Chapter 38
MATTEO
We’re huddled into the study of Angelo’s mansion.
The air is thick with cigar and cigarette smoke, making my eyes sting and my throat scratch.
But at least it also masks the heavy scent of cologne mixing in the air from all the men present.
There’s the guys from Chicago, the Russians, even some Irish and Japanese.
Possibly some Serbs and Albanians too. Angelo has clearly amassed quite an army of support. I wonder what he promised them.
But not as much as I wonder how he plans to deliver on all those promises. And what happens to us all if he can’t deliver on them? Nothing good, I’m sure.
I have no friends in this city save for Nico and possibly Angelo.
The Russians still hate me, I can tell that by their nasty looks and grumbling in my direction each time I glance at them.
They won’t let me live long if Angelo’s plan doesn’t work out.
They might not even let me live long if it does.
But I’m used to watching my back, been doing it for most of my life in one way or another.
Not much of the garden outside this mansion can be seen because the night is so dark and absolute.
But I see some stars twinkling in the sky in the distance and I imagine the garden is vast. Lush and green.
The perfect sanctuary. Just like Goldie’s bedroom.
That’s a sanctuary too. Her arms and her kisses and everything else she wants so desperately to give me would be too.
A soft, golden sanctuary. I wish I could just take it…
take her and bring her to a garden like the one out here.
A vast, endless garden where we could just be together. Safe.
“All right, I am ready to begin,” Angelo says loudly and the din of conversation and clanking of glasses fades to silence.
I turn from the window to face him too, slowly.
Because I don’t want to leave that golden sanctuary yet.
Even if it’s just in my head. Don’t know when I got so soft for her.
Must’ve been after the first kiss. Or was it all the way in the beginning, at the night club?
Doesn’t matter now.
Angelo is standing in the middle of the room, the crystal tumbler of scotch he’s holding breaking the light and sending spikes of golden light from his hand. I hope that’s some kind of omen. I hope he’s bringing the light.
“I have decided it is best to kill the immediate members of the ruling families.”
A whoosh goes over the room, but as far as I’m concerned it’s like wind hitting marble. That’s how I feel. Like a slab of marble, cold, immovable, dead yet alive with all the swirling shapes echoing terrible memories.
Angelo glances in my direction. I wonder if he sees my shock. My panic. But he can’t. I’m stone.
“We’ll spare the women,” he says. “If they go meekly. Because they will be useful to us as brides and gifts and so on.”
Well, that’s something. I guess.
Angelo averts his eyes and looks at the Russians, raising his glass to them. “I know you’ve taken a liking for Codelli’s oldest daughter,” he says to them and they affirm it by getting loud and raising their glasses too.
I’m seeing red. Fire and blood. I fought them for her once and I’d do it again right now. I’m surprised I’m not.
“But be warned,” Angelo says. “She’s called cursed Gianna for a reason. Any man who gets too close to her dies soon after.”
I’ve gotten closer to her than any man before me and I’m still just fine.
Or am I?
Angelo turns back to the rest of the room and finally starts laying out his plan for the takeover. Which will begin at midnight on Sunday night. “Give them the day to confess their sins before they meet God,” as he put it.
I haven’t been to confession in over seven years. Too many vile thoughts to confess, too little faith that God has my best interests in mind. But maybe I should go this Sunday too. In preparation for all the vile things I’m about to do.
I’d lost my faith the day my father died, and I haven’t even considered changing my mind on that.
Until now. And it would be to ask forgiveness for the way I’m about to destroy the life of a woman who’s been a ray of golden sunshine after a decade long winter for me.
Never mind that she’s too young, too naive, not my type at all, she’s still the only person who made me remember my past without pain and gave me a glimpse of a future worth walking towards.
Not to mention her soft lips, sweet kisses and that body that has my cock half hard just thinking about it.
Try as I might to focus only on Angelo’s words, listen to his plan, commit it to memory, her face keeps intruding, her nakedness, her lips, her golden sheen.
Good thing I only have a very small part to play. Get the women away from the house. Separate the old man from them so the security will also be divided and then let Angelo’s forces do the rest. Such a small part to play I wonder if he even trusts me as much as I’d begun to think he might.
But that’s not a very big concern anymore. I notice it and don’t really care.
What I do care about is giving Goldie at least a glimpse of what she could’ve had, at least a taste of what she desires, before I help turn her into a slave, a servant, a shadow of her former self.
Maybe it’s selfish too. Maybe I want to taste, to feel, to have her too. Now, while she’s still innocent and pure and completely devoted to me. Before she starts to hate me. Which she will after Angelo’s plan succeeds.
It will succeed. He has five times the numbers he’s up against. He has disloyal men on the inside with all five families.
His plan is rock solid. He will be the capo di tutti capi of the New York Mob.
Until someone even more ambitions comes for his crown.
But that’s a later problem. One I don’t plan to be around for solving.
But I can give Gianna the sendoff she desires.
And it will be the last human thing I do for myself.
The last farewell to a better past. The only nod at a future not blackened by betrayal, revenge, and blood.
After this one last taste of good and light, I will surrender to the darkness completely.
But first I will pray at the altar of gold and light one last time. Fuck confession. This will be better.