“Yes, sir,” I say to the don.
“Your shoulder all healed up?”
“Yeah,” I say, rotating my arm. “Good as new.”
Al steps into the room, gesturing for me to follow. Around the table sit five of his seasoned men and his consigliere. Besides them, a guy stands in the corner like a six-and-a-half-foot marble statue covered in ink from his chin to the backs of his huge hands, which he holds crossed in front of him as he waits, staring into the room with blank eyes.
“What’s up?” I ask Al, turning away from the unnerving giant. I’m suddenly running over what Little Al told me about the attack atJean-Jean. My throat tightens as I think how easily someone could throw my name out there, and it would be me walking the plank. But that’s stupid. Why would I set up an ambush, especially one where I could have been killed, too? Unless someone made it look like that was my cover. You can never trust anyone in this business.
And then there’s the small matter of me breaking the pact with the Pomponios. Eliza went home. She must have told her father what happened by now. I hurt her. I failed in my assignment. This could very well be my execution. I’ve already resigned myself to that end, but my heart still picks up speed at the abrupt realization that the day has arrived.
“We’re going to pay Luciani a visit,” Al says. “I normally wouldn’t take a rookie, but since you were shot, you might like a chance to see justice served.”
“Luciani?” I ask, thinking of the cold-eyed mafia don from our wedding. The one whose daughter spent every afternoon in my apartment with my wife until she left.
“We got some intel that he was working both sides before the deal with the Pomponios,” he says. “Other families could have benefitted from the war, too. But we know he was profiting, and that’s a good motivation to try to disrupt the peace before it could be established.”
“It wasn’t Anthony’s men?” I ask, for some reason relieved that it wasn’t Eliza’s family, even though it doesn’t matter anymore.
“The shooters were hired men, all from the Bronx. Made it look like they were Anthony’s men. Whoever set this up was trying to start the war over.”
I nod and square my shoulders. “Eliza had lunch with Luciani’s daughter the day of the ambush. She must have talked.”
I don’t want Eliza in danger, but I won’t keep my part in this from Al. I’m grateful it’s not my head on the chopping block today, but if I lie, it will be.
“Even more reason to suspect Luciani,” Al’s consigliere says.
I wonder what Eliza’s told her father when she went home to him, why I haven’t faced the penalty yet. Of course the marriage isn’t the sole reason for the peace between families, but it’s a symbol of goodwill, and now that symbol is gone. It’s the first thread to unravel, and I can’t help wonder what they’ll do about that. Will they find Eliza another husband, or will they consider her ruined since I fucked her?
The idea sends a knife of guilt down deep in my belly. I should never have touched her. Then she could have remarried and started from scratch. Now, I don’t know what they’ll do about her. I hope I haven’t ruined her prospects, blocked her from finding someone else. Just the thought of someone else marrying her makes me want to destroy him and his whole family. But I know I have to let her find someone else, have to make a clean break like she did. Maybe they won’t marry her off at all, and she’ll finally get that freedom she wanted so badly.
“This is Divo Bertinelli,” Al says, cutting his eyes toward the giant but not stepping toward him. “He’ll be joining us.”
I realize in that small gesture that even the great Al Valenti himself is ill at ease with the man I’ve heard of but never met. His name precedes him, as Little Al and the other guys refer to him by his nickname, Il Diavolo. If my job is breaking fingers, his is breaking necks. His specialty is getting men to talk, so it makes sense he’s coming along, since we still don’t know who tipped off Luciani and his men. If Al’s going after Lou Luciani himself, he must have found enough information to be sure that the men who ambushed us were sent by Bianca’s family, hired goons who weren’t supposed to make it out alive or lead us back to them if they failed.
Of the eight men paying Luciani a visit, I’m by far the youngest, though it’s hard to tell about Il Diavolo. The tattoos and hardened expression make him look older than he probably is. The rest of the guys range from around thirty to fifty, all seasoned veterans whom Al trusts with his life.
