I think I did it because I agreed that Ma should be the one to do it. I wasn’t sure about Natalia and the impact it would have on her, but the fact that my mother felt strong enough to do this somehow freed me in a way. But that didn’t stop me from worrying. Lyon promised that he’d have men on the ground there waiting. And since the women had to make a few stops before heading to Sicily, I took his word for it.
Then it was my turn to act and act fast. Since the women had given no thought to the palazzo, which they found the specs for somehow, I had to take care of it. I’m not sure what they’d planned to do once they came up with the idea that Ricci should come to his end in the place where he’d done the most harm. Maybe they were going to take out everyone there, which seemed to be the idea. I shudder to think how they were going to do it, but Lyon, through his mumblings, didn’t seem to doubt they could and would do it.
So, I moved to get Sal out of the way. A call to Martin took care of that and then one to Sal. It didn’t take much to convince the old man that it would be good to get out of town for a while. With the latest goings-on, his daughter-in-law dying, the breaking news that involved most of his son’s acquaintances, and the fall of some of the people he himself did business with, it wasn’t hard to get him to comply. Martin himself didn’t ask too many questions, but I get the feeling someone else had worked on him as well.
So, Sal ended up in Iraq, aka ancient Babylon, with his son, the palazzo was closed up, and I’d had Uncle Guy remove everything from my great grandfather’s room and put it in storage for the time being. I couldn’t bring myself to let it be destroyed once the women’s plans for the palazzo unfolded, not knowing how much it meant to the old man.
Once Ma and the twins put their scheme in motion, it was all I could do not to call a halt. I also had the dilemma of whether to tell Pop what was going on and, in the end, I had to; I would’ve wanted to know if my woman and kids were in danger.
He was fit to be tied until Lyon had a convo with him, which for some reason seemed to calm him down. I’m not sure what it is, but between him and Mancini, they’ve got some balls on them. It makes me almost excited to meet the others they call their squad. If the men were half as brilliant as the women at strategizing, then I can see why Track is always singing their praises.
No matter how good they were in theory, though, there was always something that could go wrong, so I didn’t sleep a wink the night before this was all set to go down. Another source of amazement for me was how cool my girl was this whole time. She never let on that there was anything going on, except for being a little extra clingy.
Now she was fast asleep; all orgasmed out after putting me through my paces in bed. We’d both been hungry for each other, no doubt stemming from the worry we were both carrying. There were points throughout the day and evening when I thought she was going to break and tell me. It was in her eyes and in the way she held onto me. I think she even cried at one point, but when I tried to look into her eyes, she just buried her face in my neck and held on tighter.
I tried soothing her the best I could without giving away the fact that I knew something else Lyon had asked of me, to which I complied without really knowing why. The guy just has this way about him, I guess, like a general directing his troops. The fear and uncertainty had eaten away at me the closer the deadline came.
I spent each hour counting down where in the plan they would be from one hour to the next. I had the kids to distract me most of the day and their mother the rest of the time. It was only as the time drew near when I knew it was getting dark in Sicily while it was still light here because of the time difference that I started second-guessing myself.
Even with Lyon’s reassurance, the fact that I wasn’t there myself made me uneasy. Until I realized that he was there himself. I don’t know how, or even when he left, he didn’t tell me that part, not until he was there, watching from a distance with some of his men. Why he’d decided not to tell the others, I guess I’ll never know, or maybe he’d tell me if and when he chooses.