41. Adriano
Adriano
I ’ve never felt this content before in my life.
I didn’t know people could walk around the world feeling like this.
Like nothing is wrong. Everything is settled. All my problems, stresses, anxieties, all of those are just temporary things. They’ll get figured out eventually.
The weight’s gone. I didn’t even know it had been there. But after my conversation with Lucy in my dad’s old suite—and the mind-blowing sex that followed—I finally feel like I don’t have to hold on to that baggage anymore.
I can let go of my mourning. I can stop obsessing over what might happen and be happy I’m here right now with her.
But I’m still Don Marino, and that means I have to shove this Zen shit away and focus.
“I’ve been studying his movements,” Luca says, turning his laptop around on my desk to face me.
He leans forward in the chair and points at a big map of the city covered in overlapping red lines.
Richard’s car over the last few days. “There are lots of repeat visits. I’ve got guys confirming the clients he’s seeing.
But there’s one place that we can’t figure out. ” He zooms in closer and shows me.
It’s the Main Line. That’s a section outside of Philly extending northwest into the suburbs.
All the richest folks in the region live in the Main Line, especially the old money families.
The railroad used to go that way, and when the city got too crowded, the millionaires built their mansions far away from the working man.
Luca shows me a particular house. It’s in a neighborhood in Wynnewood. On street view, it looks like a bunch of stone-facade colonials. A quiet place, lots of space, lots of green. There’s a porch with big windows and a gable with ivy growing up the side.
“Doesn’t look like much,” I comment.
“This house is probably worth over a million.” He shakes his head, disgusted. “The fucking market’s a racket.”
“You think Demir’s there?”
“Based on property records, that place is owned by a corporation called Meadows Investments. Vittorio and I followed the leads, and I’m reasonably sure Meadows Investments is a shell company owned by Gray Wolf.”
“Reasonably sure isn’t sure enough. We need absolute certainty.”
“Then you’re in luck because Richard’s scheduled to be out there tonight.”
“He’s making evening house calls?”
“More like midnight house calls.” Luca grins at me and snaps his laptop shut. “Told you, it’s fucking him .”
I lean back, blood-covered wheels in my brain spinning along.
It’s like a whole different world. These suburbs are old and affluent. They’re totally different from the close-packed South Philly streets I call my home. This place is fucking quiet. I hear goddamn crickets chirping. There are stars in the damn sky.
I hate it.
“He’s been in there an hour,” Luca says, glowering through the windshield. “What the fuck are they talking about?”
“Probably discussing the millions of dollars’ worth of art we’ve destroyed.”
“Well, he needs to hurry up.”
“What are you so impatient about?”
Luca smirks slightly and glances at his phone. “I’ve got a girl waiting back at my place.”
My eyebrows raise. “A woman lets you touch her?”
“You’d be surprised how often that happens.”
“I’d rather not know.”
“But if this fucker doesn’t hurry up, she’ll be asleep when I get back.” He sighs, shaking his head. “She’s no good when you wake her up, either.”
“Sounds like a problem you should keep to yourself.”
“Probably.”
I try not to smile. Ever since I made Luca one of my Capos, he’s been opening up more and more. When I first took him on, he was just one of my cousins, Carmie’s older brother, strong and clever, but still untested. Now, though, he’s coming into his own. I’m almost proud of him.
After another ten minutes of waiting, Richard finally appears. He seems haggard and paranoid, looking around like he might spot a tail as he climbs into his BMW. The lights turn on, and he sits in the driveway for a minute before finally pulling out.
I start the truck’s engine but leave the lights off.
Luca says nothing. He’s completely locked in.
I drive forward, following Richard, slowly inching closer and closer as we roll through a gorgeously manicured neighborhood.
We’re moving downhill—the rich fucks literally live above everyone else like they’re lords or something—and up ahead is an intersection, totally black, no streetlights around.
One corner is a big lawn; another is dense shrubbery.
“Here,” I say quietly.
Luca grabs onto the handle above the door.
The engine guns. I turn on my headlights and speed forward. If Richard knows what’s coming, he doesn’t have time to react. He tries to turn left, the exact wrong thing to do.
We barrel straight into his car, ramming it hard enough to rattle my fucking teeth. If this truck has an airbag, it’d deploy about now. But instead, the front’s been reinforced with special steel like a damn battering ram, and it tears into Richard’s car like paper.
The BMW tips onto its side. I push it a few feet more, right up to the curb, before slamming on the brakes. Richard’s car skids a few more feet before coming to a stop.
I turn off the truck’s lights and kill the engine.
“That went surprisingly well,” Luca says, grinning widely. “We gotta do that again.”
“Another time.” I check my gun and open the door. “Business first.”
Poor Richard is trapped in the driver’s seat.
His head is bleeding. The airbag’s in his face.
He’s weakly struggling against it, his seatbelt keeping him pinned in place.
I reach down and grab him by the shirt, dragging him free and yanking him up through the shattered window.
Glass cuts his arms, and he moans in agony as I roughly dump him onto the pavement.
“What’s going on?” he says, blinking up at me. “What happened?”
“You had an accident, Richard.” I crouch down beside him. Luca remains standing and alert for any bystanders. The night is deadly quiet. “A very, very bad accident.”
“Oh, God,” he whispers as his eyes focus on me.
“Sorry, but he’s busy.”
I hit him hard with the barrel of my gun. It breaks open a fresh gash on his forehead as he crumples back to the ground. I watch him as he struggles to right himself, crying now. “Please, Don Marino. Please, I’m just a lawyer.”
“Now you learn your fucking manners.” I raise my gun again, and he flinches. I lower it slowly. “Who were you meeting with back in that house?”
“I can’t,” he whispers, fear on every inch of him. “You don’t know what they’d do to me.”
“They won’t do a damn thing because you’ll already be dead. Tell me who you were meeting with.”
He sobs, closing his eyes. “You can’t do this. I have friends. I have clients and connections?—”
“And none of them are here with you right now.” I jab the gun against his head. “I am, though. Tell me.”
The terror in his eyes is absolutely delicious. “Don’t make me.”
“Last chance.”
“It’s Demir.” He moans, wincing away. “It’s Demir!”
“There you go.” I lightly pat him with the end of the gun and stand.
“I won’t talk,” he says quickly, trying to drag himself away. “I won’t say a word. I got hit by a drunk driver. He drove away. Please, Don Marino. I’m just a lawyer!”
“That’s right. You are just a lawyer. And if your wife wasn’t such a bitch to mine, I might even let you live.” I raise the gun and aim it. “Too bad you married such a piece of shit.”
“Wait!”
I pull the trigger. Richard’s skull shatters like any other, his brains misting to pink against the pavement. For all his wealth, he died like gutter scum, like everyone else.
“We should go,” Luca says, heading back to the truck.
I hesitate another moment. The night around here is too quiet. I put another bullet in Richard’s chest, just to be sure.
“You really should’ve been polite,” I tell his corpse.