“Lou’s house has four guards,” Al says, grabbing a paper from the table and making a few quick lines to sketch out the house, pointing to the rear and front entrances. The house is a row-style one, he explains, so there’s no chance of entering through a side window. A few minutes later, we’re all strapped and piling into a pair of black SUVs. Al takes the passenger seat of one, another of his men driving while Il Diavolo and I sit in the back. Conversation is limited to a few small comments.
We reach Luciani’s building without issue. It’s a three-story townhouse style that stretches as long as the street, each home with a different colored exterior. The front of the building has a small, wrought-iron fence with arching gateways leading to the steps, which lead to the entrance on the second level. Luciani’s place is set apart by the grey exterior and thick, wooden double doors without windows. One guy stands outside, but we don’t stop. We follow the street and double back around to the rear of the building.
A security guard stands outside the privacy fence, and when he sees us, he grabs for his radio. Al pops him before he can hit the button to call, his gun making a quietpffftsound with the silencer on. Then we’re all out of the vehicle and racing through the gate onto a slate tile patio with a square of sod, an outdoor fire pit, and two enormous grills built into the brickwork. The entrance on the back of the building is at ground level, though there’s a set of stairs to a second-floor terrace with a second entrance. The terrace partially protects us from view on the second level, but the third floor offers us up for the picking. The large windows give an easy view of us—for Luciani and for anyone in the adjacent homes on either side.
They haven’t realized we’ve breached their guard, or they’d be shooting already. Al’s men fan out in pairs as instructed. Al and three of his men go in the back door while I follow Il Diavolo up the iron staircase to the second floor with two more guys. Just as my foot touches the terrace, I hear the muffled shot from a silenced gun, and a bullet pings off the stairs behind me.
“Fuck,” I mutter, drawing my own gun and aiming upwards. The terrace is exposed, with no cover, which means I’m all that stands between the shooter and the three other lives at risk right now. My eyes sweep the windows on the floor above us, all closed.
“No fire escape,” I mutter to the others, jerking my eyes at the top floor. “They have roof access.”
Another shot rings out, and I just spot the head of the shooter ducking back before I can get off a shot. But I know his position now, so I wait. One of our guys is cursing up a storm, and I know he’s hit. Il Diavolo races across the terrace in a crouch before lowering his shoulder and crashing into this thick glass. It splinters, raining down around him and crunching under his boots as he ducks inside. Another guy follows, then the last guy, cursing and bleeding from his arm, where he was hit. For a few seconds, I’m alone.
I wait in silence, adrenaline spiking through me with every heartbeat. When the head peaks over the edge of the roof, I get off another shot. I hear it connect, the cry that goes with it, and the guy slumps over on the roof. I take off, getting inside to some cover. For some reason I was expecting bedrooms, but this is the entry floor from the front of the building, so I’m in a long living room with an exposed brick wall and a kitchen at the other end of the open floor plan.
At least it limits hiding places. The area is empty, but I hear the shouts of men downstairs and bursts of gunfire. Il Diavolo appears from a doorway at the far end of the kitchen, gesturing for me to follow. I run through the long living room crowded with overstuffed chairs, wincing when the wooden floorboards squeak underfoot. But it’s not like we’re being stealthy at this point. I duck through the white tiled kitchen with white-and-black marble countertops and duck through the doors into a small entry hallway. A guard lays face down on the floor, a pool of red spreading across the white tile. From there, we have access to the front door and the stairs.
Il Diavolo turns to the stairs, leveling his gun in front of him as he creeps up, his back flattened against the wall as he goes. I follow him up, covering the stairs behind us. The house is suddenly silent, the gunfire having ended below. I don’t know if they’ve already gotten the Lucianis, but we have to check the top floor, anyway. We don’t know how many people were in the house to begin with.
We reach a small landing, and Il Diavolo extends the silencer of his gun a few inches past the corner. Nothing. He edges forward, peering around. A gunshot sounds, and he jerks back. The bullet sinks into the wall behind us. I hear a creak and level my gun on the bottom of the stairs. A guy ducks around, his gun pointed straight at me. I almost shoot, at the last second realizing it’s one of our guys. I turn to Il Diavolo, who edges past the corner and squeezes off one round after another.