“We will be in the kitchen,” he said to me.
I nodded, lifting my phone. It was only when they left that I hit redial.
“Calli, girl, sorry I got to call you back so early like this!” His loud, thunderous voice boomed over the phone. Big Tillio had two settings—loud and louder.
“I’ve never been sorry to hear from you before. Why start now?” I lied.
“This is why I like you, Calli girl. You always know how to make a person feel at ease.”
I could feel all the emotion leave my face as I stepped away from the living room. “And why would you not be at ease? We spoke just last night, and you sounded perfectly fine.”
“Yeah, about that…I can’t give you TNT, Calli.”
I inhaled slowly through my nose before speaking, “I asked for people, Tillio, not carpet. Did something happen to those people?”
“No, but…”
“Did those people refuse to work for me?”
“No, it’s just—”
“Just what, Tillio? You are going back on your word before the ink is dry?” I asked, meeting my own gaze in the mirror.
“Don’t be like that, Calli girl. I told you the atmosphere is tense right now. I got people looking at me. If I break faith to help you out, how am I going to look?” He sighed heavily. “The Callahans are a messy family who have been shitting on us for years. We don’t have much power or say in anything anymore. This is the only way we let them know respect is fucking earned, not inherited.”
I clenched my jaw, my hands balling to fist.
“Calli?”
“I’m here…” I fought to get the words out. “I understand.”
“I know this makes you look bad, Calli. I’m sure that’s why that husband of yours swiped you back up quick. He’s hoping that if he sticks an Italian broad on his arm this time, he will get us to fall in line. I wouldn’t be shocked if that nut job blew up half the city over this, based on what his brother did last time. But he can’t kill all of us. We aren’t going to be bullied.”
“Nor should you be. After all, where would this family be without all of you?” I replied, twisting the ring on my finger with my thumb.
“Just know, no matter what last name you got, you and I are good, okay? I owe a lot to your grandfather.”
“How could we be anything but good, Tillio? We’re basically family. Thank you for giving me a call. We’ll talk again later.” I didn’t wait for him to reply before hanging up, tossing that phone onto the dresser. I pulled out my other phone and dialed a single number.
I’d come here with a plan, Venire, Videre, and Vincere.
Come. See. Conquer.
And I planned to do that without taking anything from Melody Nicci Giovanni’s playbook, because the moment I started, people would begin to compare us. I would automatically lose. Even though she was alive, she was dead to them, and dead people had all their flaws wiped away. That’s how legends were made. I had no desire to fight with people’s memories. I’d walked my own way, and for years, it had been working perfectly. I was different from her; it was a byproduct of how we were raised. Melody had to make sure everyone knew she was the boss. I, on the other hand, never needed people to know it was me, that I had been the one secretly at Ethan’s side feeding him information, taking out his enemies.
A good assassin could take out a target and get out clean.
A great one made you believe there was never a target to begin with.
Calliope Orisni could never take credit.
Calliope Callahan had to, apparently.
ETHAN
“Dino Tacinelli, age thirty-three, five-feet, eleven-inches, one hundred eighty-three pounds, born in New York City, moved to the coastal town of Sorrento in southwestern Italy with his mother after his parents divorced when he was six. He joined the Italian Armed Forces at twenty-three and returned to the states two years ago after the death of his mother,” Helen stated, spinning gently in her chair as I looked at the man on the screen. He had white skin, slicked-back black hair, brown eyes, and a long scar that ran up his left hand.
“How did his mother die?” I asked.