Chapter 6
MATTEO
If only Goldie had been better at getting the Lambo closed, I’d have been three streets away before the goons rushed me.
As it is, two of them are now dragging me down a windowless corridor that smells a lot like a sewer.
I have no idea what’s about to happen. But I definitely see the old family curse of Ruin rearing its nasty head in all of this.
What the fuck was I supposed to do? Let that Russian murder her in that back alley?
No, I made the right choice.
It’s just too bad it led here.
They drag me into an elevator and then the two holding me relax their grip a little.
None of them are talking, but if looks could kill, I’d be a dead man.
They’ve all got the classic New York Mob looks, nothing light in sight, and the mixing of their cologne in this freight elevator we’re taking to the top floor is making me lightheaded and a little nauseous at the same time.
The good thing is, they’re Italian, not Russian. I might be able to quote my family connections and get out of this.
But not if Goldie’s actually some hot-shot, high-up boss’ wife and he thinks I defiled her somehow.
They’re not gonna ask a lot of questions if that’s the case.
They’re also not gonna listen to what I have to say.
They’ll just kill me. So I gotta make my words count.
Else I’m just wasting my breath. And I’m sure I’d be wasting it on these goons.
The elevator’s fast, but the ride still seems to be taking forever. Probably because the words, “It’s your last ride,” are chiming in my head, growing louder and louder each time the glowing red floor number above the door flips up.
It’s not unexpected that I should be murdered in some penthouse on the first night of my quest to restore our family honor.
My ancestors must be laughing in their graves back at Resurrection Cemetery.
Not at me. Just at the old family curse that only lets us get so far before pulling us back down into the depths of ruin.
I was my father’s second son. Not much was expected of me. Least of all that I’d outlive them all.
That was a feat in itself. As was me managing to get out of Dante Moretti’s clutches in the first place. Maybe that’s as far as the curse will let me go.
The door opens into a large windowless room with a black velvet curtain at one end of it.
I just stare at it, don’t exit the elevator until one of the guys prods me in the back. “Move it.”
He’s using a gun as the prod, so I do it. This is so fitting. Entering the last scene of my life through a curtain like I’m actually on stage. At least the curse has a sense of the theatric.
“Where are we going?” I ask, since they spoke first and now I can too.
“To see the boss,” one of the guys behind me says, earning a witheringly dark look from the one prodding me in the back. Guess they weren’t supposed to talk to me.
Beyond the curtain is one of those fancy hallways with real wool carpeting, gleaming marble walls and shining brass fixtures.
They prod me through a side door of one of the apartments, into another airless, windowless room.
Not that windows would do me much good… we’re on the 80th floor.
I’d never survive that fall. But I’d have a good long time for my short life to flash before my eyes before I hit the ground.
They take me into another room, this one reeking of stale cologne and cigarette smoke. One wall is taken up by monitors showing this building and everything in it from all angles, another by a sofa, some lounge chairs, and a table.
Then we just stand there, no one talking, no one moving.
The guy with the gun pointed at my ribs turns me so I can’t see the monitors, but I can see them just fine in the reflection in the high windows looking out over central park and the rest of this vast city.
But the pictures are all backwards and I know what I’m looking at in the first place.
In the distance, I’m pretty sure I can hear Goldie’s voice. I can’t make out the words, but she’s upset about something. Maybe over the way they hustled me up here after I saved her life. But all of that could just be my wishful thinking. Her voice is faint and growing fainter.
The phone in the room rings and one of the guys guarding me picks up and listens intently for a few moments.
Then he says a curt, “Yes, boss,” and hangs up, giving me nothing to go on in figuring out what I can look forward to.
Or dread, more like. I’m guessing, from past personal experience of being one of the grunts like these guys are, that they’ve just been waiting for the order of what to do with me.
I can only hope the order wasn’t to take me out into the desert and leave my body for the vultures.
In won’t be the desert here in the East, maybe some dense forest upstate where bears can have a go at my dead body, but the idea is the same.
“Come on,” the guy who was on the phone says and shoves me towards the door. Not the door we came in through, but the one leading deeper into the apartment. Maybe we’re not at the forest and wild beasts stage yet.
He leads me down a narrow, drab corridor, the door at the end of which opens into the hallway of one of the more affluent looking apartments I’ve ever seen.
Fancy Persian rugs, golden accents, and floor-to-ceiling windows, all decorated with furniture and trinkets that were probably more expensive than I can even imagine.
Great. The boss, wants to deal with me personally…
In the case of Dante Moretti being that boss, he would take his time taunting whoever was brought to him like I’m being brought now, over a transgression that there’s no way out of—which is always the case when women are involved.
Then he’d kill them in some bloody, messy way that would require professional cleaners to come in.
Those were always in and out of the Moretti mansion.
In one case, he had to reinstall the hardwood floor in his office because so much blood had soaked into it that the smell was atrocious.
