“We still have Sal,” Pete countered. “He might not have another location for Enzo, but he sure as hell knows who Enzo’s working with.”
“What about Gia?”
Pete narrowed his eyes at me. “What about her? We have bigger things to worry about. Whoever took her is after all of us. Every war has casualties.”
I ground my teeth together. “Gia won’t be one of them.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“The other families must want something from Pop.” I was so pissed my anger shook through me. “Otherwise, why are they doing all this shit? Why take Gia? Why would they lure us to AC, or turn Enzo and his men against us?”
Pete folded his arms over his chest, his deep brown irises fixed on me. In the dark, his eyes reminded me of shards of onyx, so dark and cold they had no life to them. “With Pop and all of us out of the way, that leaves room for the other families to step in and choose someone they want to run our city, and that’s not gonna happen. Over my dead fucking body. Let them come for us. We’ll be ready next time.”
An eerie silence filled the air. None of us spoke a word on the ride back to Philly. We were preparing for a war, one I wasn’t sure we could win without help from the other families.
Without an ally, I wasn’t sure I would get Gia back alive.
Chapter Sixteen
Angelo
I stared across the desk at my father with my arms crossed over my chest and my teeth gritted in anger. After what had happened in Atlantic City, Sonny drove my brothers and me straight to my father’s compound in South Jersey. Pete filled my father in on the specifics, while the rest of us sat and listened.
The old man fixed his gaze on me, the corner of his mouth curled up. “How could you be so stupid?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Me? What did I do this time? I’m not the one who went into the club. I sat in the car and did as I was told. I followed Pete’s orders.”
He leaned forward, his hands balled into fists on the oak desk. “You sent your brothers on another mission to find Gianna, and all of you could have been killed. We are in the middle of a war, Angelo. There are more important things than finding your fiancée.”
“I made the call, Pop,” Pete said to defend me.
“It was a bad call,” Dad shot back.
“You made a promise to Lorenzo Carlini that you would find Gia,” I said to my father. “You made the same promise to me.” I stood up, kicking my chair behind me. “I have done everything you’ve ever asked of me. All I ask is that you do everything in your power to make a deal with the DiSalvos to get Gia back. Tell Dante to name his price. I will pay it. I’m the one they want. Not Gia.”
“She’s your biggest weakness. Powerful men like to exploit weaknesses.” He moved his chair out from the desk, his gaze traveling between Sonny to me. “Leave us. I need to speak to Pete and Marco. Alone.”
“How am I supposed to one day become your advisor when you keep so many secrets from me?”
My father smirked at me. “When you learn some respect, Angelo. Now, go. Take Sonny with you.”
Even though I wanted to argue, I tipped my head toward the door, instructing Sonny to follow behind me. Sonny closed the door without speaking a word until we were halfway down the long, dark hallway in my father’s basement.
“Pete’s right about your mouth, Lo. Every time you talk, I get the shit end of the stick along with you.”
“Sorry,” I growled, and I meant it. Sonny suffered as much as I did. It wasn’t fair to him. He was obedient, paid his dues, and he was punished for being my best friend.
We turned around a dark corner lit by old camping lanterns. My father conducted all of his business in the unfinished basement which spanned most of the mansion he used in times of war. For the past few years, he’d lived here with my mother to ensure her safety. It was easier for him to survive off the radar, out in the suburbs of New Jersey, instead of in the limelight in Philadelphia. We all had targets on our heads. My father had the biggest one of us all.
“Do we hang a right or left down here?” Sonny pointed at the split in the basement, each path almost identical.
I stopped for a second to analyze the curvature of the wall. One was straighter than the other. It was the defining characteristic that reminded me of the correct path we needed to take. The basement was confusing-as-fuck by design. My father had it structured like a labyrinth, with its dead ends and turns that led us in various directions.
“We need to make a left here,” I told him.
There were entrances at different points of the house and secret passages similar to mail chutes. The house could survive a nuclear bomb. But in our case, it was designed to withstand an attack by the warring families. Or even a raid from the FBI. We had the occasional visits from the Feds, but they never had enough evidence to connect us to our crimes.
“No matter how many times I come down here with you or your brothers, I will never understand this maze. It doesn’t help that your dad hates lights for some reason.”