Chapter 34
Zeno
The gunshot ricocheted around in my brain, making my already throbbing temple pound until I thought my head would explode. The screams were ear piercing, to the point that it felt like it was stabbing at my one good eye.
The other felt like Cosimo had cut it out with the handle of his gun when he slammed it against the side of my head.
I didn’t know why I was still alive when Cosimo had shot Benny dead in his driveway. I didn’t know why I’d been loaded up in the back of his car only to be tossed onto the concrete, my hands bound behind my back as I was forced to kneel in the middle of the room.
I didn’t know why Arik and Berto were kneeling beside me when, across the room, Cosimo had just put a bullet through his wife’s brain.
“Are you fucking crazy?” Piero Provenza screamed, scrambling from where he knelt to his mother’s side. “You killed her!”
“Raoul,” Cosimo spat. “Take care of your brothers.”
“With pleasure, Father.” Raoul lifted his gun, and there was nothing I could do. Not to stop him. Not to save Piero or Mario. Not to keep the loud blast from blaring through the room, making the pounding in my head feel like a bullet pierced my skull instead.
He hit Piero twice in the gut, then Mario once in the shoulder, before his gun jammed and he had to stop.
In the silence that followed, all I could hear was the ringing in my ears. But with my one working eye, I could see Mario mouth the word, “Why?”
Cosimo laughed, his deep voice sounding far from the frail old man I’d grown to know.
“Why, you ask?” The man shook his head. “Why would you think I cared? Why would I allow this cheating piece of shit to live on for one more day? Why would I let you two continue this charade, pretending I’m your father when you’ve known for years that I’m not? ”
Cosimo turned to face us three lieutenants, but there was no wild craziness in his eyes. The man looked like he was in complete control, no grief for the woman who’d shared his life, his bed, and his name for the past fifty years. No concern for the boys he’d raised as his own.
“Which of you knew that bitch was unfaithful?” He paced slowly in front of us, acting like he had all the time in the world while waving his gun in an obvious threat. “What about you, Berto?”
Cosimo stopped in front of Clara’s father, putting the muzzle of his gun to the man’s forehead.
“Did you know about this?” Berto closed his eyes, and that was confession enough. Cosimo pushed him with the muzzle, hard enough to make him fall over, until he landed face first on the floor. Instead of shooting him, though, Cosimo just smashed his foot into Berto’s groin.
“And you, young Arik?” This time, Cosimo pressed the gun under Arik’s jaw. “Tell me you’re too young to be involved in this mess. Tell me you haven’t been tainted by your father’s blood.”
Arik swallowed hard but turned an unshaken gaze toward Cosimo’s hard face.
“That’s unfortunate.” Cosimo pulled his gun back, only to slam the butt into the side of Arik’s face.
I wanted to join my fellow lieutenants on the floor. I’d suffer more pain if it meant I could just lay down. Everything hurt, from my throbbing head to my aching heart.
Clara was right. I’d thought her ramblings were nothing but more lies spouted from a troubled girl. If only I’d listened to her.
If only I could have helped her more.
Cosimo turned to me, an evil smile on his face. “And you, Zeno? Paulo’s young confidant. The man who knows more secrets than he’ll ever tell. Surely you won’t lie to me and try to pretend like you didn’t know about that bitch’s betrayal?”
“It was a long time ago, Cosimo—”
“I don’t care how long ago it was!” He backhanded me across the face, though thankfully, not with his gun this time. Still, with the pain already raging through my head, and my hands being tied behind my back, there was no way I could continue kneeling before him.
I fell. My head slammed into the concrete in front of his spotless, shiny black shoes.
“Get them up!” His voice reverberated just like the gunshots, and it was made worse by the pain that rocketed through me as he slammed his foot into my gut.
His two men—men I couldn’t even see for their positions in the room behind me and my swollen, bloodied eye—manhandled Berto and Arik back onto their knees before yanking me off the floor by my hair. They pulled me up, forcing me onto my knees, pulling until it felt like my back would break.
I nearly fell again when they released me. Wanted to curl into a ball and lay there until this was all over. Until I was nothing but a bag of bones, an empty husk, as I bled out on the floor without Clara by my side.
My Clara.
My heart ached for her, and I wanted nothing more than to hold her one last time. To tell her I loved her, that I always had, I always would. To kiss her until she understood that my world was nothing without her in it, but that I wanted—no, I needed—her to go on.
It was only right.
It was only fair.
My beautiful little hurricane had so much to live for.
Somewhere in the back of my head, a storm raged. And through all the turmoil, through all the noise and pain, I was comforted that a piece of her was with me after all. That I could hold onto her despite all the turbulence, that I could still feel the riot of her soul.
I could still feel the shockwaves of her restless chaos as it pulsed through the air.
Except that wasn’t her causing the pandemonium that hit the room. Somewhere behind me, gunshots rang out, and it took everything in me to not fall flat onto the floor as I tried to cover my head.
