Chapter 1 #2
So I study their faces, the curve of their jaws, the way Narciso shoves his hands in his pockets and smirks like the world owes him a favour.
Matteo glances behind them once, hand instinctively resting on his son’s back, guiding him like he still believes he can protect him.
I roll my neck and exhale slowly. I could end them both. Right here. Right now. Pop pop. One breath.
And yet… I hesitate.
Will it feel different once it’s done? Will the ache inside me dim, the ghost of my mother’s final screams quiet? Or will I just be another man who traded one corpse for another?
I should feel rage. Fire. Triumph, even.
But all I feel is the soft breeze on my face and the slight sting of memory behind my eyes. Killing a Mancinelli will settle the score. But will it ever make the silence less loud?
For fuck’s sake. Who the fuck cares about the storm of silence?
Breathe in. Out. Blink away the peppering stings behind my eyes.
For you, Mama. I hope you’ll rest peacefully after this.
I settle the crosshairs on Narciso, but again I hesitate. Think about the son I was to my mother.
Out of the five children she birthed, I’m the only one she gave her brown eyes to. The only one she shared her talents of cooking with.
So yes, I’m fucking special. She told me every day and I wore that shit with pride.
So fuck a treasure for a treasure.
And if one death doesn’t appease, I’ll spree my way through the whole clan, wipe them off the face of the earth.
They spilled precious blood. They took my mother. Now I take the baby of the family. And one of the remaining siblings? Why the hell not.
An eye for two. A tongue. A hand. A heart. I’m not fussy.
Maddelena’s a Salvatore now and therefore off limits.
There was a silent rule about old women and children. El Topo broke that when he killed my mother.
Every Christmas I stare at the empty seat she’ll never again occupy. The kitchen haunted by the echoes of her happy humming and deep laughter as she made my favourite meal while I told her dirty jokes.
It’d been no less painful when we remained in the dark about who killed her.
Now we know.
I’m the Enforcer, the necessary hand of Salvatore justice. Tonight I’m bringing vengeance that’s as inevitable as breathing.
The fallout will need careful handling, of course. Maddie would be upset. But she’ll have Cesare to comfort her.
But better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?
And who comforted me when Mama died? In a house full of hard men she was our soft centre, a soft place to land.
A warm hug and a hot meal. The customary ribbing about when I’d give her grandkids. My solemn promise that I would start actively working on it… next week. The squint of her faintly wrinkled eyes before she kissed my crown and pressed second helpings on me. El Topo ripped it all away.
I never even got to hear her last words.
And that, perhaps most of all, is what flays my insides when I think of her loss.
It’s what Giada Mancinelli, the sister I’ve been unable to locate, is keeping from me.
The one who holds the last piece of the puzzle surrounding my mother’s death. Including her last words.
Last year when Maddie told me she didn’t know her third youngest sister’s location, I’d believed she was covering for her family, protecting Giada from my righteous wrath. They still could be.
So regardless of what happens here tonight, who I kill, my hunt for her can’t stop. Won’t stop.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I grimace. I silenced it but didn’t turn it off.
Rookie mistake that’s very unlike me. Sliding my hand into my pocket, I correct that error. I know who it is.
Cesare. Calling to check up on me.
Not out of some protective mother-hen routine gone overboard, but because of the bullshit promise he’d made to his new wife about peace-making.
We’d all barely recovered from discovering that he’d gone over to the dark side. Fuck was I going to honour some vow he’d made because he was eyeballs deep in his feelings.
He’s forgotten that I, too, had made a vow. As I stared down into Mama’s beautiful, lifeless face.
I’d vowed to bring her killer to a very gruesome end. No way was I going to renege on that.
Purpose reaffirmed, I let out a slow breath. I’ve pissed around long enough with which way to go with this.
Both, I decide.
A bullet to the old man’s spine. Keep him alive but take away his mobility, his joie de fucking vivre long enough for him to watch me take down a couple more of his brood before I finish him off.
Three? Four? How many bullets would it take to salve the gaping wound in my chest? Innumerable, I suspect. But this is a start. A solid target instead of the blanket retribution my brothers and I had rained down on the city six years ago.
Five minutes from now I’ll light up my cigar and feel the brief glow of warmth. It’s my first vice. Well, maybe my only. Pussy really isn’t a vice since it doesn’t rot your lungs.
It might rot other parts for other men, but I keep my choice prime.
I take an imaginary deep pull and grin in the dark. Feel the smoke swirl in my lungs.
Just as the cold butt of a silencer kisses the space behind my right ear.
Okay.
Well, shit. This just got interesting.