Chapter 33 Valentino
Damn it all to Hell! All of us looking into this is getting us nowhere. Every hour that passes draws out my agony, my rage, my absolute impotence at getting anywhere closer to Naomi, to helping her, to saving her. I want to curse and kick something, break something, but I can’t. Not on front of Don Giorgio. We’re in his house, after all.
It’s mid-afternoon on the longest day of my life. I didn’t want to drag the old man into this, but we’re really hitting block after block, and I’m hoping he can help us see a way out. In times of trouble and strife, you always go to your elders—it’s been ingrained in us all since our childhood. So here I am, consulting with the patriarch of the Italian-American Mafia on the Northeastern coast of the United States.
Fat lot of help this is being, though.
“We don’t want a war,” he tells me solemnly.
I sigh. “No, we don’t.”
“But one of them has your wife,” he adds.
“Exactly,” I bite out. “They struck first. First offense.”
Connor Gatling sang like a canary, in the end. It took Pesci breaking all the bones in his left foot then cutting off each finger on his right hand one by one—cazzo tried to keep it all in, but he caved. No man is strong enough against my men, especially when they’re being directed by a stone-cold Marco on a mission.
It’s been feeling like an eternity spent in the endless maze of the corridors of Hell. The worst is, I’m a Don now, meaning I’m not supposed to get my hands dirty. Talks the other night hinted at me needing an enforcer going forward, someone to take care of the dirty business while I keep my hands outwardly clean. I’m not liking this, to be honest. I’m a man used to getting things done, not just calling the shots. Overlaid on this feeling of helplessness is this almost hopeless quest we’re on, a fool’s errand at every turn. Each time I think we’ve landed on something, we turn and find ourselves slamming into another wall.
The latest in this string of obstacles? I’m sitting in his living room right now.
It’s surprising how little you can know about an organization you’ve been part of your whole life. My father was a member of the Northeastern coast syndicate. Not a Don, but as a boss, he had his say in the big decisions that were to affect our livelihood as the Mafia here in this region. Dons get a seat at the table; I now have one of those.
Except, this revered sanctuary I just managed to step into? It has an inner sanctum, and not everyone is privy to what goes on in here, or even has a say in its decisions and thinking patterns. One person is the be-all and end-all of this shadow government-type of leadership, and I’m in conversation with him right now.
It reminds me I need to thank my stars for making Don Giorgio Vitale notice me and decide to take me under his wing. I’m not his heir, but I’m close to him, it seems. I wouldn’t be here hearing all this if I were just another useless Joe in the big pyramid that’s the Mafia.
Good thing Victor was being his usual pragmatic self—he’s the one who told me to apprise my godfather of sorts. We’re using his house, some of his resources, so it stood to reason we best keep him in the loop. As an elder, at least, and the oldest Don currently at the table, he’s our patriarch. I never thought that could also imply so much more behind the scenes.
I saw it in the way Don Giorgio welcomed me inside his home. His shoulders had been tense, and he point-blank asked me what I had done. I hadn’t even started with my revenge, so I told him as much.
His shoulders sagged at that point, and he placed a gnarled hand on my shoulder. It had felt like relief on his part, then on mine. Being impatient could’ve seriously fucked me up inside the very syndicate I’d just been given a place in. Thank God I listened to my brother. Further talks with Don Giorgio revealed how much of a key player he really is.
“So, what do you want to do?” the old man asks me. “Burn them to the ground?”
“Am I allowed to?”
He laughs softly, then sobers. “Let’s hope it never comes to that.”
I steel myself, too. If I were ever given permission to take down a whole other non-Italian mob, it would imply they’ve killed my blood—my children, or at the very least, my wife. No matter how much I want to crush the ashes of these fucking Albanians into the ground under the sole of my shoe, I can’t take on such an endeavor. Not yet, anyway, and when I think of the reason why I actually could, then not ever, I hope.
Naomi can’t die!
I won’t let this happen.
Don Giorgio sighs. “Run me again through everything you’ve found.”
I sit back and take a deep breath. “Connor Gatling is the Westchester County cop who led the raid into our hotel room. My men found him, and he’s confessed it was all arranged by a crew of Albanians associated with Joel Smith and Dominic Billings. The two owe them money, big time.”
“But you don’t know if it was sanctioned by their mob leaders.”
“No.”
That’s what we haven’t been able to find out yet. Even Reeves is hitting walls of his own.
