Chapter 19
Little Italy looks like a historical reenactment designed to launder money.
I crawl the Aventador down Mulberry at ten miles per hour—any faster would be disrespectful, any slower would be weakness—and catalog the storefronts like I'm reading a ledger.
Pork store on the left, display case full of soppressata and capicola.
Bakery on the right, sfogliatelle in the window arranged like soldiers.
Social club with blacked-out windows, the kind of place where men go in at noon and don't leave until the espresso runs cold and the blood runs hot.
Every business on this block pays tribute to Luca LaRiccia.
Every old man sipping espresso at those sidewalk cafes reports to him.
The tenements crowd both sides of the street, fire escapes creating permanent lattices of shadow. Pre-war construction, built when Little Italy actually meant something instead of being three blocks of tourist traps surrounded by Chinatown.
The LaRiccias held onto this territory through sheer ruthlessness—three generations of making examples out of anyone who thought relocation meant negotiation.
The Aventador's engine purrs like expensive violence.
Heads turn. Conversations pause. An old woman carrying groceries actually crosses herself.
I'm not supposed to be here.
The pedestrian entrance passes on my right—those fifteen-foot wrought iron gates depicting grapevines and wolves, the courtyard beyond, the bronze doors that require an intercom announcement and permission to enter.
I pull around the corner to Hester Street where the garage entrance waits. Steel gates, security cameras in all four corners, the kind of setup that processes fifty vehicles a day and remembers every single one.
Two guards materialize before I even stop moving.
Impeccable black suits. Earpieces. One flanks the driver's side, one the passenger, synchronized like they've done this ten thousand times.
The LaRiccia building looms above me—five stories of 1920s Art Deco limestone, BANCO NAPOLITANO still carved above the entrance.
Luca's up there somewhere.
He's been watching me since I turned onto the block.
The guard on my left taps the window with two knuckles.
I slide the window down.
The guard's mid-twenties, six-four minimum, shoulders like he bench-presses engine blocks for cardio. His suit fits him the way mine fits me—custom, expensive, designed to hide what needs hiding.
What doesn't need hiding is the sawed-off shotgun resting against his forearm.
The barrel's been cropped to a brutal little stump, the stock's gone entirely, and the whole thing rides in his grip like it grew there. Not flashy or threatening. Just present—the kind of weapon you carry when the conversation's already over before it starts.
He doesn't point it at me.
Doesn't need to.
The passenger-side guard knocks on the opposite window—two sharp raps, impatient.
I don't turn my head.
Goon Number One gets my full attention because he's the one who decides if I'm driving in or getting dragged out.
His face is blank and professional. The kind of blank that means he's run this checkpoint enough times to catalog threats by engine sound alone.
Then he laughs—genuine, surprised—and leans down to get a better look at the Aventador's interior.
"Bavga, right? Pittsburgh?" He straightens, grinning now. "Heard you were compensating for something, but Jesus."
The passenger-side goon snorts as he walks around the front of my car, joining his buddy.
I wait.
Goon Number One taps the roof with his palm. "What'd this set you back—three hundred? Four? You know they make pills now, right?"
I keep my hands on the wheel. My face neutral. My voice flat.
"I'm here to see Luca."
Both guards lose their smiles at the exact same time.
Synchronized shutdown.
Goon Number One steps back half a foot, shotgun still casual, still ready.
"Turn it around, Bavga. Mr. LaRiccia don't take walk-ins.
Especially not from Pittsburgh." He shifts the shotgun—not pointing it, just repositioning.
"In about five seconds you're gonna be wastin' my time and ya know what happens to men who waste my time, Bavga? "
"Trust me," I say, ignoring his performance. "He's gonna see me today. So why don't you just open the fuckin' gates like a good little piggie, and let me the fuck in before you start wastin' my time and I need to show you what that means."
Predictably, this hits.
But it was intended to.
I want in.
And the only way to do that and not get killed, is to piss the guards off just enough to—
Goon Number One's hand shoots through the window reaching directly for the door release like he's got the same fucking Lamborghini parked in his garage at home.
The door hisses open and then his hand is around my throat.
He hauls me out of the Aventador like I weigh nothing—six-four of muscle yanking me vertical and dragging, my shoes scraping pavement as he pulls me toward the opening gates.
The steel barriers slide apart on some unseen command and over my shoulder I catch a glimpse of Goon Number Two dropping into my driver's seat, adjusting the mirrors like he's taking it for a joyride.
He better not scratch it.
The gates swallow me.
Goon Number One's grip tightens, cutting off just enough air to make the point without making me pass out.
Not yet, anyway.
I blow out a breath through my nose—controlled, measured—and let one final thought crystallize before this goes exactly where I knew it would.
Emmaleen.
Every calculated risk I'm taking in this moment—every deliberate word I chose to provoke them, every step I allowed them to drag me forward through these gates—it's all for her.
If I don't end this here, today, she'll spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, waiting for the LaRiccias to figure out she's a living witness to the murder of Luca's heir.
That's not a life, that's a punishment she didn't earn.
And I cannot stand for it.
So this is for her.
Not for the family back in Pittsburgh.
Not for territory, or pride, or some abstract concept of honor.
For her.
Because somewhere between red shoes and an epic never-ending poem, she became the one thing I never expected to have.
Someone worth protecting at any cost.
In about thirty minutes—assuming I live that long—she'll never have to worry about the LaRiccia crime family again.
Something hard cracks against my temple.
White light.
Then nothing.