Chapter 18
MATTEO
The meeting with all the men who came here to help me fight Dante Moretti went about as well as it could. Codelli sat grim-faced in the front, eyeing me with murder in his eyes, but by the end he had some helpful suggestions too.
I told them what I told Caputo and the rest earlier. That our first step will be figuring out the lay of the land and that I expect it to take at least a week. Find out who Moretti’s allies are, find out who I can count on to be on our side, and hopefully find some of his weaknesses.
I also told them how much they can expect to be paid for their trouble.
Two hundred and fifty thousand a head. My army consists of forty men, so that’ll put a huge dent in my current wealth.
But I won’t need it where I’m going when all this is done.
And if by some miracle ruin doesn’t cut me down when everything is mine again, then I’ll figure it out when the time comes.
Maybe I’ll just sell it all and Goldie and I can go live in a little cottage on some green Italian island somewhere, far away from everything. If her father’s deadly looks tonight are anything to go by, that’s gonna have to happen for us to have any kind of peace anyway.
And I want peace. In her arms.
Probably too early to hope for that since there’s a war to get through first. But there it is. I’m longing for peace. For the end of worry. The end of hate and darkness. Just peace.
After the meeting, I thought I would get to start enjoying some of that peace with Goldie. She was standing on the balcony, looking like a pretty, golden statue in the sunset and all I wanted was to stand beside her, my arm around her shoulders watching that sunset with her.
But things needed to start moving.
So I gave the instructions and then rode with Caputo to Moretti’s mansion.
It’s been such a short time since I escaped it that a part of my mind felt like I was coming home as we neared it—a home in that deranged sense that my mind started seeing his mansion, while I was his slave, because I had no other home.
And for a while the blackness of realizing that, of remembering my seven years under his boot, wiped out all other thoughts from my mind.
Then I thought about Goldie for a while, remembered the softness of her skin, the sweetness of her lips, the melody of her moans and sighs of pleasure and things were better again.
Moretti’s mansion is a dark, gothic monstrosity that would look more fitting on some giant estate on Long Island than in the Hollywood hills.
It’s a Victorian-style mansion complete with turrets and a facade so overgrown with vines you can’t see its color.
I’m sure it’s all rotted underneath, just like the owner himself.
The brick wall around it is black and rotten in places and the gate in it is new—metal, black and bullet-proof, by the looks of things.
We had tried to storm this house back in the first war and failed.
Badly. While I lived here, I weakened the brick wall in several places to make access—or escape—easier and I don’t think Moretti ever discovered those holes.
But it will be hard storming this house anyway.
And I think that in the end we will have to.
Because Moretti’s a coward. He will hide in there and not come out if things start going badly for him.
Which is probably why it’s best we strike fast and hard, giving him no time to hole up in here.
“Is that a machine gun?” Caputo asks, squinting through his binoculars which he has trained on one of the windows of the foremost turret of the house. “Looks a lot like what the Germans used during D-day.”
I pick up my own binoculars—state of the art things that I’m sure are army-issued. They let me see clearly even in this complete darkness. I’d given Caputo free rein with a large chunk of my money to procure weapons and such for us, and so far it seems he’s not wasting it.
Sure enough, that’s a machine gun on a tripod in one of the open windows of the turrets. But I already knew it would be there. Even though we can’t see them, machine guns just like that one are in all the other turrets too. And several of the upstairs rooms.
“Good luck to us breaching this house,” Caputo says wryly. “Hope it doesn’t come to it.”
“Moretti is a coward,” I say, deciding now’s as good a time as any to have this conversation. “So we might have to go in there to get him.”
I’ll need to let all the men know we might have to storm this mansion sooner rather than later. Because just like a lot of my family members died trying to do exactly that—my brother included—so might a few of them.
“I’ll try to figure out how to attack him that doesn’t involve breaching this house with all of them in there,” I add.
Caputo looks at me sharply, but then nods. “Yes, we should find a way to avoid that.”
“But like I said, he’s a coward,” I say, deciding I might as well drive the point home.
