Chapter 24
RAFFAELE
Lorenzo’s leaning against the brick by the laundromat’s service door. One foot up against the wall. A cigarette already lit. His lighter’s still in his hand, like he hasn’t decided whether he’s done with it yet.
He doesn’t look surprised when I step out.
“Knew you’d follow.” He takes a long drag. “You’ve got that look. You’ve had it since the lobby.”
I close the door behind me, take three steps into the alley and stop. He’s between me and the only other exit, the chain-link gate at the far end with the dumpsters in front of it. That’s on purpose. He chose where to stand.
So did I.
“How did Antonio know where she lived?”
“Boss.” He sighs, smoke disappearing into the sky.
“How.”
“I don’t know.”
“Try harder.”
“Maybe he had her followed. Maybe he had a guy at her building. Maybe he—”
“Three people in this city had her new address, Lorenzo. Three. Me. Her. You.”
“And Victor.”
I stop.
Shit.
The fucking gala. I had filed the whole thing under not a problem because the gala was three weeks ago and nothing came of it.
Apparently, something came of it.
But why the hell would Victor be doing favors for Antonio? They’re literally on opposite sides of a war. Antonio’s been paying Nico Conti’s bills since I was in law school. Victor wouldn’t piss on Antonio if he was on fire.
Lorenzo tilts his head, eyes narrowed. “You think I sold her out? To Antonio fucking Martinez?”
“I’m asking.”
“No, you’re not. You’re telling. Don’t fucking insult me.”
He’s right; my palm is resting against the hem of my jacket where the weight is. I don’t remember putting it there. The body decides these things on its own, after a while.
“Lorenzo.”
“Five years.” He drops the cigarette and grinds it under his shoe.
“Five years of bleeding for you. Of doing the kind of work that wakes a man up at four in the fucking morning.” He pushes off the wall.
“And you’re standing here in an alley accusing me of selling out the woman you sleep with because Antonio Martinez somehow found a Brooklyn address. ”
“You knew it.”
“So did you.”
He spreads his hands.
“Boss. If I wanted to hurt you, there are a thousand cleaner ways. I don’t go through girls. I don’t go through people you love. Especially people you love. I’d have to be a fucking moron to point an arrow that direct at you and then stand here and let you ask me about it.”
I don’t answer.
“And another thing,” he says. “If I had anything to do with this—Antonio, the bathroom, the goon—I wouldn’t be in this alley with you right now.
I’d have done it back at her place Wednesday night, when you had the second guy on his knees on the rug and your back was turned.
One round, behind the ear, while you were busy.
I had every chance, Raffaele. Every chance.
But we’re both still here, aren’t we? That’s the whole goddamn proof. ”
He’s right. But it’s also the kind of thing a man in his position would say.
“Then explain it.”
“I can’t. I don’t know how Antonio found her. I’ve been turning it over in my head since that night. I don’t have an answer for you.”
He looks at me. Waits.
“Boss. You have to choose.”
“I have to choose?”
“Yes. Right now. Either you trust me, or you don’t. If you don’t, take the gun out and we settle this in the alley. If you do, then put it down. Because I’m not going to keep working under a man who’s one bad mood away from putting one in me. That’s not a life. I won’t live it.”
I stare at him, make him think I’m considering the offer.
“Look—”
The first gunshot comes from inside.
It’s muffled by the wall but unmistakable. Single round. A second later, three more in close succession. Then a long burst—automatic fire, eight or ten rounds, two shooters minimum, professional cadence.
It’s followed by a scream.
Lorenzo’s gun is in his hand before mine is.
We glance at each other for a quarter of a second.
“Move.”
We burst through the door.
The corridor is short and turns once. We take it at a run, shoulders low. The shooting from the main room is sustained. Somebody’s reloading. Somebody else is calling out positions in Italian.
We hit the steel door.
I pull. He covers. We go through.
We stop.
The casino is a charnel house.
The smoke is so thick it takes a second for my eyes to adjust. The big chandelier is on the floor in three pieces.
Two of the green-shaded lamps have been shot out.
There’s a woman face down across the bar, her hand still in the ice bin.
A man I don’t know is half-collapsed in one of the leather banquettes.
The combo’s cellist is sitting in his chair like he’s still playing.
And the shooters are gone.
The shooting stopped twenty seconds before we reached it; professionals are out of a room within ten of their last round. They came in heavy, they hit the targets, they walked out of the emergency door like nobody’s business.
