15. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
CRUE
T ime to go.
“You fucking think so?” I’m crouched over, drawing a pocket-sized nine-millimeter pistol from its ankle holster. I rarely carry a gun, but ever since I started playing this dangerous game, I thought it wise to have a back-up to my six-inch dagger.
A whole lot of good it’ll do, when someone’s got a gun pointed at my chest.
“What about Fia?” I ask, though I don’t suspect my shadow’s going to care all that much. It’s a single-minded entity, with self-preservation as its goal. Since I’m its self, keeping me alive is all it ever cares about.
Leave her. If she isn’t dead already, we’ll find another way to get her out .
I can’t tell if this is an attempt to console me or if my shadow is pussy-whipped. Wouldn’t be the first monster she managed to trap.
But it’s right... I’m right... whatever the fuck is going on with the voice in my head, it is right. I won’t be much help to Fia, if I’m dead. And given the sounds of war that are blaring throughout the Napoli mansion, it just might happen anyway. Good intentions can’t stop a bullet.
I hide myself away in one of the many bedrooms in the east wing of the house, until the shooting stops, and then I hide some more. I’d usually hate this. Sitting idly by, unable to do anything, but not today. My mind hasn’t stopped spinning since I heard Tomas say he and Fia were engaged.
Not that I give a fuck about his bullshit marriage. In the short time I’ve known her, Fia has expressed her disgust for the engagement at every opportunity. But what got me, and what is actively keeping me hidden, is the reasons Tomas killed Lorenzo. This insurrection must have been planned well in advance, if Tomas has had the time to sow the seeds of dissent within the Napoli capos’ ranks.
He must have carefully planned the mass murder that’s happening outside the walls of this lavish bedroom. It’s one that I wasn’t invited to. Which my shadow and I are both very sour about.
However, with every ticking second my gut instinct tells me that the answer is close. That the men responsible — yes, men, and Tomas isn’t a part of their league — are the very same ones who brought me back to New York, and who wanted to shield me from getting too close to whatever this is. I will have my answer soon. Then, I will decide who must pay the price, for Fiametta’s suffering.
So, I wait until the sun goes down and night consumes the land. I make my escape among its shadows; the same way I have done many times already.
Stay strong, Fiametta. You won’t have to be alone for long.
***
Three Days Later
For a man who has caused so many, I hate funerals.
Stuffy suits and weepy faces really take the fun out of death. But that’s what normal people do, isn’t it? They let their silly emotions get in the way of the joys of life. Nothing can be straightforward. Everything must have a hidden meaning, even the great equalizer that we will all someday face.
Today, however, I find myself among those seeking the truth. Not because Lorenzo Napoli deserves it, mind you. If I’m honest, I’m more upset that I wasn’t the one who kill him. Especially when I consider the dog who did. Fucking Tomas.
But there’s often good fortune to be found in someone else’s tragedy. And mine comes in the way of unravelling the mystery that’s been plaguing my mind since I returned to New York.
As it happens, the two perpetrators are heading my way.
“Gruesome affair, wouldn’t you say?” Matteo Baronne asks, extending a hand to me. I don’t take it. This funeral is the last place I want to be seen trying to blend in.
“How are you holding up?” Mark asks, noticing my rejection of his hand and slapping me on the shoulder instead.
This is how they do it. They plaster on a feeble smile and ask a simple question such as how are you holding up ? I should commit it to memory. I might need this kind of response myself, to show some of the other funeral goers.
“Fine,” I answer. “A little confused. Don’t funerals take weeks to arrange? How’d they get this one done so fast?” I look around the scene. There’s got to be one hundred and fifty people here, if not more.
Matteo retracts his extended hand and clears his throat. Is he disappointed that I declined his offer? “We like to move quickly, Crue. To bury the body before anyone asks too many questions. The same rule applies from the lowest of the low, to the top of the dung heap.”
“And why did you come to the top of this dung heap?” My eyes move in Matteo’s direction, but the rest of me remains still.
“To say my last goodbye to an old... friend.” Matteo makes the sign of the cross in the air. Funny, he never struck me as a God-fearing man, before.
