25. At the meeting
CORRADO
25
Smoke from six cigars lingers in the dimly lit dining room even though the workers installed Vegas hotel-style air venting systems when they built our vacation home right outside the city.
I stub out my cigar and take a sip of my seventh espresso, which tastes like rubber by now. I’m caffeinated enough for the day. I’ve had it with everything today, and if I were Franko Monelli, I’d stop itching behind my ear and the side of my neck because it’s starting to make me want to scratch too.
In fact, if I were a disloyal SOB like Franko, I wouldn’t have come to this meeting at all. The fact he’s sitting at the table refusing to accept the severance deal tells me his ego runs his life. Either that, or he thinks I care that he’s made a potentially profitable alliance with a family from Chicago.
It’s a little too late to bring money into the bank. The decision has been made. The Monellis are out, and he’ll be lucky if I offer him a generous severance package at all.
I check my watch. It’s nearly eight, the time I normally quit working. These extenuating circumstances with problems I didn’t need require longer hours. This is why I decided I’ll deal with the Franko problem as swiftly as possible. I don’t have time for his sorry excuses or whatever leverage he thinks he can use to stay in the Order after going behind my back.
When I slapped him and threw him out the first time, I spared his life. He turned around and put it on the line again. Fine. I won’t show mercy again. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. After sitting in the room for seven hours watching a cock fight between two Italian families that have been enemies longer than I’ve been alive. I’ve lost patience.
Yet, I allow it. When their tempers flare, they start airing out their differences in front of me, and I hear firsthand about all the ways they’ve sabotaged each other over the past few years. Some of the ways affect our collective income and security.
Besides, I’m getting to know a new face, an heir to the Benvenuti family since Dominico sent his son. Clearly, Domenico Senior is smarter than Franko. Hence, the Benvenutis stay in the Order.
Dom’s (junior, not senior) even temper surprises me. Sitting across from him, Franko has challenged him several times, once even waving his gun at the man, who remained sitting, speaking calmly and evenly, impressing me with his self-control.
I’m sure Franko’s threats haven’t gone unnoticed, but one should never mistake a man who can control his responses for a coward. Franko believes Dom is too scared to answer, and he’s even made fun of him, saying he needs Daddy’s approval to make decisions. But I can tell Dom is anything but scared. He’s allowing a clown to be a clown.
Dom will have the honor of delivering the severance package to Franko Monelli’s immediate family once he disposes of Franko and any other resistance loyal only to Franko. This means Isabella too. She’s threatened my wife, and I must deal with her before Michela invites Isabella to coffee, thinking the two of them can work it out.
Since I want to get out of here, Franko’s lack of apology for manipulating me into coming to New York and his constant blaming of others for his failures irks me. Maybe my wavering patience has more to do with wanting to see my wife in my apartment tonight than with dealing with Franko’s crap, but whatever it is, I’m done.
While Franko yaps, I grab my Walther and slide it across the table to Dom, who picks it up and aims. The force of the impact flips Monelli’s chair, and, along with his body, it crashes to the floor. The other men at the table freeze, looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
I haven’t. I was just done with Franko, and now they fear they’re next.
Without missing a beat, Dom inspects my weapon before offering it back in the palm of his large hand. “Nice piece.”
“Keep it. It’s not mine, and I was never here.”
Brown eyes narrow for a moment, and Dom smirks. “Thanks.”
Nodding, I turn to the other three members at the table. Two are senators who would have rather not witnessed Franko’s execution, but seeing as how Franko brought two of them, I needed leverage. A single whisper of this would cost them their state seats. Besides, one of them is about to face the same fate as Franko.
My friend Chef Tanaka serves the chosen senator a little red cup. The liquid appears to be Japanese sake. It’s not, and everyone knows it.
The senator sweats as he looks down at it. It’s up to him if he will drink the poison. If he drinks it, his family will receive a generous severance package. If not, they’ll never find his body, and the Order will vote against saving the memory of his honorable public servant career, which means the family might even get left out of government benefits.
During the meeting, I found out the senator was the link between Franko and the Chicago crime family we’re unassociated with. All business outside the Order needs vetting, and neither Franko nor the senator vetted the Chicago folks. First time I ever heard about them.
Greed turns on a man if a man isn’t careful. The senator wasn’t careful.
While he’s staring at the cup, sweating, trying to figure out if walking away is a better option, I rise and go to the window. The rustic hardwood floors of my mountain retreat right outside the city creak under the soles of my shoes.