Lorenzo lowers his gun an inch.
“Jesus.”
I move.
I don’t check the bar. I don’t check the banquette. I cross the room in a straight line because I already know where I’m going.
The center table.
Vincenzo is in his chair.
He hasn’t moved. He hasn’t even slid sideways. He’s upright, his head tipped back against the high leather of the seat, his mouth slightly open, his eyes on the ceiling. There are three bloody holes in his chest, very close together, through and through.
But his face is calm.
Whoever did this gave him no time to know it was happening.
I don’t say his name. I don’t say anything. Rage and guilt threaten to flicker out from my pores. A hollow pit opens up in my chest.
“Boss.”
Lorenzo’s voice. Across the room.
“Boss. Over here.”
I turn.
He’s at another table. Twelve feet from where Vincenzo is. He’s crouched, looking down at someone.
I cross to him.
Victor Moreno Sr. is on the floor.
He took it differently. Five rounds, not three.
Two through the chest, two through the gut, one that took the side of his head off.
He went down hard, and they wanted to make sure he stayed down.
The contrast is screaming at me already—Vincenzo got a clean exit, professional, almost respectful. Victor got the message version.
“Fucking hell…”
My teeth grind as I crouch beside Lorenzo.
Casings on the floor. Nine millimeter. I count nine in arm’s reach. There’ll be more. Judging by the spread, there were at least three shooters working the room. Everything went down in under sixty seconds. They knew the layout. They knew the door rhythm.
I look at Vincenzo’s table, then back down at Victor’s body.
“They got them fucking both,” I growl, flames rising.
“Jesus Christ, boss.” Lorenzo shakes his head, disbelief shading his words. “Why?”
I’m already trying to figure that out.
Killing Vincenzo gets you a war with the Contis.
Killing Victor Sr. gets you a war with the Morenos.
Killing both at once—in one room, on neutral ground, on a Friday that everyone in this city’s underworld knew was sacred—gets you both wars and the entire infrastructure burning down around them in the confusion.
Victor Jr. wouldn’t do this. He was already the heir; his father was old. He had nothing to gain. Ordering a hit like this would mark him in five different cities.
That leaves an heir who wasn’t already the heir.
An heir whose inheritance was rumored, drunk, soft, mocked.
An heir whose father, the previous morning, had refused in front of him to discipline his right hand for an act of murder.
An heir who left that meeting humiliated and unsteady and short on options.
An heir stupid enough, desperate enough, small enough.
The fucking moron.
“Nico.”
Lorenzo looks up.
“What?”
“It was Nico.”
I watch the realization hit him like a sledgehammer.
“He’d kill his own father?”
“He’d kill his father, frame the Morenos, light a fire he can move under the cover of, and walk out the other side of the week with a throne.” I stand up. “He doesn’t have the brains to do it clean, but he doesn’t have to. He just has to do it loud.”
“That is—” Lorenzo exhales. “That is idiotic. Even for him.”
“It’s the only thing that fits.”
I look around the room one more time. My fists clench at my side. The chaos that’s about to unfold swirls in bloody visions behind my eyes, but in the center of it all, I can only think about one thing.
Bea.
No. Focus.
I straighten myself. Lorenzo takes a second to gather himself before following suit.
“Listen. The next twelve hours decide this. The family’s going to tear itself in half before the bodies cool. I need to know who’s on which side before they do.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Everyone you can find. Everyone we’ve ever paid. Everyone who took a check from the firm or worked a job through Lorenzo Castellano. I want them sat down, and I want them asked the question.”
“What question?”
“Whether they’re loyal to D’Amico or not,” I snarl.
A pause.
“Not Conti?”
“Not Conti.”
He holds my eyes for a long beat. Then he nods and pulls his phone out of his jacket.
“On it.”
I watch as he walks toward the back exit, dialing. He doesn’t look at the bodies on his way. He’s already moved on to the next operation. How did I ever question him?
Fucking stupid. Almost as stupid as Nico.
I watch Lorenzo’s back until he disappears through the door.
The smoke is settling in the room. Sirens, somewhere outside, very far away—police, eventually. But I have time. The casino is a place people are paid to forget about.
With the fire settling in my veins, I take one last look at Vincenzo. The hollowness in my chest has deepened. There’s no point in trying to cover it up.
“Sorry it had to happen like this, old man…”
My chin dips slightly. I take a moment of silence.
Then I’m gone.