“Well, I’m just here to revel in that sack of shit getting put in the ground,” Mark says. He hasn’t picked up on Matteo’s shifty-eyed glances in my direction, the telltale sign that whatever they’re scheming should be kept under wraps. Or maybe Mark doesn’t care, because he’s my oldest friend, and the closet person I have to family. He won’t keep secrets from me. “I bet you’re happy about it. I know that prick’s been at the top of your list for years.”
“I’m not,” I answer, but keep my attention on Matteo. “He was meant to die by my hand. And out of everyone who could’ve brought him down, why the fuck was Tomas the one?”
Matteo laughs, unconcerned by who notices he’s contented, when we’re meant to be somber. “You had me worried there for a moment, Crue. I thought you’d gone soft on me.”
“Soft?” No part of me is soft right now. I’m tempered steel, prepared to do whatever it takes to get Fiametta and my child away from this shitshow.
“Yes. Soft. You seemed somewhat upset. Discontented. For a moment, I wondered if Lorenzo had gotten to you.” Matteo slides his hand into his pocket, and grabs two fat cigars. He hands one to Mark, puts the other in his own mouth and lights them both up. A celebratory smoke when the man isn’t even cold yet. I knew he was a ruthless mother-fucker.
“When were you going to tell me about Fiametta’s engagement?” I don’t give a fuck about their celebrating Lorenzo’s death. I want answers, and someone’s going to give them to me.
“I wasn’t, because it wouldn’t have gone anywhere.” Matteo arches a brow. “You see, Crue, Tomas is a bottom feeder. He’s no better than a shrimp in the sea. He rose to the top because he’s good at kissing ass, but he was so very easy to manipulate.” He waits for me to speak, to join in the belittling of Tomas or whatever else. I don’t, so he goes on. “I promised him the world because I knew he’d finish what I’ve struggled to do, myself.”
“I could’ve done it. I’d much rather he was my target than Fiametta.” I say this, but I don’t know why. They all know about my interactions with her, but acknowledging it like this is a big mistake.
“Yes, well, it doesn’t matter now. He’s dead, she isn’t, and we can all move on.”
You can. I can’t.
“Fiametta’s death was meant to wound him. When she didn’t die — and I still don’t blame you, Crue — I had to come up with a different solution. Tomas has been a project that’s been in the works for far longer than your involvement in my business. So, I thought I’d take out two birds with one stone.”
My response is silence. Listening and judging.
“I decided to have Tomas kill Lorenzo and take command of Napoli’s men. It gives him the illusion of having power. Makes him feel strong, while in reality, I’m the one who’s running things,” he continues, as if he doesn’t notice how quiet I am.
“How does holding the main seat in two different houses benefit you?” I ask. The gears have long stopped turning in my head. The mystery may not be unraveled, but I’ve lost interest in it. It might’ve been thrilling once, but now it’s just more mafia politics.
How. Fucking. Dull.
“What’s worse than two criminal tyrants running a city?” He slobbers on the end of his cigar while awaiting my answer.
“Three?”
Are we playing “Learning to Count” with Don Baronne now? Get to the fucking point.
Huh. My shadow’s been silent for a while. That’s surprising
“One.” He smiles with the cigar still between his teeth, and then he removes it. “Two is enough to keep tension high, and it makes the law believe we will inevitably cancel each other out. Why interfere with the criminals when they want to kill each other? More importantly, why send good police officers to die, when the bad ones will accept a golden handshake to set us free?” He looks at Mark, wriggling his eyebrows in some coded message. Mark does a similar brow shuffle, and shrugs his shoulders.
“One man cannot sit at the head of the table alone. It would mean the chaos has ended, and rather than live in harmony under my thumb, the police would send their battalions in to bring me down.”
He leaves another pause, still expecting me to speak.
I do, “Okay?”
Matteo frowns. “Jesus, Crue.”
Blasphemy? So much for being a good Catholic boy.
“Without someone to oppose me, they’ll send SWAT teams to raid my house nightly, until they take me in. I won’t be able to take a shit without someone jotting it down as evidence.”
I flick my eyes between Matteo and Mark, while searching my mind for another answer. I go with, “Makes sense.”
