Chapter 40 #2
“That’s one of them,” Sammy gets out.
“One of who?” I demand.
“One of them,” he says, so urgently I’m starting to get alarmed myself. “One of the ones who—” He gestures at the side of his own head, at his temple.
He breaks away as my grip slackens in surprise and runs back downstairs
I killed them. I killed every one of those Clemenza fuckers who were beating him the first night I met him. But Sammy was only half-conscious when I got there, never sure exactly how many had attacked him in the first place.
Apparently one of them got away.
But I’m going to end him now.
The men inside the room turn, surprised, as I shoulder past Caligula and into their conclave. Then they see the gun in my hand. Shouts rise up, but there’s only one voice I hear.
“Dami. Stop.”
I’m only a few feet away from my target. At this range, it would be very fucking hard to miss.
But I stop.
“This piece of shit beat Sammy half to death,” I hiss through my teeth. “He cracked his fucking skull.”
“I understand,” Caligula says, his hand on my arm. His voice is absolutely steady. “But I cannot allow a Giuliano to kill a Clemenza at my table.”
Ferraro is back, and he pauses in the doorway, surprised at what’s going on.
“Everyone sit down,” Caligula says. “Now.”
They sit. But I’m still looking at Caligula, and he’s still looking at me.
His face is the face of a Don. Not the twenty-one-year-old kid who sleeps in my bed and steals my robe every morning. Not the man who kisses me in the dark and begs me to fuck him harder, rougher.
This is the heir to a criminal dynasty giving me an order. If I don’t comply, I undermine him in front of every person in this room.
I know that.
I know it, and I still want to pull the trigger.
“Give me the gun, Dami,” Caligula says.
Slowly, I place my gun in his outstretched hand. Every man in the room visibly relaxes.
Caligula looks at the Morelli rat. “There has been an accusation against you,” he says.
“Not this again,” Scaglietti growls. “I told you all before, I don’t like the Morellis any more than the rest of you. I wanna come home.”
“That is not the accusation.” Caligula’s voice is quiet, and I bet that quiet is scarier than anytime his dead Nonno shouted himself hoarse, because every man at the table is motionless. “Did you attack a young man a few years ago? Beat him with a pipe because he was gay?”
Scaglietti looks at me and smirks. “Maybe,” he says with a shrug. “Who the fuck remembers that kinda thing? If I did, it was just business.”
“I am going to kill this motherfucker—” I begin.
“Orsini,” Caligula snaps. “Stand down.”
I glare at him, and in that moment I hate him again. Hate him for putting his own ambitions ahead of the good of my household—the people he keeps using, manipulating and cozying up to—when in reality, this is who he really is.
He’s just like his grandfather.
Caligula walks past me, moving around the outside of the table, strolling, even, looking at the men arrayed here at his summons.
“Over the past few decades, the Clemenza name has been brought into disrepute,” Caligula says, addressing the room as he paces.
“By the actions of men who once served under my grandfather. Men who committed violence against the innocent and the vulnerable. I’m sorry to say that my grandfather was the worst of them all.
So I want you all to think carefully about what you might have done in the past, and what kind of men you intend to be in the future. Because I will tell you this—”
Caligula raises the gun to the back of Scaglietti’s head and pulls the trigger.
The report is sharp and flat in the enclosed room. The body slumps forward, and the only sound is the dribbling of blood hitting the carpet off the edge of the table.
The men around the table sit there, frozen.
“—anyone who raises a hand against an innocent will find themselves in the same position as Mr. Scaglietti,” Caligula says into the silence.
The men look around at each other, wondering if anyone is going to protest.
No one does.
“And now,” Caligula goes on, “We’ve talked enough. I’ve met your last criteria, gentlemen. You’ve seen it yourself—I’ve taken a life. And I have the ring. I want my claim recognized. Is there anyone here who still wants to deny my right to the Family? You’d better speak up now.”
The room is absolutely silent.
“Don Clemenza,” Ferraro says loudly after a few moments. “We recognize your claim.”
There’s a murmur of assent.
Meanwhile, that motherfucker’s blood is dripping all over the carpet.
“In that case, I think we’ll call this meeting to a close,” Caligula says. “The next time we meet, you will take your vows to me.”
Ferraro knocks on the table, and the rest of them take it up, a tribal noise that suggests more approval than cheering or clapping might.
And the Clemenza just stands there and soaks it in. Or…seems to, anyway.
The men were watching Scaglietti hit the table. But I was watching Caligula, like I always do. And I know what I’m looking at is a man holding himself together with nothing but determination.
“Strike, take a couple of men and clean up this mess. I don’t want Rosa to have to deal with it,” he orders. “But remove the hand—the one with the tattoos. I’ll keep it for now.”
He leaps to obey, grabbing Big Mike and his son to help.
I herd the rest of them out, and then I look back in on the clean-up. Ferraro gives me a nod. “He’s something, eh? That kid.”
“He is,” I agree.
I was wrong about Caligula Clemenza. Again.
He wasn’t going to let that fucker get away with hurting Sammy. No way, no how. But he found a way to do it that served every purpose at once. Justice for Sammy. Proof of his first kill. Elimination of the Morelli spy. Authority established.
Four birds, one bullet. And the only person in the room who saw the cost to him was me.
I go downstairs to check on Sammy. Rosa meets me in the kitchen, her face tight with worry. “He’s locked himself in,” she says. “He won’t talk to me.”
I try his door. Locked, like Rosa said, and the punk music coming from behind it is so loud I can barely hear myself think. I press my forehead against the wood. “Sammy,” I shout. “He’s dead. You hear me? He’s dead, and he’s never gonna touch you again.”
Nothing. Just the music, pounding through the door like an angry heartbeat.
So I head back upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, and thinking about the next problem.
Because for all his cleverness, Caligula just created a big fucking issue with the Morellis.
He killed one of their men, and it gives D’Amato an excuse now to withdraw those protections.
Call for a free-for-all on the last Clemenza.
I’m also thinking about the way he spilled his guts when I killed that guy outside the townhouse.
I need to check on him.