27. — hold it.
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Staten Island, New York
Nico, Gallo Estate
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“Cars are starting to land,” came a familiar voice from behind Nico.
He turned, finding Salvatore. “Let me guess, Big Mike showed up first?”
“Good guess—but no, it’s the Maine family. Between them and Vegas, those’ll be the easiest. Perhaps wary, given the state of things recently, but that can’t be helped.”
“And Big Mike.”
“He’s got a good reason, doesn’t he?” Salvatore returned, standing in the doorway of the study while he fixed a cufflink on his left wrist. “Now that he’s got all that territory from Carcoli. A pretty good deal for him, considering everything.”
“Yeah, and he only needed to lose a handful of men and a dozen properties to get there.”
“That’s business,” Salvatore returned. “And good fucking riddance to yet another problem on my ever-growing list. Anthony, I mean. His brothers will be the next to go.”
Nico didn’t comment. It didn’t matter.
The boss spoke. That settled it.
Salvatore strolled into the study fixing the buttons on his blazer and eyeing where Nico stood near the windows. “You should pick a chair and sit.”
Nico didn’t move. “Rather not, if that’s okay.”
“We will all be sitting today, that is the point of having a sit-down meeting, son.”
“I’d rather not,” he repeated, “if that’s okay.”
Salvatore said nothing as he made his way to the massive round, oak table. Passing the seats along the right side, he paused to tap the top of each white marble ball sitting in a matching circular base with a hole in the middle to keep the spheres in place.
He wanted to do things differently. Give people a choice, even if there wasn’t one. Or that’s what he told Nico, anyway.
The study had been rearranged over the past week to accommodate what Salvatore intended to be his new normal.
He’d kept the desk, but now it had been adjusted to the corner of the room with the windows on one side, and shelves on the other.
The sitting area with the white leather couch and chairs remained facing the fireplace, but with less space between them as the glass coffee table had disappeared somewhere.
The room now welcomed visitors straight to the round table.
There wasn’t necessarily a head of the table, but Salvatore moved to the far side and sat where he could watch those who would enter the study. Nothing and no one at his back.
Except...Nico. That alone spoke volumes.
“So, why don’t you want to sit?” the man posed to him the longer Nico remained quiet.
“You didn’t a lot of the time.”
Salvatore snorted derisively under his breath. “First, that came from Giorgio. He deemed it proper for me to stand at his side, or rather, just behind his shoulder until he was ready to dismiss me.”
“Second?” Nico asked.
Salvatore glanced back at him. “Pardon?”
“You said first, so there must be a second thing.”
“Ah, yeah. The more important one.”
“More important how?”
Salvatore’s shoulders lifted beneath the black blazer that was a sharp contrast to the black, ripped jeans and the staple hoodie Nico wore.
The man hadn’t told him to dress any differently than he usually did, so he made the judgement call.
Besides, Nico thought it mattered that the first impression he gave the round table of made men was the same motherfucker they should expect to see any other time he rolled his ass up to chat.
He did fancy when he needed. He didn’t give a fuck otherwise.
“More important because I want you to take it in, kid,” Sal eventually replied after taking out the only marble at the table that wasn’t white to spin against the top.
The black marble made a rumbling noise as it turned and turned and turned.
Salvatore stopped it suddenly and tossed it with a loud plunk back into the base he’d taken it from.
“Really take it in, and act accordingly.”
“Okay.”
Salvatore’s advice had yet to fail Nico.
“It’s unnecessary, and frankly, a losing battle, for you to try to be me,” Salvatore murmured, never turning around to look at Nico as he spoke. “You’ll be chasing a ghost that you’ll never reach if that’s the goal. That man came from survival, and nothing more. It’s what made him.”
“Do you know what it looked like to me, though?” Nico asked back.
Salvatore cleared his throat. “Hmm, what do you mean?”
“Me and probably everyone else,” he added, then.
The man did turn at that point. Slightly. Enough to peer over his shoulder with amused eyes tracking Nico’s fidgeting fingers that wouldn’t leave the strings of his hoodie alone. He needed something to do when there were so few things happening in the moment to sharpen his mind on.
“Me at the beck and call of Giorgio looked like what, Nico?” Salvatore asked. “Please, tell me. Because I know how it felt, so I can only imagine what you think it looked like, young man.”
