Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
RENZO
The barber steps back, finished with brushing talc from my nape.
I stare into the shop mirror, looking more like Sandro than myself. Cropped hair, freshly shaven, draped in a new designer suit I purchased late yesterday afternoon, after the meeting at the restaurant. I look the part of a ruthless capo di tutti capi’s son.
But there’s a new spring in my step for a different reason.
This morning, I initiated my plan of modernizing the Eleven.
I’m now the proud owner of a million-dollar kill box.
I’ve stitched together a fleet of drones, half spy tech, half battlefield monsters.
DJI Mavic 3s, with wide-view lenses for clean daytime surveillance.
The Switchblade 300s, with thermal imaging for nighttime hunting and grenade-sized warheads for impromptu strikes.
These babies don’t just track, they end.
It’s the Warmates I’m most excited about.
Sleek, fixed-wing bastards that circle like vultures, silent and patient.
They can stay in the air for over an hour, watch everything, strike hard.
Doesn’t matter if it’s armored tanks, white cargo vans filled with stolen pistachios, or armed mafiosi vehicles on lookout.
One press of a button and, poof, problem solved.
No fingerprints. No fucking DNA. No clue what just happened. Was it a lightning strike? Bad luck, that.
Who needs satellites when you’ve got death on autopilot?
My morning transitioned into an equally successful early afternoon.
I hired my first team members, starting with a knobby-kneed sixteen-year-old tech wizard.
Doubtful the kid or his friends even understand who I am or who they’ll be working for.
Book smarts, meet the king of streetwise.
But green around the ears or not, their robotics team placed first in Italy with knobby-knees as pilot.
And hey, I’m all about investing in the future generation.
In two days, surveillance begins on Vito Cardini.
Within the next two nights, I’ll be a made man.
By week’s end, shit will hit the fan. Because no one, especially not my father, likes a skimmer.
I rise from the barber’s chair a new man. A horn honks as I exit the shop, as if Rome agrees that everything’s at my fingertips.
It takes five minutes to reach the club. A woman on cleanup flashes me a smile over her shoulder as she wipes a table. I pause to admire the view before heading to Dante’s office.
Smile in place, I push inside.
He greets me with a stare that doesn’t blink, doesn’t soften, just drills straight through me like he’s contemplating ending me. At last, he speaks. “Do I have stupid stranzo written on my fucking forehead?”
I fall into a seat, then pretend to search his upper brow.
“The Eleven are demanding an investigation into Carlo Accardo’s murder.”
“Murder? I heard his death was an unfortunate allergic reaction to strawberries.”
“You heard.” He grunts. “Right.”
“Who gives two shits if that traitorous fuck is dead?”
“The Eleven. Your father. You returning his calls?”
I sigh. “If I were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“His autopsy showed death by anaphylaxis caused by a severe allergic reaction to berries.” He leans forward in his chair. “Fucking hell. You did it, didn’t you? You somehow spiked that asshole’s meal with berries?”
I smooth out an invisible crease in my new suit pants.
“They found traces of it in his goddamn beer mug.”
“Handcrafted beer is fused with all kinds of shit. Though typically, it’s not enough to kill anyone.”
Dante stares at me. “Berries didn’t kill him?”
I contemplate my choices, but they all boil down to this: my truthful admission in exchange for Dante’s trust? Fuck, it’s worth his rage.
“Though thallium, mixed in with his Pepcid pills, would.”
“What?”
I wait, letting it sink in.
“You fucking didn’t.” Dante tosses a pen onto his desk. “There are rules.”
“I broke one.”
“You’re unprotected. Not a made man.”
“But I will be. Soon. Very soon.”
“Thallium in his Pepcid pills.” He leans back in his chair and scrolls on his phone. “Untraceable,” he reads, “unless you’re testing for it.” When he glances up, his eyes are full of admiration. On my side, just as I was hoping. I’ll need him to run interference with my father.
“Christ, you’re clever. I’ll remember not to cross you.”
This is a taste of what I bring to the table. In two days, he’ll get a fucking mouthful, and with my newfound success, I can finally return my father’s calls.
“Clever, but there’s a glitch.”
I frown.
“Your father was dealing with Carlo Accardo.”
“Dealing with?”
“Accardo’s men broke into the estate.” Dante’s voice is tight with disbelief. “Your father’s guards caught them soon after they breached the perimeter … luckily the Beneventi soldiers were waiting for them …”
Not luck.