“In the last war, we tried to get in there at the end. And failed. Lost a lot of men. Including my brother Ricardo. It might’ve been the mistake that lost us the war in the end.
So yeah, I’ll do what I can to avoid it. ”
Caputo just looks at me for a few moments, then nods and brings the binoculars back to his face. “I’m sorry about your brother. I lost brothers too. But don’t worry, we’ll get this scaredy fucker.”
From his lips straight into God’s ears.
But I don’t say it, I just stare at the house, trying not to remember what it was like living inside it.
I had a tiny bedroom in the basement. Wasn’t even a bedroom, just an old coal room that smelled so badly of rot and damp that the stench attached itself to my nostrils and I could smell it all the time.
For seven long years. I can still kind of smell it now.
But even remembering that is easier than remembering seeing my brother get shot and then waiting and hoping he’d live. He didn’t.
“Ah, I think they’re on the move,” Caputo says. And sure enough, a few moments later, the sound of car engines breaks the nighttime calmness.
We’ve been observing the house from a small hill across the street from it, partially hidden behind a thorny bush.
They don’t seem to see us now either, as three cars ride through the gate and down the street below the hill we’re on.
Three black Range Rovers with tinted windows, impossible to tell in which of them Moretti is riding.
He liked to switch it up. I used to ride in those Range Rovers all the time—clunky things, can’t get any real speed out of them.
I start the engine of the Lambo once they’re far enough down the road. “Might as well follow, see where he’s going this late at night.”
“And that well protected,” Caputo says and puts the binoculars into the glove compartment.
It turns out to be a short ride. Moretti’s destination is a Gentleman’s Club in the style of those old English places. It’s housed in a non-descript building at the edge of downtown LA and if it weren’t for the valet and the butler in white gloves at the door, you wouldn’t look at it twice.
“The Club,” Caputo says, reading the name carved in wood over the main door. “You know this place?”
I’ve parked across the street, watching Moretti and two guys I’ve never seen entering the club. The bodyguards stay in the Range Rovers.
I nod. “Yeah, my family were all members. And Dante used to bring me here and make me stand at his side while he drank too much whiskey and smoked too many cigars.”
I still remember the pitying looks I’d get from the other members whenever that happened. And I feel the same kind of pity from Caputo now.
“Moretti has a thing for the British Aristocracy. I swear he damn near pisses himself with excitement whenever he sees or hears something about the Royal Family. That’s what the Range Rovers and this place are all about,” I say and turn the car around. “Wanna go in, see who he’s talking to?”
It’s not really a question, and I’m already rolling the car into the valet parking line before Caputo says anything.
“You think it’s a good idea for just the two of us to confront him?” he asks.
“Come on, the two of us can take him and his thugs,” I say and get out of the car, tossing the keys to the valet.
Caputo still looks skeptical as he joins me on the sidewalk.
“I want him to know I’m always near. Make him nervous,” I say. “Truth is, I’m looking for an excuse to have a go at him. I should’ve done it at that restaurant.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Caputo says in his signature toneless way. “But the Codelli woman was right to stop you. We shouldn’t make a move until we have all the pieces in place. And a guaranteed path to victory.”
I still remember the way Goldie stopped me. Touched my arm and extinguished the flame of hate and rage in my chest just like that. I wish she were touching me now. Because once we get in there, I just might do something I’m gonna regret.
“You can be the one to stop me tonight,” I say and grin at him. Then I ascend the steps to the entrance.
The elderly porter, John something or other, remembers me very clearly. He glances back after Moretti, then sees the ring on my pinky and his whole expressions changes. From confusion to respect. He’s a professional, no two ways about that.
“I’m no longer with Moretti’s party,” I tell him. “Do you think we could find a jacket for my friend.”
I’m in a suit, but Caputo is wearing black fatigues and they’re very strict about the dress code in here.
“Oh, it’s that kind of place,” he mutters, while John happily replies that it will not be a problem while he holds the door open for us.
As soon as we’re inside, another man in a butler’s uniform—white gloves, red jacket with a strip of gold and black pants with same—holds out a black dinner jacket for Caputo to put on. He grumbles but does it.