Nevio grabbed my shirt. I clamped my hand down on his and jerked him forward, bringing us face to face as my patience ran thin. “Not now. Not in front of Greta’s door.”
“Tell me where Cressida is, or I’ll kill every fucking member of the Famiglia until I find her. The bitch will die.”
“She’s mine to kill.”
Nevio shook his head. “Greta wouldn’t want that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And you care? Come on. You want her to have a reason to stop loving me. That would be your chance.”
“You’re right. If it were up to me, you’d be dead right now. Because all of this is your fucking fault, but Greta seems to care about you for some ridiculous reason, and as long as that’s the case, I won’t act against you. With a little luck, she’ll hate you once she finds out your wife ruined her fucking life, then all bets are off.”
I gave him a harsh smile. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“Nevio has a point. This is our revenge to dish out. We want your wife and everyone who was involved. If the Famiglia wants peace, you’ll deliver them to us on a fucking silver platter, or we’ll march into New York and get them ourselves, but then you can kick peace goodbye.”
Nevio opened the door to Greta’s room. For a moment his expression softened and it was such a strange thing to see on his madman face that it creeped me out more than his murderous glare. “Greta needs you. I don’t know what she fucking sees in you. Do you really want to complicate things between you only because you insist on killing the whore yourself? If one of ours had attacked your sister or mother, you and your father would have insisted on dishing out punishment yourself. When my father and Nino found out about Kiara’s past, you allowed them to dish out punishment. This is our revenge. You know Greta wouldn’t want your wife’s blood on your hands. She’d probably want the whore to live.”
I looked down at her peaceful face, knowing he was right. Even after Cressida had taken the most precious thing from Greta, she’d still not want me to kill her. Greta was too kind. A new wave of burning rage crashed down on me. Cressida should have never touched Greta. This had never been about me or her goddamn heart. She’d wanted to protect her status in the Famiglia. She’d gone too far.
Remo didn’t say anything, only walked toward Greta and kissed her forehead. “Mia cara. The world will burn for you. We’ll burn it down.”
Remo straightened and fixed me with a hard stare. “Where? We’ll find her either way. It’s up to you if we kill every soldier standing in our way, and her whole goddamn family.”
Cressida was my wife. If the Falcone’s killed a future Capo’s wife, our soldiers would demand revenge and peace would become a distant dream.
“We don’t know if her entire family was involved. Her father yes, but I doubt her mother knew.”
Nevio scoffed. “Her family is at fault. They raised her. They obviously failed. They deserve death. End of fucking story.”
“Let me call my father.” This would be a hard pill to stomach. The Falcones wanted revenge, so did I. Nothing would ever do justice to what Greta had lost.
Dad picked up after the second ring. “Amo?”
“It was Antonaci. Cressida asked him to attack Greta. Several of his men were involved.”
“Damn it!”
If I’d ever thought Greta was in danger, I would have killed Cressida that day instead of telling her about the divorce. I wished I’d strangled her with my fucking hands. A new wave of utter rage and guilt slashed through me.
I could hear voices in the background, possibly Marcella.
“Fuck it, fuck these goddamn Traditionalists and most of all Antonaci!”
“Dad, you know what this means.”
“The Falcones want revenge.”
“Of course.”
“We’re at war. If we were at peace, it would be understandable that we allow our allies to dish out revenge in our territory like we did with Kiara, but Antonaci acted against the enemy, so he might have acted without my direct orders but that won’t be enough.”
“Greta’s injuries are so bad, she won’t ever have kids. I won’t ever have children, Dad. All because Cressida’s ambition and her father’s fanatism. I want them all dead. I want them to die in the cruelest way possible. And I’ll tell the Falcones that they can have them, that they can kill every fucker who was involved. I’ll fucking applaud them while they skin them. And then there’s going to be peace, and whoever from the Famiglia doesn’t want peace can die alongside Cressida and her damned family.”
“You’re not Capo yet.”
“But I will be and this is the decision I would make.”
Dad was silent on the other end. “They can have Cressida for all I care, but every Famiglia soldier involved will be killed in a public meeting of the entire Famiglia as a warning.”