Hopefully I’ll be at least that much of a nuisance to this guy I’m about to meet.
The guy leading me to slaughter, as the case probably is, opens one side of a huge, gilded door, pokes his head in, then shoves me inside after he gets the go-ahead.
I’d expected Goldie’s husband to be a young guy, but this one in here is pushing sixty, if not seventy.
No wonder she needs to get away from him and go dancing from time to time.
Even though we almost married my little sister Isabella off to Dante against her will, and I’d have married whoever my father thought best if it came to it, I’ve never been a fan of the arranged marriage side of how things are done.
One of the reasons my great-grandfather fled the East coast was to get out of his arranged marriage.
“My daughter claims you saved her,” the guy says. His cheeks are rosy, and his hair is tufted like he’s been pulling on it subconsciously.
Daughter?
Good. At least she’s not married to this old guy. But I don’t know if that’s any better for me. Could actually be worse. Mafia fathers are even more protective of their daughters than they are of their wives.
“I did, Sir,” I say, standing a little taller. “Some Russians had nefarious plans for her, and I stepped in.”
“Out of the kindness of your heart?” the guy asks as he leans forward across the ornate writing desk he’s sitting behind. It looks like something straight from a fancy Venetian mansion.
His eyes are like two river rocks, light grey, shiny and totally dead.
He might look like a guy past his prime, but I’d be an idiot to think I’m not actually conversing with a monster right now.
And I’m starting to have my suspicions about who this might be…
I better be very careful with how I speak to him, just in case I’m right.
“Yes,” I say. “I saw she and her sister were in trouble and I got them out of it.”
Never mind that I only knew Goldie was in trouble because I’ve been staring at her and thinking about fucking her all night.
“Yes, that’s how Gianna described it,” he says, his face relaxing a little. “You’re not from here. What’s your name?”
“I’m Matteo Rovina,” I say. “Of the West Coast Rovinas.”
It’s what they used to call us and once upon a time, especially when Las Vegas was still under mob control, it used to mean something. These days, it’s a very cringe thing to say and that’s exactly what the guy does. He tries to hide it, but not well enough.
“Eddo’s great-grandson?” he asks.
“That’s right,” I say. “And you’re Victor Codelli… you’re the capo of the Codelli family.”
Given the circumstances it’s better to guess his identity and be wrong than to ask him straight out who he is.
I know I guessed right even before he nods curtly.
“You’re on the run from Moretti,” he says. “Word about that has reached me. You staying put with the guy was the terms under which he let you and your sister live.”
I didn’t imagine he’d know all about this. But then again, my cousin Nico’s father is his consigliere—one of his closest advisors.
“Is that why you saved my daughters?” he says. “To ingratiate yourself with me so we don’t send you back?”
I shift my stance, always a sign of weakness, but what the hell, I’m not exactly in a very strong position here.
“I had no idea they were your daughters,” I say. “And Dante Moretti broke the pact first by going after my sister. All deals are off. I owe him nothing except long overdue revenge.”
Something lights up in the guy’s eyes, like a rogue ray of sunshine glinting off a wet spot on the rocks that are his eyes.
It’s gone again in a flash. I delivered all that much too hot-headedly.
With too much passion and truth behind my words.
Guys like Codelli here, they didn’t get to where they are by wearing their emotions on their sleeves and they have no respect for anyone who does.
But fuck it, if he knows who I am, he probably knows why I’m here too.
“And you’re looking for support from your family here?” he asks, leaning back in his high back leather chair.
I shrug and shift my stance again. “Yes. I don’t have any family left in the West. Except my sister, that is. She’s fine now.”
Not that any of them cares how what little is left of my family is doing.
This guy’s grandfather was close to Eddo, my great-grandfather.
As close as blood, they were. But that didn’t help my family any.
I should be keeping my cool, not getting all hot-blooded, but fuck it.
There’s a good chance this guy still plans to kill me, or worse, deliver me back to Dante, so I might as well live a little first.
“Very well,” Codelli says and for a split second I think he’s just given me his support. But then he follows it up with, “I’ll let you live tonight, because my daughters are safe thanks to you.”
I nod, wondering if it’d be tacky to say thank you. “I appreciate that,” I say instead, and that’s probably worse. At least going by the glint in his eyes which shines again.
“Get cleaned up,” he says. “I want you back here at seven o’clock sharp.”
“Why?” I ask, speaking before I think again, which is something of a problem for me.
He stands up, the glint of sunlight on stone firing again. “You’ll join my security team.”
He leaves the room by a side door, and I thankfully manage not to stop him with any more impertinent questions.
This is better than I hoped for just a few short minutes ago. Much better given that I thought I was facing death.
But starting at the bottom again, doing grunt work for a boss… I’d hoped to have left all that behind when I left LA. He’s not my capo, yet this isn’t something I can refuse and hope to live. But damn it, I want to refuse him with every last nerve in my body.