Fina.
Her warning to my father comes roaring back—If I were you …
She knew.
Of course she fucking knew.
“As director of the Midwest Real Estate Trust, Carlo played a critical role in financing the Midwest casino expansion. Eliminating him required careful timing. The Eleven sank significant investments into the trust, which is tightly regulated by state and local commissions. Pulling money out couldn’t be rushed or it’d raise suspicions.
Your father needed the famiglie financially fortified before carving Accardo out of the picture. ”
Well, shit.
“Everything’s frozen, every cent. Multi-billion-dollar investments locked up tight. Construction in Chicago, Cincinnati, and Cleveland? Completely shut down.” Dante scrubs a hand down his face. “I lost access to at least a billion. Because of you.”
This is a goddamn disaster. “And I placed my father in a difficult position.” Undermined his power. Gave the Eleven reason to question his decisions.
“If they discover it was you …”
Yeah. Got it. I’m dead.
“I’ll fix it.”
“How?”
“I’ll divert their attention elsewhere while I work on unfreezing the trust. Use my connections in Illinois to ease the commission’s suspicions about shady activity or find the right incentive for them to turn a blind eye.”
“And you’ll call your father. Before he boards a flight to Rome and makes my life more miserable.”
I grimace. “I need two days.”
“Jesus. Fine. But no more, capisci?”
The tension in the room eases.
“You won’t regret taking me on.”
He sighs. “I already do, asshole.”
Immediate crisis avoided, I roll out of my chair. It’s time for me to make a name for myself. I leave his office just as he’s muttering the question I hoped he wouldn’t ask.
“Why in God’s breath would you kill Carlo Accardo?”
FINA
“You look more Italian than we do.”
Camilla meets my eyes in the club’s bathroom mirror. My friends have highlights in their black hair, Bianca blonde and Camilla red, while mine’s untouched. I’m what you call the antithesis of your typical California girl. Why be average?
“Are many women in Minneapolis dark-haired?” Camilla asks, smacking her lips with a fresh coat of lip gloss.
On the walk to Club Tiberius, they asked me where I was from. And I lied. This might be overly cautious since I blend in so well in Rome and the Life is far behind me. And maybe one day, I’ll explain my lies. But for now, I keep details about myself vague.
“Minnesota has a huge Italian-American population.” Never been, and know very little about the state.
Bianca wiggles next to me, settling her miniskirt higher on her thighs.
I love this girl.
“I’d like to visit the States someday.”
I force a smile. “Sure. I’ll show you around.”
“It must be fun living in a big city,” Camilla continues, three wines gone and clearly not letting the topic go. “Everyone knows each other here.”
I roll my eyes. “Doesn’t Rome have, like, two million residents?”
“Closer to three,” Bianca chimes in.
“I mean this part of the city,” Camilla explains. “They know everyone here.”
My stomach drops. “They?”
She lowers her voice. “Bianca’s boyfriend and his associates.”
I watch my reflection as the blood drains from my face.
“Dante owns this part of Rome,” Bianca declares.
“Dante?” Fear rolls up my spine. Because I know of a Dante with connections to Rome. Everyone in the Eleven does. Hard not to when he’s the second-most powerful man in the Eleven.
Shit, oh shit. I didn’t leave the famiglie behind. I fell into its lap.
Camilla pats my arm. “Don’t worry. They’re harmless.”
“The mafiosi, you mean?”
Bianca and Camilla give each other a look.
“Does Zia Teresa know?”
“Of course,” Bianca replies. “How do you think I met Dante? He eats at the restaurant all the time with his friends. He was there the day you were off, with two handsome associates. When he arrives at the club later, I’ll introduce you.”
I bite my lip, cursing my luck. My head spins with the weight of this revelation. I want to scream, to cry, to wave a magic wand and make the truth disappear. I never met Dante Lucchese. I couldn’t tell you what he looks like, aside from being handsome and hung like a stallion.
How did I know intimate details about his anatomy but not Bianca’s boyfriend’s name?
It’s unlikely Dante will take any real interest in me, no more than he would in any woman who happens to be friends with his girlfriend and related to Zia Teresa.
No cause to panic. That’s what I tell myself, even though my pulse won’t settle.
I need to talk to my prozia and ask her why she’s rubbing elbows with the mafiosi.
Decide if I’m safe.
Or if I need to disappear, again.