13. COSIMO
GIOELE
I roll my motorcycle out of the garage while Isaias grabs one of my father’s cars. His own ride, an orange Bentley Flying Spur, isn’t as easy to camouflage as a gunpowder grey Audi A5.
Isaias is already on the phone with his hired guns when he hops into the car. My brother is tight with the biggest provider of bodyguards to politicians in the States.
I let him lead us out of Hidden Hills and down narrow canyon roads toward Malibu. We arrive at one of my father’s safe houses without incident. Once there, we find the parking lot behind the unassuming row house full of bikes, vans, and sedans. I hop off my Harley, hang my helmet on a handle bar, and trot inside.
“Fuck me if it isn’t the Nascimbeni crown prince himself,” one of the old-timers bellows. He lifts a bottle of IPA, toasting me. “You left your fancy university for us?”
“You not dead yet, Moroder?” I shout back, making him snicker.
“We’ll see after this, boy. We’ll see!”
“Guys. Listen up,” my father mutters. He doesn’t need to raise his voice. A head shorter than my brother and me, he still exudes authority, and the dozen and a half men in the room instantly quiet, stares flicking to him.
“Cosimo is gone,” he gruffs out with no lead-up.
“Cosimo? No way,” someone says. “I saw him yesterday morning. Wasn’t he dropping off the twins at the bunker?”
“He was. Since then, I’ve had two messages delivered from the Santa Colombini. The last one contained this.” With a stone-face that in no way reveals the love he feels for his brother, he unwraps a handkerchief. It holds my uncle’s ring finger, complete with his wedding band.
“What the hell? Why?” Fuck, Silvina can’t learn about this. We need to find him, asap. For Silvina, for Zia Paula, for Gabriela, for the thirteen-year-old twins.
“He wants your cousin.” There’s a flash in my father’s eyes as he says it. It’s dark, promising revenge. He’s leaving me momentarily speechless.
“Which cousin?” Isaias’ voice is gravelly.
“Silvina. No word as to what they want with her.”
“What the fuck!” I roar.
Isaias clamps a hand over my shoulder, warning me with a hard stare. I give a small nod, and he lets me go. The Nascimbeni clan is used to vehemence running high, so only Il Lince takes notice of my reaction.
“Jesus Christ. You’re not using her as bait, are you?” Moroder asks.
It’s a bad sign that Il Lince isn’t offended by the question.
“I’m not. That’s why we’re all here. I’m sending you off to find Cosimo. This was the last straw. These cretins are done. They need to be extinguished like the vermin they are, and this time, once and for all.”
I hate the situation I’m in right now. I’m with two of Isaias’ men, a taciturn German, Fritz, and Bully, a more talkative dude with the same burly build as Fritz. Bully snaps peanut shells nonstop, scattering them inside the van we’re in. Not that I care about the mess he’s making. It’s the constant chomping that drives me crazy.
“How long ’til they’re here?” he asks for the fifth time.
“I don’t know. They’re Colombinis, so it’s not like we can time them. Our intel could even be wrong,” I say.
“And what’s our job here? Are we jumping their van?”
“No, we’re following them,” Fritz breaks his silence to remind Bully.
“Right, so no fire, then?”
“Correct. We’re not opening fire, because then we can’t follow them anymore.”
I exchange a glance with Fritz. Mine says, can you believe this guy? while Fritz holds the blankness of a Secret Service agent. I want to slam my forehead against the dashboard.
“There. White van!” Bully’s bag of peanuts drops to the floor as he points.
“Yep, that’s it. Go.” I snap my fingers to Fritz, who picks up speed, taking the canyon curves at a safe distance. We let a Toyota in between us, keeping a close eye on the Colombini van. They take off through the Magual mountain pass, in the direction of the reservoir.
“Isaias,” I say into the phone. “We’ve got them.”
“Cool. Send me directions, and we’ll back you up.”
It’s already dark. The asphalt disappears in favor of what looks like a one-way dirt road. The van in front of us lugs forward, and with no other vehicles on this road, we need to stay behind.
We turn off our headlights, which makes Fritz cuss under his breath in German. Between his teeth, he mixes in some English too, letting us know in no uncertain terms that it’s fucking ridiculous to drive when “everything is schwartz.”
“At least, the road doesn’t fork, so it’s impossible to lose them,” I say.
“Nu-huh, look,” Bully replies, “It’s forking up there.”
“Fuck. Which way did they go?”
“I have no idea.”
I’m about to text Isaias that we’re taking the left road, that he’ll have to take the right one to cover our bases, when Colombini lights interrupt the darkness between the trees. For the first time, my team and I share a grin.
The right road takes us up to a small water reservoir. A bridge crosses it, and on the other side, there’s a shack-like building where the Colombini van stops.
Got them. Sending you a GPS pin, I type to Isaias.
On our way. Lie low until we arrive.
I gesture for Fritz to pull off the road. Once we’re far enough into the ditch to be hidden by trees, I call Silvina.
She doesn’t pick up. Right. There’s no reception in the bunker anymore. A few years back, Il Lince had some mishaps with people escaping through an emergency exit. It’s now completely infallible. Crazy to think that I should feel safe because I can’t get a hold of her. Even crazier that I don’t. I mean, come on. There’s simply no way for an intruder to get into the bunker.