“I needed someone to fill Lorenzo’s seat.” He rakes a hand through his hair, growing increasingly frustrated.
You’re fucking with him, aren’t you? My shadow finds it amusing. So, do I.
“I understand. Have since your colorful lesson.” I stay deadpan. “I’m going to kill Tomas, Matteo. I have to. He ruined my peace with Lorenzo, and he has to pay the price for it.”
Not that it’s going to happen. But someone needs to die, so I can put this mess behind me. I see where the rest of this is going. With Tomas under his thumb, Matteo will put off the idea of marriage, to bring stability to our relationship, his and mine I mean.
His and yours or hers and yours? Who knows...
But I’ll say it bluntly, and I’ll say it truly. Tomas won’t draw one more breath than I allow him to. It will be my way of testing the waters and seeing how Matteo’s will react to it. In truth, his reaction matters little. I’ve already set my mind to this, and I won’t fail again.
“I’m going to urge you to think this through, Crue. Mark and I have been working very closely over the past few months, and I believe all of us can benefit greatly from this incident. But in order to see it through to the end, Tomas must survive.”
“And what about her?”
Could it be? Have I grown a conscience ? No, of course not. She just makes your cock explode .
But I know there’s more to us than just the sex. If there wasn’t, I’d have satisfied my need at our first tryst and I wouldn’t be here now, with my shadow barking bullshit in my brain twenty-four seven.
“Speaking of her, there she is,” Mark points to where Fiametta just arrived, after spending time at her dad’s graveside. His trying to get rid of me, after his and Matteo’s ambush, didn’t play out the way they had hoped it would. “You should go talk to her.”
I don’t want to join Lorenzo in a wooden box, so I start walking toward Fiametta.
“Think about what I’ve said, Crue.” Matteo calls out, once I’m far enough to let a growl slip out. “You won’t regret it.”
I already regret it. The whole damned thing. I should’ve dealt with Lorenzo in my own way, and in my own time, without Matteo’s interruption. Now, I’ll have to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, wondering when his men will come to cut the loose end I’ve become.
It’s worse now, and it will become increasingly so, the more time I spend with Fiametta. In seven months, maybe less if my numbers are off, she’s going to bring a kid into this world. My child. Our child.
I’m not only looking out for myself, now. This reminds me of Leadville and of Devin. His weakness was children. I know they weren’t his children, but rather teenaged girls, who’d barely crossed the threshold into womanhood. But they were someone else’s daughters. They were someone else’s weaknesses.
Fuck.
Fiametta spots me coming toward her, and lifts a hand to wave at me. I mimic her, unsure of how to handle this situation. As the small crowd starts coagulating around her, among them the ginger firecracker, Simone, I stop in my tracks and observe her.
As much as I despised her father, I have remained true to my word. When the shooting stopped around the Napoli mansion, I returned to keep my ever-watchful eye on her. From a distance. In the tree’s that Lorenzo used to love staring at by day, and from her window at night. I caught short bouts of sleep around dusk and dawn, when the guard shifts changed hands, and I ate gas station snacks to sustain myself. I wasn’t going to leave her side, not with Tomas in the house. I was waiting... no, hoping he would make an attempt to get closer to her, so I could bring down my hammer of justice.
But he kept his distance, as did I, probably under the assumption that Fiametta would kill him if he got too close. I never thought he’d was the type of man to make a smart play, but staying away from her was the smartest thing he could have done.
So, I watch. I am seeing my greatest fears become reality, right before my eyes. The fun-suckers are ripping the best part of death to shreds, with their tears, hugs and false smiles. The only two who should be crying are Fiametta and Simone.
Fia, because it was her father. Simone, out of respect for her best friend.
The rest of them? All offering sympathy in bad faith.
As I look at her, seeing the despair on her face, whilst well-wishers engulf her, my shadow puts everything into perspective for me. It uses no words this time. It makes no attempt to push me into some vile deed.
It just places an image in my head. My Fiametta, alone, afraid and weeping. So similar to what’s actually on display, and yet somehow so different.
I know what I must do.
These men made my Little Flame cry.
Now I’m gonna make them bleed.