Nixon
We’d send the rest of the Families away; this was not their business, not any longer. All it took was a few bottles of wine to get them to stop grumbling about our lack of… discipline. Well, that and promises that we would all continue doing business with them.
The De Lange men started to stand.
“Sit. Down.” Tex grit through his teeth. “Your business is not finished yet.”
I exhaled slowly, partly in relief that I wasn’t picking up my best friend’s dead body, partly in fear that I couldn’t undo what had already been done. Someone had fired toward us.
And his retaliation had been killing ten people in cold blood. Even those who didn’t raise a gun in our direction.
By saving me…
He’d damned himself.
I knew it. The rest of the guys knew it. One body, the one guilty, that was justifiable, but shooting another nine in cold blood? During a commission?
Blood must be spilled. A life for a life. It was our motto.
“Luca…” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “…help me understand this.”
Sergio stepped forward instead and held up his hand. “I was the informant. When I stepped down—”
“Threatened the higher-ups,” Andrei snorted.
Sergio gave him a glare. “When I pointed my gun, when they took my badge away, they lost their foothold. I can only imagine they desperately wanted that back and were willing to do anything to get it.”
Luca sighed. “I gave them what they wanted the only way I knew how. I left my family in the best hands. I left every inch of information I had on every single person close to the Families, and when I met an eighteen-year-old misfit who hated his father almost as much as everyone else did, I made a choice. I knew his parentage, knew his father had not sired him, knew that he would be our last hope if the Petrovs were taken down…”
I wasn’t sure I liked where this was going.
“We needed control of the Russians, so I made a trade.” Luca shrugged. “I offered Andrei our safety, our protection, and in return, he sold me his loyalty, I hand-fed him everything he needed to know and brought him to the FBI on a silver platter.” He chuckled. “You should have seen their faces. Not only had I given them another informant, but I’d done the impossible. I’d delivered the next boss to the Petrov empire.”
“But…” I ran my hands through my hair. “…last year—”
“You know why I did what I did,” Andrei spoke up. “I had no choice. Everything had to look real. The FBI wanted a presence with the Italians, and they figured the only place you had lost a foothold was the University. I brought in a few of my oblivious men and did what needed to be done. I brought fear back into the school — power, prestige — and you nearly ruined it all by sending him.” He pointed to Dante.
Dante flipped him off.
Which only made Andrei laugh harder.
“I gave them the reins, but I still controlled the horse.” Luca nodded. “Because I controlled Andrei, until he stepped down after Mil was shot. The FBI wanted nothing to do with our little war… so they let him go after he told them everything he knew, which was a bunch of BS, mind you.”
Andrei saluted us with his middle finger.
Stunned, I could only stare at Luca. “So what happens next, old man?”
He sighed. His grin seemed almost foreign on him. I’d never seen him so relaxed, so free. I fought the jealousy I felt at that expression, wondering if I would ever experience it, at least in this lifetime. “Golf.”
“Golf?” Frank finally spoke up with a frown. “You don’t golf.”
“I do now.”
“Golf?” Frank repeated, as if he couldn’t believe it.
Luca smirked. “I’m dead, remember? I can do whatever I want.”
He eyed Phoenix one last time. “Another favor.”
Phoenix only shook his head slowly and stood. “Just add it to your debt.”
Luca laughed at that, hard.
Phoenix’s lips twitched as Luca said, “Andrei needs a mentor, someone alive preferably.”
“Let me guess. I’ve been nominated?” Phoenix said in a bored tone.
“So smart. I chose well.” He nodded, his eyes falling to Dante. “I chose very well, indeed.”
Dante looked uncomfortable as he finally found his voice and spoke, low and threatening. “Why is it that I feel like killing you right now?”
“Misplaced hurt, anger, betrayal.” Luca shrugged. “But I’ll be around, son. I’ve been watching you this whole time, and I’ve never been prouder to see my blood—” His voice caught while Dante looked ready to pull the man in for a hug. “—to see that our blood, Joyce’s and mine…”
Frank nodded as if it was okay.
“…produced such a strong young man, worthy of the names Alfero and Nicolasi.”
The silence was palpable.
Each of us lost in our own thoughts.
The De Langes sat there in stunned silence.
I eyed Tex. It was time, time to give them their sentence, their last chance at freedom before we wiped them from the face of this earth.
The door to the room burst open as Vic dropped a bleeding Luciana onto the table. “He shot her. Chase shot her.”
I ran to her side. “Is it deep?”
“In and out the shoulder.” Vic wiped his forehead. “Sorry, boss. I had no other choice but to bring her here.”
“And Chase?”
He gulped and looked around the room. “In the kitchen, staring at his bloodied hands… still screaming her name.”