30. Nico
NICO
“Repeat after me: If I betray my Family, may my soul burn in hell like this saint.”
I hold up a photo of Saint Michael, my trigger finger slick with blood, drops of it sliding down the image.
Salvatore’s face flares as he lights a match and tips it to the edge of the photo.
Saint Michael catches fire.
“If I betray my family,” I intone, “may my soul burn in hell like this saint.”
Rain dumps onto the sidewalk around me, curtaining me off from the rest of the world.
A man holding an umbrella jogs across the street to me, stopping at my side. Water pools at our feet. Far away, thunder crashes.
“We got everything,” the man says.
My fingers are cold. Hot, fresh sandwiches are being delivered to Valeria soon, and if I’m fortunate, I’ll be able to meet her home in time to eat dinner with her, though she hasn’t had much of an appetite this close to the wedding. She needs to eat. She needs to keep her strength up.
“Next time the pakhan needs a favor, let him know I’m his soyuznik,” I say, using the Russian term for ally.
“He will be pleased to hear this,” the man assures me. “We will keep in touch.”
The man and I part ways.
The Russians have been understandably on edge.
Salvatore told me Giovanni had been sending Stefano into their territory, fucking with shipments, threatening their families and businesses.
And with the wave of Italians coming to celebrate Valeria’s and my wedding, the city is a massive pyre doused in gasoline.
But Stefano was sent away.
Giovanni is on bedrest.
And my father is in New York until the wedding.
Where strife is sowed, a man looks for allies.
After liquidating the entirety of the Aceto fortune and gifting it to the pakhan—ensuring that Stefano won’t ever be able to access another penny—the Russian leader has found himself a new ally, and I’ve found another layer of protection to wrap around my wife and myself.
My father’s eyes, after I shot his right-hand man, burned with anger, but also something more.
Fear.
He’ll learn soon enough—he was right to fear me.