“Romeo!” my father called from behind me. “Come over here. We need your input on this.”
I sighed and dragged my ass away from the window. He, Enzo, and Ricky stood around the table looking at a map of Manhattan. My father had marked off the Leone targets our men already hit along with the territory those hits gave us control over.
He pointed to another spot marked in green. “This is the bookie joint downstairs from the Chase Manhattan building. The Leones have reassigned some of their best men to guard it, so it’s too well fortified for us to hit that the way we planned.”
“What about the Chinese grocery on 42ndStreet?” Enzo indicated another target farther south. “It isn’t as heavily guarded, and they use it for money laundering. It’s bound to pay off.”
“What do you say, Romeo?” my father asked. “Did you hear anything while you were at the estate? Did they say anything about which sites they think we might hit next?”
I shook my head, barely looking at the map. “None of them ever talked business in front of me. I spent all my time with Gia.”
“You’re useless,” Enzo snarled. “You were under the same roof with Leo Evangelista and you didn’t get one useful piece of information.”
“He was too busy sweet-talking the bitch,” Ricky chimed in. “All he cares about is getting some.”
“She works with the consigliere to run the whole operation,” my father added. “You could have used your romantic conversation to wring her for information.”
“Well, I didn’t,” I countered. “I thought I was supposed to get her to marry me. If I tried to wring her for information, she would have smelled a rat right away.”
I walked back to the window. I didn’t want to be part of any conversation about Gia, especially not one about using her to get information on her father’s operation.
“Losing the chance to marry her was a blow,” my father went on, “but we’ll find another way to get her inheritance away from her. We just have to keep our eyes open for an opportunity. Now over here, we have the law offices of Morton, Felix, and Montgomery. They’ve been fudging the Leone family’s tax records under the table for generations. We could hit that and steal the records. That would give us plenty of blackmail material. We could force Gia to marry Romeo whether she wants to or not.”
“I could do that, Pop,” Enzo offered. “We can pull the guys off the bookie joint and reassign them to this.”
“Good idea.”
I pricked up my ears and turned around. If they were plotting to blackmail Gia into marrying me against her will, going along with this plot would put me in the best position to help protect her.
“I’ll go with you, Enzo.” I approached the table trying to look properly enthusiastic. “We could carry out the hit this weekend when the office is closed.”
Enzo perked up now that I was getting involved. “I have ten men I can bring with us. They can break into the jewelry store downstairs. That will set off the alarm, so when the cops come, they’ll go after the guys and leave us free to rifle the tax office.”
“We just have to find out where in the office they keep the files,” I pointed out. “They won’t keep the Leones’ records with all their other clients’ stuff.”
Enzo started to reply, but my father cut him off. “No. Enzo and Ricky will hit the tax office.”
I spun around to stare at him. “What? Why not me? I can do it, Pop.”
He only smiled at me. “I have a different job for you—a much more important job.”
“I don’t want another job.”
“You’ll want this one. I want you to organize a hit on Leo Evangelista himself.”
I gawked at him in silent horror. Leo Evangelista? No fucking way.
He pushed aside the map of Manhattan marked with targets and territory. He brought out another one marked with a single blue line drawn in bright, permanent pen.
I froze when I saw what he was pointing at. “Next week on Saturday night, Leo, Gia, and their entourage will travel from the Leone estate to the Metropolitan Opera. They’ll attend the gala opening ofRigolettowhere Leo will meet with three top dons from Rome, Naples, and Venice. This is the route from the estate to the Met. You’ll hit Leo’s limo somewhere along this route, kill Leo and as many of his men as you can, and snatch Gia.”
I blinked at the map trying to comprehend what he just said. Kill Leo? Snatch Gia?
“Make sure you kill that asshole Nicky Greco while you’re at it,” Ricky growled. “That son of a bitch is a fucking demon. You get rid of him and you can take anyone else that gets in your way.”
I looked up at my father. “You’re serious! You want to hit the Consigliere!”
“With him out of the way, Gia won’t stand a chance. We’ll weaken the Leones exactly the way we hoped Don Alonzo’s death would weaken them. Once we get her under our roof, we can make the marriage look legitimate. Then we can go on with our original plan.”