She didn’t reply. We just stood there quietly until her phone rang and I let her go. Walking around her desk, she put the phone on speaker.
“What is it?”
“They are throwing him a get-together. He’s here now with most of the families,” Fedel replied as she sat in her chair. “What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing,” she said, spinning around. “Do nothing but watch and listen. That’s all.”
“Yes, ma’am.” With that, he hung up, and she slowly spun around.
“Mel—”
“Liam, what do you think I should do?” She paused, asking me honestly. She seemed like a different person right then, and I hoped to God it was still the wine talking. “Should we kill him now and be done with it? Or should we wait and see who’s going to follow him and cut them all down together?”
Thank God. She’s still herself.
Reaching to the floor, I grabbed her bottle of wine. “This could be another Italian-Irish war, which could lead to blood feuds and more death down the road.”
“So?”
“So, we are going to see what happens tonight. You don’t know for sure if anyone really will follow him.”
“And if they bite the hand that feeds them?” she asked.
“We are going to send the kids away in the morning,” I stated before drinking. “And not just to a safe house in the city, because it will be a bloodbath.”
She wanted to argue, but I was glad she didn’t. She just placed her hand over her mouth. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
FEDEL
The traitors.
They couldn’t even wait twenty-four hours before sucking up to this clown. In true Italian fashion, a full spread was out and wine was flowing from bottle to glass over and over again as we all stood in the backyard of Uncle Vinnie’s home. I had been there for an hour, one full fucking hour, and still all this motherfucker did was drink and listen as Uncle Vinnie and everyone told him about Orlando in his glory days.
“Your father was one of the strongest men I ever knew.” Uncle Vinnie placed his hand on his shoulder, speaking in Italian. “He put the fear in men even though he had no idea what fear was. There is no man better than an Italian man! There are no people like the Italian people. We took over the world. In every country you can find us; there is always a little Italy somewhere, he would say.”
“It is true,” Emilio replied, drinking.
“So I don’t understand.” Big Tony stepped into the yard, cigar in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other. “You knew all this time, you were a Giovanni and stayed away? Orlando knew about you and left you with some Mexican woman?”
“My mother was the sister of Marcos Felipe Carrasco, the drug lord known as El Rojo. He probably figured if anything could harden me fastest it would be a Latina with nothing and a bounty on her head.” He smiled about it, but I had worked for Melody long enough to know it was a fake sort of smile. He was bitter and pissed off, but masking it with grins, nods, and booze.
“What are you going to do now?” Big Tony pushed.
Uncle Vinnie glared at him as if he were about to smack him. “Tony—”
“No, it’s fine. Honestly, I’m just here to get to know my roots.”
Let me just call bullshit now.
“See. Nothing wrong here.” Vinnie nodded. “But this Chinese you are married—”
“We aren’t married. She was just…a very special friend.” He winked at them and they laughed; the joke must have gone over my head.
I was about to say something when Big Tony spoke up again. “Let us not pretend we don’t know what is going on here. After all, his friend shot Orlando’s daughter…and his grandchildren. Quite honestly I don’t give a fuck who he is, I just don’t want to see him. He isn’t one of us.”
“Miserabili pezzi di merda!” Uncle Vinnie hollered, facing him. “Must there be anything wrong? You are speaking to the one and only son of Orlando Giovanni. He is one of us. More so than that bitch spawning Irish babies with Irish names.”