“Power. It looked like power from the outside. You showed up when you wanted; or when he needed you. Never carried a gun, regardless of the reasons. You never shared them, so it let others make up the story they think fits. You spoke; everybody listened. Even him, sometimes. So, yeah, Sal, that looked like power to me.”
Silence answered back.
“And like respect,” Nico put in just for good measure.
That shit counted for a lot, too. “And so maybe you think I shouldn’t want that image for myself today, and all the rest of these fucking days I’m gonna walk through in this family, but I don’t agree.
I’m not chasing a ghost; I’m following a man.
One I should want to be like when it matters the most. I guess being made means you get a lot of say in how I move from here on out, but you don’t get an opinion on that. You already shaped it a long time ago.”
A nod of Salvatore’s head accompanied his back turning to Nico once more.
“Sixty seconds out, boss man,” came a new voice from the doorway.
Jessie, one of Larkin’s men, stood with an AK strapped to his shoulder.
Salvatore barely glanced up to acknowledge the guy. “Thank you. Three on the roof, one in the tree, correct?”
“We’ve got a clear view of the driveway and the table, yes.”
“Good. Two fingers high, Carmine goes.”
Nico sucked in a hard breath, saying nothing. He couldn’t. He didn’t call the shots here.
“Three, and you clear the board before they hit the gate,” Salvatore ordered.
“Got it, boss man.”
A wave of one finger sent the security away.
“Do you think that’s necessary?” Nico asked after a moment.
“The all or nothing is simply the nuke I need should it all go to shit.”
Nico didn’t expect that option to be needed at all. It just made its way to the table because one should plan for the worst possible outcome so then when less terrible things happened, it didn’t feel so fucking bad. He got that.
“It’s not what I mean, Sal.”
“No, you meant Carmine Marino.”
“He’s a good guy; I’ve known him for years. He got me out of hot water a lot of times growing up, too. Not to mention, I know what’s happened in Chicago over the past three weeks. He culled anyone that spoke against you. He was the first after Big Mike to send word that he supported your seat.”
That meant something. Nico couldn’t understand why Salvatore held such a grudge for a man who seemed to be doing everything right.
Salvatore hummed under his breath, picking up that marble to spin again. Like he needed the distraction. “You’re going to learn a lot today, kid, and then we’re never going to talk about it again once we leave this room. Okay?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Take your spot,” Salvatore demanded, his tone brokering no room for argument, “wherever you want it to be. Before someone gets here and I make the choice for you. I didn’t make you an underboss because of your winning attitude and money-making skills, Nico.
I did it because I recognize that you have a brilliant mind and you see people for who they are, sometimes, before they even know it about themselves.
I need that today, so pick a seat or stand somewhere. ”
Nico moved away from the windows just as a black sedan with tinted windows pulled up in front of the house. He preferred to watch the arrivals so he could gauge if someone intended to pull some shit by their body language, but...it didn’t matter.
That’s what the security team did. Nico would read the mood in-room at the table, on his feet. As a proper underboss should.
Standing just a few inches behind Salvatore, directly at his left, Nico folded his arms at his back to clasp his hands.
He resisted the urge to tap his foot or even sway a bit to give his body that outlet of movement to rid his nervous energy.
He settled for the constant tap of his thumb and pointer finger inside his other hand, hidden so no one could see.
“There’s another reason,” Nico murmured then, “why I don’t want to sit.”
Salvatore peered up, curiosity sparking. “Do tell. I mean, while we still have the time.”
Nico chuckled. “Well, it’ll mean something, won’t it? When I do finally sit, whenever that is, for whatever reason I do it, it’ll really mean something.”
“Yeah. It’ll mean something,” Salvatore echoed, nodding.
The quiet wait turned out to be the hardest part for Nico, but that didn’t come as a surprise.
The quiet seemed to permeate every aspect of his life lately.
Long nights. Cold bed. Images on repeat in his head that he couldn’t escape.
It took five showers before it felt like his hands no longer had his brother’s blood.
He thought he could still taste vomit. Sometimes. And smell the gunpowder. Sleep troubled him, if he did.
Maybe those things would be made easier if Frankie were there to distract him in all the ways he loved the most, but a part of him knew that wasn’t true. Because those memories, and the way they left him breathless and shaking told a different story. He couldn’t let it go.
“Hey,” came a soft murmur.