Chapter 3 MASSIMO #2
I study him. Really look. I used to think the only thing that mattered was loyalty, but now I know better.
The only thing that matters is restraint.
Men like us, we're all born with a flaw—some to violence, some to greed, some to the need to be adored—but the one that gets you killed is wanting what you're not allowed.
"No woman gets that close," I declare. Not to men like us.
Not without consequences. A memory flickers across my mind.
Brief, uninvited, dangerous. A girl's hair stuck to my palm with blood, the smell of copper and perfume.
I crush the memory before it gets any further. There's no room for sentiment here.
Alessio gives a low whistle. "You hear that, Gabe? Massimo just diagnosed you."
Gabriel doesn't blink. But he huffs a sigh that lets us know he's finished debating his private life. Just to be sure we understand, he asks, "Okay, so why are we here?"
I let the silence after the question expand, testing the air for any trace of disrespect, any hint that the men assembled here have forgotten where they are or who I am.
But they know. We've all bled for this city, for this organization, and for each other.
They were the men beside me when my blood turned against me.
The ones who chose me anyway. I trust them to the extent that anyone trusts men like us, which is to say: until one of us stops breathing.
Enzo sets his glass down. The click is a trigger, resetting every set of eyes to him. "Because someone cut our coke, and six people died," he informs them.
The dull, echoing pain of it unspools through the room, invisible but absolute.
Killings happen all the time in Vegas, overdoses, disappearances, bodies in the desert, or, if you're really unlucky, the Clark County coroner's freezer.
But this? This is a violation. Not the deaths themselves, but the method.
Alessio curses under his breath, a creative string of Italian vowels that would have made my grandmother proud. "That's not a warning shot. That's a billboard."
"One of them was famous enough to get the fucking press all over it," I add, my tone as flat and cold as the marble beneath my shoes.
Enzo meets my gaze with the wordless communication of soldiers: I have your back, and if you die, I'll kill the man who made it happen.
Damiano leans back in his chair. His face is built for grinning, all sharp lines and cocky Mediterranean angles, but even he can't find anything funny about this.
"So, what? Someone wants to make us look like chumps? "
"Someone wants us to burn," I say. "Not just me. All of us. They want us on the defensive. They want to see if we'll eat our own."
There's a moment of collective consideration, the kind that in other settings might pass for a prayer.
Enzo inhales. "The coke came from Del and Norm. Neither of them cut it."
Gabriel folds his arms and closes his eyes for a millisecond, then opens them razor-sharp. "Del was a pro. He wasn't stupid enough to contaminate supply, not even if he was paid twice what he's worth."
"And Norm," Alessio offers, "was a careless little shit, but he wasn't disloyal."
"Not until he roasted at eighteen hundred degrees," Damiano jokes. It's tasteless, but that's Damiano: he only ever jokes when he wants to draw blood.
The air in the room shifts. My mouth opens, but before I can speak, Enzo puts a hand on my forearm. I let him. If there's one man on this planet who can touch me in front of my own crew and not lose a finger, it's him.
"Easy," he warns. "We need clear heads."
He's right. I exhale once, then twice.
Damiano shrugs; the motion is all bones and bravado. "What? I'm just saying, that's one way to guarantee brand consistency." The others don't laugh, but I notice the smirks.
Enzo leans in, keeping his voice low and surgical. "This isn't a comedy hour."
"Ann cut the product," I throw out before this conversation deteriorates any further.
"Who the fuck is Ann?" Alessio asks, looking from one of us to the next as if the answer might be written on the back of Enzo's hand.
"Norm's girlfriend," Enzo supplies, no judgment in his tone, only the fatalist's acceptance that every man's worst undoing is a woman somewhere, sooner or later.
I correct him, "Ex. Briefly. She admitted it right before the last shovel of dirt hit."
Damiano's cocky half-smile vanishes. "She say why?"
"She got paid," I answer. "Cash. Hand-to-hand. No name, no face."
