CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Achilles
“You’re my secret half brother?” I pushed off him, up on my feet in a flash.
He stood and picked up his mask, then shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans. He threaded his fingers into his shaggy heap of hair, tugging. He looked like a lot of things—angry, annoyed, in pain from his swelling fucking collarbone.
What he didn’t look was like my half brother.
Other than our skin tone—mine a few shades darker than his—we looked nothing alike.
“Yeah,” he said around thickness in his throat. “That’s me.”
“Not another word.” I held up a finger. “I’m calling my brothers.”
I wasn’t in the mood to recite all this bullshit to Luca and Enzo. We needed to sort out this mess together.
Luca and Enzo arrived at Fermanagh’s twenty minutes later. I thought about chaining Hale to something before realizing there was no need to. He wasn’t going anywhere. He’d kept his identity secret until now because it served a purpose. With Vello practically dead, that purpose was gone.
“All right.” Enzo rubbed his hands together. “I’m ready for my Jerry Springer moment. Who’s announcing the DNA results? Tiernan?”
“Sit down and shut up.” Luca smacked the back of our baby brother’s neck.
My older brother took one look at Tristan and I immediately saw the displeasure on his features. Tristan was simply more competition.
“How old are you?” Luca demanded.
“Thirty-three.”
“A year younger than Luca.” Enzo poured himself a whiskey with a groan. “Good to know. Dad was in his dipping his dick in whatever moved era.”
“Who’s your mother?”
“Name’s Rita.” Hale looked calm and composed.
Tiernan slid a glass of water in his direction, and he reached to take a sip.
Suddenly, he looked unbearably young. I once again was reminded that the allure of the faceless and unknown often hid something painfully ordinary. “She was a hooker from Philly.”
“How’d it happen?” Luca demanded. “Vello’s always been careful with his whores.”
“He enjoyed this one just a bit too much,” Hale said aloofly. “And by the time I was born, it was too late. Rita died of an overdose a few years later, and I was sent to be raised in a village in Georgia, with Vello checking in a few times a year.”
“Georgia as in the state?” Enzo asked.
“Georgia as in the Caucasus region of the Black Sea.”
The three of us exchanged looks. That sounded exactly like something Vello would do.
“And your accent?” Luca asked.
“Fake,” Tristan Hale spat out. “Just like my Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Romanian. I can adapt almost every accent if need be.” He said all of this in perfect Neapolitan-accented Italian.
Luca scratched his jaw, one hand on his waist. “What’s your real name?”
“First, tell me what you intend to do with me.”
“Bold of you to assume what’s happening here are negotiations.”
“You’re safe,” Enzo cut in, giving Luca a chiding glare. “You’re a Ferrante. We take care of our own.”
“I saw how you took care of our father.” His voice caught again.
Jesus. Did he really love Vello? In a way the three of us never could?
“Vello overstepped,” I said slowly. “As long as you do not betray us, you’re safe.”
“Gurgen.” He pressed his lips together, staring at the floor. “Gurgen Ferrante.”
“Why’d you come yesterday?” I boomeranged a pack of cigarettes his way. I felt bad for the boy. He was obviously mourning our father, something none of my brothers, me included, was capable of.
He didn’t touch the cigarettes, but his scowl cleared, somewhat. “I hadn’t heard from Dad in a while. I thought he was mad at me for what happened with the Irish girl. I wanted…” He swallowed. “I wanted to see what was going on for myself. And something else was bothering me.”
“We’ll get to that something in just a moment.” I held up a finger. “First, why did you spare Tierney?”
He lifted his gaze to mine, malevolence burning in his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious?” He smirked. “She’s your Achilles’ heel. Your weakness. She’d have been no good to me dead. But alive? She’s damn useful. She took you out of the race. You chose her over the kingdom.
“For as long as she is alive, you can never be don. I wanted to hurt her just enough to put her in your care—to knock you off the pathway to becoming the don—without actually eliminating her from the game.”
“From the game?” Luca bared his teeth.
“Our chess game, of course.” Our half brother sprawled back in his seat. “I’m sure you’ve seen it on our father’s desk. He’d been sending me a picture with his weekly progress since I was in diapers. It is a telltale sign of who he sees as his successor.”
We did.
We just didn’t know who he’d assigned to what piece.
We’d had our speculations, of course. We’d watched him move the pieces along the years as he played against himself.
We deduced Enzo might be a rook and Luca a king.