“So, you have a canary that sang,” Don Giorgio says. “Dealt with, without a splash?”
“Yes.”
Pesci took him, broken foot and mangled hand and everything, to an empty field on the outskirts of my territory where he met with a bullet in the head. The body was dismembered on the spot, the blood covered by tilling the earth, and the parts flash-frozen. They’ll be ending up in a vat of lye each later today. Gatling’s partner, a man named Thorsen who stood outside the room the whole time, had his house burned down. Some lucky kid with one of Pesci’s crew as a dad will be coming home to a new pet tonight—Thorsen’s been led to believe his beloved dog died in the blaze; we just reassigned the animal to a more deserving home.
“You have a name?” Don Giorgio asks.
“Cazzo by the name of Berisha. He runs a small-time crew out of The Bronx.”
Don Giorgio sighs. “You know our people are close.”
I do. Even on the Old Continent, the ties between Albania and Italy are still strong, and it’s not a coincidence so many Albanians have settled close to Little Italy in New York. There’s a history of strong kinship between our two people.
“I don’t want a war,” I state.
“I understand. You want your wife back. This is because of that bastardo who fathered her, not because of you.”
So, you can’t go in all gun’s blazing .
I hear it, though I don’t want to. My jaw clenches, and I don’t hide it.
“You think they don’t know who they’re tangling with?”
Are they not aware who Naomi really is, the wife of an Italian-American Mafia Don?
“The news of your confirmation into our ranks hasn’t made so many ripples outside our community yet. So, they might still be living under a rock.” He chuckles at his little joke.
“They’ll find themselves under the rubble soon enough,” I mutter.
The old man sighs and shakes his head. “I’m glad you came to me first. Let me help. Three hours. Can you give me that?”
At this point, three hours won’t make a difference. It’ll still be broad daylight by then, and we can’t strike unless under the cover of darkness to not give away our advantage and lead with the element of surprise.
“What are you going to do, may I ask?”
“I’ll reach out to my contact on the Albanians’ side.”
I can’t help it, chills run down my spine at his words. That shadow government thing I discovered in our syndicate? It appears every mob has one, and the ones at that level of leadership know each other pretty well, like reluctant comrades.
But something else rankles in its wake, and I tense up. “What if your contact informs Berisha of my intent? Naomi could—”
“He won’t.” The old man’s face grows shuttered. “We can’t have a war. No one wants that.”
If this person tells Berisha and Naomi ends up dead, it’ll be all the validation I’d need to scorch them to the very last one. They’ll want to stop that, too…I hope.
Three hours later, it’s my hope that’s validated.
We’re at the Scarsdale house—it’s our HQ at the moment. We need to be able to move fast, and having to travel more than an hour and a half each way just won’t cut it, like if we’d gone back to my home or even the house in Short Hills.
Don Giorgio comes to see me directly after leaving the meeting with his peer in the Albanian mob. Apparently, they also don’t want to see a war erupt, much less with us Italian-Americans, whom they still respect as allies, even though we don’t do business together.
The mention of the name Berisha rang a few alarm bells on the other side, it seems. They weren’t aware he’d taken Naomi, much less the wife of a Don. For the sake of their honor alone, they would’ve handed him over on a silver platter. But it also turns out Berisha is a bit of a loose cannon in their ranks—if they can have him out, they’ll take the deal.
This is how I and my crews end up with everything they have on this guy. Short of painting a target on his building from space, there’s no stone they left unturned.
Pesci starts surveillance on said building within an hour of us landing this intel. Reconnaissance goes in next—one of ours posing as a pizza delivery guy, claiming he got the wrong address. Fuckers inside still took the entire stack of ten extra-large pizzas despite it not being their order. And that’s how we found the cazzo was well-surrounded.
The Albanians, in their report to Don Giorgio, warned him Berisha has a bit of a charismatic yet violent gang leader side to him. Men, especially younger ones, follow him like a pied piper. He walks a fine line between letting them loose as Americanized youngsters while also holding on to respect of the ways of the old world amid some religious drivel thrown in for good measure.
In short, their own mob doesn’t want this kind of daredevil borderline radicalized elements upsetting the natural order of things, and we have their blessing to take these gangster-wannabes down. If we show them it’s a bad idea to mess with our mob in the process, all the better.
Me? I’m just concerned with getting Naomi back, safe and hopefully sound. I have no idea what these figlios di puttana have done to her, and I pray they all die quickly, otherwise they’ll regret the day they were born.