"Of course," Alessio mutters. It's always fucking cash, always someone getting paid to take out the middleman, or, in this case, poison the whole fucking supply chain.
"That's the problem," I meet his gaze, "they didn't contaminate the entire supply, only random doses."
Alessio isn't the only one cursing about that piece of information. It implies anything but randomness. Somebody wants to destroy our reputation.
"Any description?" Damiano is already reaching for his tablet, his phone, whatever electronic leash he prefers today.
Enzo gives it to him. "Mexican-looking. That's all she gave us."
Alessio chews on that, working his jaw hard from side to side. "Cartels have been sniffing around. Wouldn't be the first time they tried to dip a toe."
Enzo shakes his head. "Doesn't feel like them."
I meet his gaze, and in that instant, we're back in a basement in Henderson, five years ago, the air thick with bleach and hornet-nest panic as we negotiated with a cartel rep who had more tattoos than skin.
The cartel doesn't do subtle. They don't hide behind women, and they sure as fuck don't leave loose threads.
"No," I say. "It doesn't."
Gabriel—who has been patient, almost saintly, in the background—finally speaks. "They want us chasing the wrong people," he thinks out loud, as if reading my mind.
"Exactly," I reply, and it's almost a relief to hear him confirm it.
There are two kinds of men in this life: the ones who crave chaos, and the ones who surf its crest and never let it wet their shoes. The first group dies, eventually. The second group is the reason Vegas still exists.
These men? They surf. So do I.
"Someone wants fallout," Gabriel continues, eyes never leaving mine.
"Or wanted us chasing shadows," Damiano adds.
"Someone cut our coke to make us look weak, to force our hand," I summarize for the record.
"They want bodies. They want spectacle. They want to see if pressure makes us fracture.
" I let my gaze move around the table. "If the heat gets high enough, men start asking who failed.
Who let it happen. Who's talking. They're betting we'll turn inward.
That we'll start hunting each other instead of them. "
Alessio, ever the pragmatist, cracks his knuckles and grins. "Are we going to disappoint them, Boss?"
I look around the table, at the faces that have passed through so much pain and so much money that the difference between the two is barely discernible. "No," I say. "We're going to salt the fucking earth with their blood."
Enzo pours himself another drink, but it's not a toast. It's the chemical necessity of a man who knows the score. "What's the play?"
"Damiano," I order, "pull every camera feed you can. Casinos, clubs, streets, back channels. I want every frame of Ann's movement for the last month."
He nods, already flicking through his phone. "I'll find her. And whoever paid her."
"Alessio," I order, "street level. Quiet questions. I want to know who's talking, who's spreading rumors, who's suddenly got more cash than sense. Any new faces, any old enemies crawling back out of the strip."
He smirks, the implication clear. "I'll listen with my fists."
It's Gabe's turn. "I want you on counter-surveillance. Anyone circling politics, law, media, anyone who profits from us fighting ourselves. Track every story, every leak. I want to know who benefits, and I want to know it before I read about it on the news."
Gabriel sits up straighter, as if the assignment is a benediction. "Already on it." He nods.
"And keep your personal life clean," I add, because it's not just a joke, and he knows it.
Gabe grins, sharp and tired. "Always do."
Enzo looks at me. "What about you?"
I look out the window, down at the river of neon and lost souls streaming through the Strip. Vegas runs because I say so. It's time to remind the city who's still in charge. "I'll take care of Manetti business; you take care of the rest."
There's a pause as the men process the end of the meeting, a ritual as old as the city itself. They don't get up, not yet. They wait for the signal.
I give it. A single nod.
The room breathes again.
Enzo stands first, not out of disrespect, but because he's earned it. He collects his glass, wipes the condensation away with the edge of a monogrammed handkerchief, and turns to Damiano. "Start with the west end. Use the new system. Less chance of a leak."
Damiano nods, already pulling up feeds. He moves with the wiry energy of a man who lives for the chase, a man who would be a serial killer in another life if not for a healthy respect for hierarchy and cash flow.