fire, even though he’d live out the rest of his days running an island resort.

Frank walked away from the coffee warehouse less than a half hour later. He stood outside of the large building and struck a match, letting it drop to the ground, lighting up the gasoline trail Frank had left. The fire raced throughout the building, reaching its final destination in the dock, where a powder keg was sitting amongst the drugs that had yet to be shipped to the streets. The dock exploded in a large fireball of orange, yellow and red, before the fire spread to the rest of the warehouse.

Vic Ritoli read the paper with the headline ‘Coffee Warehouse Burned to the Ground’. He crumpled it and slammed his hands down on the table.

“This…is unacceptable!” Vic shouted as he looked around the room. One of his bodyguards and remaining son were sitting around the small office. “Two of my boys are gone, my warehouse is a pile of ash, and some fucking vigilante is taking my empire apart a piece at a time! Now, what are we going to do about it?”

“We’ll get him, Dad,” James promised as he played with a deck of cards. He was a short man in his mid 30’s who looked like a mini me version of his father. “He’ll pay for what he did.”

“He has to suffer,” Vic said angrily. “Call Anya. Suffering is her area of expertise.”

A petite woman was exercising on a bike in the Ritoli weight room when Jimmy came in.

“Anya, father wishes to see you,” James told her. “He has a job for you.”

The woman, in pink spandex workout clothes with long blonde hair, sat up on the bench. “He only calls me when he needs someone taken out painfully. This must be big. I hope I haven’t lost my touch.”

Anya put a thighmaster between her legs and squeezed as hard as she was able, destroying the machine, breaking it in two.

“You still got it,” James said, glad that he never tried to hit on her.

Anya stood up and exited the room to hear what her assignment was.

To Be Continued