Why Silvina? Why do they want her? How do they even know who she is? I don’t understand. I don’t. I just don’t. Fuck!
“I see movement down the road,” Bully says, tossing an empty bag of peanuts to the floor. “Is it an animal or your brother?”
I groan, subduing my impatience while I call Isaias. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, we’re a hundred yards from your pin.”
“Phew,” Bully mutters, opening another damn bag of unshelled peanuts.
“Can you just—! Ahh, never mind,” I say.
Three minutes later, we’re finally moving again. We’re not taking any chances, bulletproof vests under our shirts and armed to the teeth with Glocks, AK-47s, and heaps of ammunition. We’re seven men, with me being the youngest. I’m as seasoned as most, though, having started in my father’s game too early.
Isaias sends a go-report to Il Lince. When we leave our vehicles and sneak up to the building, I remind myself how I’m doing this for Silvina. On the backside, I make out a closed door; light sieves out around its edges, forming a rectangle against the dark wall. Shadows move behind boxes stacked in front of a small window to its right.
“Another storage area,” Isaias whispers. “They mainly use the docks, so I’d have never guessed the mountains without Marrow’s help.”
“How?”
“He had a bug in Randolfo’s storefront. No direct talk about Cosimo, but we got this intel.” He waves for Fritz, me, and Bully to back him at the door. Then, he nods out a Go!
Isaias blasts the lock open with ear-numbing precision. I kick down the remnant of the door. We storm in, watch wild-eyed Colombini spin toward us. Two raise their hands, one shoots and hits Isaias in the stomach. He buckles over with a groan, folding in on himself.
Fritz gets the shooter in the forehead, gore exploding from him. I target a small bald guy, get him in the leg, and he buckles over, howling with pain. That’s when I see my uncle behind him.
“Get him!” I yell to Bully, who lunges forward. Zio Cosimo is tied to a chair. The Colombinis must have felt safe, because he’s not gagged.
“This is a ruse!” he shouts. “They’re not after me. The whole damn clan is after the bunker!”
For the first time in my life, the blood runs cold in my veins. I feel myself blink, not understanding, but then I do—I do, when a wounded Colombini picks his gun up from the floor and mutters, “Shut the hell up, parasite,” and aims at my uncle.
I leap forward, kicking the rifle out of his hand, but it goes off, sending a short ra-ta-ta! through the room in a swipe that covers the back wall and ends in Zio Cosimo’s chest. Oh, no. No, no, no.
“No. Fucking. Prisoners!” I roar, and swing my gun around, maiming every Colombini still standing. My eyes are weak with tears when the sound dies and there’s more blood than breath in their hell hole. What just happened?
I’m gasping. Can’t get enough oxygen. I cut my uncle’s body free of the chair and hike him over my shoulder. His eyes are open. Silvina won’t like that. She won’t. She won’t.
Fritz steadies Isaias, who bleeds heavily. He’s still conscious and firing off orders. “Call Il Lince. Get a hold of Gabriela. I don’t think she’s in the bunker yet.” He shuts his eyes, groaning. “Get Felix’ number off my cell. He needs to send all his men to Hidden Hills. Gioele.”
“Yes, fratello.”
“Do it now.”
I puff my cheeks up. Blow out air. Blow out more. It doesn’t help.
Isaias’ stare burns into me. “You can’t panic now.”
“I know.”
His wrist is weak. Can’t hold his phone out properly for me. Fritz takes it from him, and I jerk my head toward the vans for our men to follow.
“You’ll be all right?” I ask my brother.
He forces his eyes open. “The vest took the brunt of it.”
I avert my gaze from the blood seeping out at belt level and press out a “Cool.”
His guys support him toward their vehicle. The rest of us follow.
“No time to lose,” Isaias whispers, urging me with a stare that’s going muddy. I shout it for him, using all my leftover oxygen.
My uncle’s limp body over my shoulder can’t hamper the adrenaline in my blood as I stalk to our van. Fritz opens the backdoor for me. A sob gets out while I lay my uncle down as comfortably as possible on the backrow.
“It doesn’t matter to him anymore,” Bully says with the respect of someone with their hat in their hand and water in their eyes. It makes me gasp away a hiccough.
“Yeah.” I dry my nose before it drips onto the seat. “Let’s go. Now!”
At Isaias’ vehicle, I make Fritz stop and roll down the window. In the passenger seat, Isaias has a hard time staying conscious.
“Do you have his woman’s phone number?” I ask.
They look at each other and shake their heads. I thumb through his cell and find her. Read the number out loud. “Call Tatiana immediately. Tell her. She’ll know where to bring him. Whatever she says goes. Got it?”
They frown, exchange glances again. Before they can speak up, I grind out, “That was a direct order. Do not forget who I am: I’m Gioele di Nascimbeni, son of Il Lince, and my brother is going to survive this. The E.R. is out of the question. You can’t take him to my father’s house. If you don’t do as I say, I’ll hold you directly responsible for whatever happens to Isaias, and the Nascimbeni vendetta will be on.”
“I’ll call his woman,” the driver mutters, dipping his head in surrender.
“Text your updates to Isaias’ phone”—I wiggle his cell in their direction—“because I’ll be busy.”
“Yes, sir.”
As Fritz speeds down the road, leaving a trail of yellow dust in our wake, it hits me that my brother is the one everyone calls “sir.”