With the cool wind swaying the evergreens that serve as a fence around the home and the dusk turning into night, the scene appears tranquil, interrupted only by the choking sounds of the senator, who drank the sake.
Round one of the eliminations is complete.
I open the window and inhale the fresh air.
The wind blows inside, replacing the stale air of cigars and desperation as the other two senators wonder about their fate.
Dom approaches and slides his hands into his pockets. “I heard you had words with my dad the other night.”
“I did.”
“You know who the girl was?” he asks.
“Which girl?”
“The one dining with my father.”
I shake my head. “No clue.”
“My little brother’s girlfriend.”
I sense a story, so I turn toward him, and he faces me.
“You know what he did with her?” Dom asks.
I shake my head.
“You sure?”
I smile. “Careful.”
Dom puts a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. “We can’t find her.”
“Do you need help finding her?”
“I need to know if you gave me your gun for a reason that has something to do with my dad looking at your wife.”
“You are perceptive.”
“Did you?”
“I only want his eyes,” I tell him. “And not only for looking at my wife.” Although primarily for that.
“But you wouldn’t object to attending his funeral.”
I scrub my jaw. “He’s good for Order business.”
“I’m better.”
I chuckle. “You’ll have to give me more than that for what you’re asking.” He’s asking me to approve a hit on his father, but taking out the head of yet another Italian crime family will upset other serving families, not only the Italian ones. They’ll demand answers, and while my family isn’t obligated to answer, it does when asked.
Going around eliminating people for petty reasons will cause uncertainty and fear within our Body. Asking for Dominico’s eyes is pushing it as is.
“He’s trafficking,” Dom says.
“Trafficking what?”
“People.”
“What?” I hiss and step closer.
Dom nods.
“How long has this been going on?”
“At least two years, maybe more.”
“And how long have you known?”
“For sure that it was him…about three months.”
I step back. “You should’ve reported it.”
“Had to be sure.”
“And now you are?”
He jerks his head in a nod. “The other two idiots at the table are in on it. They’re passing a law with a large funding bill that’ll end up in the hands of traffickers who live in a place where corruption runs from the top. Their president is in on it. Everyone.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I tapped my father’s phone.”
Tapping the head of your family’s phone is a death sentence. “Is he not speaking on secure channels?” If he’s speaking about this openly, I’ll end him myself.
“He is, but his money bought me a top-notch education at the best tech school in the country, so I got physical with his equipment until I tapped it.”
“Who else can do what you did to his phone?”
“Not many, and they’d need time and access to him.”
“Is the information you have safe?”
“For now, but they’re getting bolder, counting on the Order’s secrecy and protection to keep the ring moving the merch.”
“You’re telling me they’re using our resources for a business the Head knows nothing about?”
“Indirectly. The people are moved alongside other products or deals. It’s a smart backdoor operation that nobody’s heard of.”
“Your dad isn’t that smart.”
“He’s just a player, which is why I’m bringing it to you. You can find the mastermind. My brother wants his girlfriend back.”
This must have something to do with the legislation Evans is poking around about, which means I need more information from Evans before I can okay Dom Junior’s hit on Dom Senior.
“I’ll have an answer for you by tomorrow night,” I tell him.
“I need it now.”
I smile. “Did you not hear what I said?”
Dom turns on his boot heel and pauses. “I heard you. Tomorrow night.”
After the meeting, Tanaka called Hank to help with the cleanup, which meant my ride would stay at the house for a while longer, presumably well into the night. I want to get home to my wife and see what she’s been up to because I have this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me my wife has been up to no good.
Beneath the weekend house, the parking garage sensors make popping sounds as they light up the space housing seven vehicles and three motorcycles. At the top of the stairs, I survey the garage, my gaze falling on Severio’s Harley Davidson motorcycle.
When he first bought it, I thought it didn’t fit him and wasn’t his style, but when he shed the suit in favor of jeans and a leather jacket along with boots and fired up the engine, the serene look on his face made me think Severio was born to ride.
The sleek black sports bike next to it? That one’s mine. From the closet downstairs, I grab a leather jacket, gloves, and my sister’s helmet. As I rev the engine, my blood starts pumping in anticipation of the ride into the city.
I secure a smaller helmet in the back, then don mine, and the second the garage door allows the bike through, I gas it, ducking under the still-opening garage door, in a hurry to get home to my wife.
I chuckle under my breath.
My wife.