“I can’t stay here, Fabi. Do you remember how you told me I shouldn’t marry Benito? That it wasn’t right?” Liliana said.
“That was a long time ago, and you said yes to him today. Where is he anyway?”
Liliana looked at Romero with an expression even a twelve-year-old boy could understand.
“You killed him, didn’t you?” Fabiano hissed, and he raised his gun again. “Was this some kind of trick to weaken the Outfit? Father always said you’d stab us in the back one day.”
Aria tried to move toward him again, but I pushed her back with a glare.
She narrowed her eyes. “He’s my brother!”
“He’s a soldier of the Outfit.” Maybe she thought because I put her first, other Made Men would also forget that their first choice should always be the mafia.
“Fabi, the Famiglia didn’t try to weaken the Outfit. This isn’t about power. It’s all my fault. Benito tried to hurt me and I stabbed him. That’s why I need to leave. Father would punish me, maybe even kill me,” Liliana said in a soothing voice.
Fabiano took a step back. “You killed your husband?” Matteo gave me a look over Gianna’s head. He was waiting for me to give him the go to shoot, and if it weren’t for Aria’s shaking body at my side, I wouldn’t have hesitated.
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
Fabiano pointed at Romero. “What about you and him? I’m not stupid. There’s something going on between you.”
“We’ve been together for a while. You know I never wanted to marry Benito, but Father didn’t give me a choice.”
“So you want to leave Chicago and the Outfit for New York like Gianna and Aria,” Fabiano said.
Liliana nodded. “I have to.”
“You could come with us,” Aria suggested. Her eyes found mine, begging.
I looked at Fabiano. “You could become part of the Famiglia.” My family wouldn’t like it, and I probably would have to kill a few to show strength.
Fabiano shook his head. “Father needs me. I’m part of the Outfit. I made an oath.”
“If you’re not fully inducted yet, it’s not as binding,” Matteo said. A fucking lie. Matteo and I would kill any initiate who decided to break off the induction, not to mention join the Outfit.
“I won’t betray the Outfit.”
I’d expected that answer. Fabiano had been brought up in the Outfit, brought up with the knowledge that one day he would follow in his father’s footsteps. “Then you’ll have to stop us from leaving. And we won’t let you. There will be blood, and you will die.”
Fabiano met my gaze. “I’m a good shot.”
He was also terrified. “I believe you. But are you better than all three of us? Do you really want your sister Lily to be punished? If you force her to stay, you sign her death warrant.”
Conflict showed on his face. “If I let you leave, and someone finds out, they will kill me too. I could die an honest death if I tried to stop you.”
“You could, and they would sing your praise, but you’d be dead all the same. Do you want to die today?” He was still young. Death held more terror for him than it did for us. He hadn’t faced it often enough yet.
Fabiano lowered his gun a couple of inches. I doubted he noticed.
“Nobody has to find out that you let us leave. You could have tried to stop us but we were too many,” Romero said.
“They will think I was scared and ran away, and that’s why you escaped.”
I gave Romero a sign. I could tell that we had Fabiano. “Not if you got wounded. We could shoot you in the arm. This was meant as an easy first job—nobody expects you to be capable of stopping the best fighters of New York. They won’t hold it against you if you got shot.”
Aria stared. “You want to shoot my brother?”
“What if you injure him seriously?” Lily asked.
“I could hit the zit on his chin if I wanted to; I think I can manage to hit an unproblematic spot on his arm,” Matteo said. “And we’re taking a risk by not killing him, so an arm wound is really nothing.”
I ignored them and focused my attention on the boy. “So what do you say, Fabiano?”
There was conflict in his eyes but then he lowered his gun. “Okay. But I will have to call for help. I can’t wait more than a few minutes or they’ll get suspicious.”
I kept my gun pointed at Fabiano, as did Romero and Matteo. “A few minutes should be enough for us to drive away. They will follow us once they figure out what’s going on, but five minutes will bring enough distance between us and them. Dante isn’t someone who likes fighting in the open, so I doubt he’ll send his men on a wild car chase. He’ll attack us later, once he’s figured out the best way to hurt us.”