Chapter 2
Luca
GIVEN MY RECENT choices, there was every reason to believe I’d have a violent end. But I wasn’t afraid of dying, and I didn’t gain much enjoyment from living.
The pounding bass of Nine Inch Nails’ Closer didn’t stir my cold heart, nor did the stripper’s tits, or her lush body. She danced with moves seen on the Vegas strip, not a corner street club in the Bronx.
I leaned into my stool for a better look, notching my chin when her brown eyes met mine.
She gyrated closer, crouching with spread knees, which changed my view.
Still, my pulse thrummed slowly even when I slipped a fifty under her threadbare G-string, and when she licked her lips in what seemed like an invitation.
The guy on my right swayed, barely holding a bottle to his mouth.
He smiled at the girl in her yellow wig, yellow like sunshine—brighter than the pulsing beams painting her skin in an unnatural glow.
The drunk guy’s hand darted out, grabbing her ass cheek, and a thrill shot through my veins.
My fist connected with his flesh in a flash of the purple lights.
He howled, cupping his nose and wailing louder than the music.
Damian had him a second later, shoving him by the collar to a bouncer. With my drink, I reclined again, twirling my finger so Sunshine would resume dancing. She did with a bloodthirsty grin, but I wasn’t in the mood to fuck. I had a job on my mind.
“He’s late,” Damian said in my ear as he settled into the stool on my left. “I don’t like late.”
“You don’t like anything or anyone, mio amico (my friend). Relax.”
“Relax? Have you seen this fucking place? The girls were treated better in that shithole outside of Doha. I think I have ticks.” He feigned picking a bug from the shoulder of his jacket, flicking it to the floor. “Filthy fucking joint.”
“Give it another five minutes.” My gaze swung from Damian to Sunshine, then to the bouncer guarding the entrance. “He’ll be here.”
“You’re sure about this?”
Was I sure of anything? No, but signing on with the Cabellos was one of those choices, and it took us from Coronado to the Majestic—an opportunity to transition from the military into a paying job.
I never told Damian it was legal. Or safe.
But after our last deployment, the mafia was vaudeville, singing and dancing and sidestepping the law.
Simple. Truth be told, it was our only next step. The world held few options for killers.
Besides, we were past the time to second guess the decision.
Eddy burst through the door. The same guy who approached us three weeks ago at Clover, a dive bar with a history dating back to prohibition and a gathering place for the Cosa Nostra.
That conversation led to a proposition, and here we are.
Tonight, Eddy was working. Black suit. Black hair.
The bouncing lights reflected from his sunglasses and his severe expression.
Without a greeting, he jerked his chin, motioning for us to follow him to the alley.
The sun had long since fallen, leaving behind a faint breeze—a mercy for a sweltering night and the putrid stench of the dumpster just outside the door.
Beside a Range Rover, three goons waited on us, all dressed the same as the first. I had the tallest of the trio by four inches, and he puffed his chest, as if his width could make up for my height.
“Jimmy DeMarco.”
I didn’t need his name. I wouldn’t enter into any kind of agreement without knowing exactly who’s in front of me. This man was cocky and pretentious. He made hasty decisions and took rash action—a pit bull, and Vigo Cabello’s security lead since I was an altar boy. A good assassin.
I was better.
“Luca Mancini.” I accepted his offered hand.
“A ghost in the flesh,” he said, sniffing, as if I were the shit stinking up the alley. His eyes blinked to Damian’s before returning to mine. “Your background checked out. SEALs, huh? You think you’ll like working in the underworld better?”
“Is this an interview?”
He chuckled. “Nah. But see—this deed is as good as speaking the omertà. Capisce?”
“Do I understand there is no turning back from this moment? Or do you mean from when your boy Eddy, here, approached us at Clover? As soon as he spoke words about the family, we were committed.”
“Then you do understand.”
“Consider the job done.”
He nodded, pulling an envelope from his inner jacket pocket and then handing it over. “This is all you need to know. Don’t ask questions, kid. That’s the best advice I got for you. Make the hit and get out. Go it?”
“Yeah.”
“Buono. We’ll be in touch.”
One by one they filed into the SUV. Eddy pounded me between the shoulder blades, then opened the back of the Rover.
He withdrew a case that made my fingers tingle.
The trunk slammed. A second later, the weapon transitioned to my hand, and I was whole for the first time since turning in my guns in Coronado.
“Good luck, man. I’ll see you at the compound.” He pounded again before following the other goons into the truck. They sped off as I read through the information, then handed it to Damian.
“You’re driving.”
Our vehicle was not nearly as nice as the Cabellos, and it smelled a little too reminiscent of the dumpster.
But my focus was on the job that started at a high-rise in Brooklyn, as nice as the strip joint was seedy.
We parked a block away where a streetlight was dead, using shadows to mask our walk along the alley.
Scaffolding told us we had reached our destination, the top floors of the complex conveniently under construction.
Damian picked the security lock before the cockroaches could scurry, and thirty flights later, we hit the roof with sweat on our brows and exhilaration zipping over my skin.
Tar squelched underfoot, softened from the summer heat.
Glock in hand, Damian circled the perimeter. He nodded an all clear and then stood sentry by the only door. I opened the case, blinking over the McMillan 339 inside.
A sharpshooter’s weapon.
My weapon.
With practiced precision, I set the stand and the sight, then lay beside it with my suit coat fanned out beneath me. A new uniform for a new future.
Damian lit a smoke. The steady drag of his inhales kept the time. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, my life’s blood pounding in my ears. Somewhere in the night, the shrill pitch of a phone broke through the tempo. Right on time. Four streets over, a lamp lit a tiny window.
My finger itched. I bent the tension from the knuckle, my fixed stare never leaving the target.
“You pull that trigger and you’re no longer the hero.”
Was I ever? Damian’s whispered words shot me back to Ravenna and to Father Bernardi’s watery eyes. “One day you’ll learn to solve conflict without your hands or a weapon.”
That day had never come. Not overseas, where I had countless kills in the name of the United States of America.
Was I the good guy then? In combat, you did what was needed to survive and overcome.
The marked men were more depraved than I was, and this one was no different.
His crime was living, and I was his sentence.
Working for the Cabellos would pacify my monster. I was comfortable with the fight. If he knew the truth, Damian would understand. So would Father Bernardi. God, on the other hand?
Four streets over, a shadow breached the corner of the window. Then a man. My finger slipped into place, and I gave Damian my only truth.
“Sometimes a hero is born the villain.”
I pulled the trigger, then exhaled long and slow. Years ago, I’d made a deal with the devil—there was no hope to save my soul.