Hale, however, knew with certainty who each of us was.
Who he was.
None of us had the stomach to ask him.
“Fine.” Luca extinguished his cigarette in an ashtray, smoke skulking out of his mouth as he spoke. “You’re here, and you’re Vello’s son. What the fuck do you want now?”
“What I’ve been promised.” Tristan opened his arms wide. “The throne.”
“The throne?” Luca repeated dully.
“That’s what Vello had in store for me. He did call me his golden boy.”
“Golden or not, you’re a by-blow. An accident.” Luca was direct but calm. We all knew that if push came to shove, we’d get rid of the little fucker in no time. “As legitimate as a three-dollar bill. No one in the Camorra will take you seriously.”
“And yet here you were, chasing me halfway across the world.” Hale seemed unfazed by the truth bomb that had just exploded in the room.
“I can’t believe you’re almost Luca’s age.” Enzo bristled. “That bastard Vello was busy.” He tapped his lip, mulling this over. “We could’ve been raised together. We could’ve had fun. These two fuckers are such party poopers.”
Tristan flashed him a disinterested look. “Sorry. I was busy becoming a killing machine to pay my way through life.”
“Yeah, man.” Enzo tossed gum into his mouth, handing him a piece as well. “Because I was out here living my best life as an inspiring fashion influencer. What do you think we’ve all been doing?”
“If your plan is to infiltrate the Camorra, you’ll have to start from the bottom,” I said, steering the conversation back to topic. “You’re not going to cut any corners just because you’re Tristan Hale or because Don Vello couldn’t keep it in his pants.”
Tristan shook his head. “You’ll carve me a role fitting for my talents and expertise. You don’t take a trained assassin and have him collect protection money from laundromats.”
Luca and I exchanged looks.
“We cannot afford to pay you what you’re used to for your work,” Luca clarified.
“That’s fine because I don’t intend to quit my day job,” Hale drawled. “But I want in on the operation. And I want to see Vello for myself.”
“I guess we can always use another pair of hands.” Enzo shrugged.
“You can see Vello, supervised,” Luca said. “We’ll want a DNA test, though.”
“Be my guest.”
“And we want your details. Address. Real paperwork,” I listed. “A direct line to you.”
“I don’t give those out, but you can have my direct phone number. That’s more than I offer anyone.” Tristan stood up. “Anything else?”
“Yeah.” Enzo stepped in his direction. “Welcome to the fam, motherfucker.” He threw his arms around him in a big bear hug.
Tristan just stood there, unimpressed. Much like Luca and myself. Why was Enzo always so goddamn sweet and kind? It was becoming a real issue.
“If you need anything, you give me a call.” Enzo disconnected from him, punching his chest lightly.
“You can start by escorting him out,” I said. It was time to wrap this shit up. Tierney was waiting for me at home, and this had taken longer than I’d anticipated. “We’ll be in touch, Hale.”
When Enzo and Tristan were out of the room, Luca turned to me.
“Can he be trusted?”
I shrugged. “Can anyone?”
“He seems like bad news.”
“We don’t have much choice in the matter,” I said pragmatically. “If he is Vello’s—and you and I both know that he probably is—he can stir up a lot of shit if he works against us. Blow up this secret, recruit an army, go against us. He has the capital and the charisma. Best to keep him close.”
Grabbing my shit from Tiernan’s desk, I turned around and headed to the door. Luca shot a hand in my direction, wrapping it around my arm.
I swiveled my face to him.
“He wants to become don.”
“He can only dream about it,” I assured him.
“If he tries…” Luca trailed off.
“We take him down,” I said, not missing a beat. “And we make an example out of him.”
That didn’t mean I was handing Luca the title, though.
Fuck that.
A few months ago, I’d screwed up. But I’d paid a hefty price for it. In the meantime, Luca had managed to fuck shit up by inviting a goddamn fed into our club, letting his wife screw the help, and dropping the ball.
Being don was no longer my chief objective, but if it played into my hands, I damn well wasn’t going to hand it over to him.
“Oh, by the way.” I snapped my fingers. “How’d it go with Tom Rothwell?”
“Working on it.”
“You think he’ll turn?”
“I think something about us piqued his interest.” He rolled the sleeves of his dress shirt up to his elbows, leaning against the desk. “And if I can’t turn him, I’ll eliminate him.”
Whatever Agent Rothwell was after, he was going to need to pry it out of the Camorra’s cold, dead hands.