“What the fuck is that?” Berto cried from beside me, while Arik turned his bloodied face my way and caught my eye.
Hope pulsed inside of me like a prayer. Had Clara convinced Jet she knew the truth? Had she told him what she knew, made him understand that this man couldn’t be trusted? That he’d tear this whole world apart.
My head swam, but I couldn’t pin down anything with the pain thrashing through me. All I could be sure of was that Cosimo still stood where he had moments ago, as if whatever was happening out there didn’t concern him in the least.
And that’s what scared me most of all.
That, and when Stephano Vinci was tossed into the room.
“Well, well, well.” Cosimo set his gun on the table behind him, then cracked his knuckles as his two men pulled the kid to his feet. “Look what the cats dragged in. Stephano, I’m so glad you showed up.”
“You’re over, old man. You’re not getting away with this anymore.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve got you all right where I want you. This time, there’s not going to be any mistakes.”
“This time?” Stephano laughed. “You mean, your second shot at taking over the Syndicate?”
“Stephano, shut up,” Berto cried from where he lay on the floor.
“No, Dad, I’m not going to stay quiet. If you knew what he did, you wouldn’t want me to, either.”
One of Cosimo’s men yanked me up again. “On your knees, Fierro.” I steadied myself as he did the same to Berto and Arik.
“What are you talking about?” Berto asked, his body leaning to one side.
“Yes, Stephano, why don’t you tell us what you think I’ve done?”
The kid scoffed, and where he got his bravado from, I didn’t know.
“You killed Benito,” he said, and I watched as Cosimo’s evil smile grew, all the pain in my head centering in my chest as he failed to deny the kid’s words.
“You’re the reason Big Tony and the others are dead.
You recruited a bunch of kids who didn’t like Paulo and his friends and got them to take out as many Syndicate men as they could. ”
“Don’t forget the women and children.” The old man picked up his gun from the table. “It’s a pity those pathetic kids couldn’t have done more. If they had, we wouldn’t be here today. Instead, they stuck their dicks in everyone they could, wasting time when they could have been killing more.”
“You’re a sick fuck,” Mario wheezed from the far side of the room, the bleeding man holding his hands to the wounds in his brother's gut.
“Says a man who won’t leave this room alive.” Cosimo motioned to him with his gun. “Tell me, Mario. Would you like to live to see the end of D’Angelo’s reign, or would you prefer I just kill you now?”
“Mario—”
“It’s okay, Piero,” he said, looking down on his dying brother. “Just hold on. You’re going to be okay.”
I didn’t need to be next to them to know there wasn’t a strong chance of that. Already, the pool of blood beneath Piero’s body was far too big.
Cosimo ignored his sons, turning instead back to Stephano.
“What I should have done was gather them all together, just like this. I could have gotten Berto and Zeno then and not had to mess with all of this. Time and time again, I’ve watched the power of the Syndicate slip right through my hands.
First, your mother stealing it out from under my thumb,” he said, pointing his gun at my forehead.
“Then, Arik’s father taking a seat Paulo should have given to my son. ”
“Oh yeah?” Stephano hissed. “Which son would that be? Oh, that’s right, you only have one. Despite all your efforts to get Piero and Mario into lieutenant seats as well.”
“They are not my sons!”
“And yet they bear your name.”
“I’d rather be a D’Angelo than a Provenza,” Mario said.
Cosimo raised his gun, pointing it at the man. “You will die a disgrace to the Provenza name.”
“Better… than… an honor,” Piero said, his voice weak as his body failed him.
Something hit the side of the building, drawing Cosimo’s attention away from putting Piero out of his misery.
“Manilo, go see what that was.”
“On it, sir,” said the man behind us. Without a backward glance, he raced out the front door.
Through my blood-caked eye, I swore I saw Stephano smirking. I swore I saw him wink my way. But the pain pulsing in my head had my vision blurring, and I closed my eyes, trying to fend off a wave of dizziness that had me ready to fall back to the floor.
“Since you were nice enough to grace us with your presence, Stephano, I’m going to let you choose who dies first.”
At that, my eyes snapped open, and once again, I found Cosimo’s gun in my face.
“Is it going to be the good doctor?” Cosimo stepped back, pointing the gun toward Arik. “The young lieutenant?”
The old man smirked, pointing his muzzle between Berto’s eyes. “Or should I finish what I started that night and take down Adalberto Vinci? Then I can kill you and end the Vinci line.”
Stephano’s shoe scuffed the concrete floor, and though I couldn’t take my eyes off Cosimo’s gun, I saw Raoul stepping behind Arik, disappearing from my view.
“Hands up!”
“What for?” Stephano asked Raoul, and I couldn’t mistake his usual pompous attitude. “You’re worried your men didn’t take my fingernail clippers before they threw me in here on my ass?”
“Make your choice, Stephano. Unless you’d rather go first.”
“Meh.” I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop from pivoting toward the kid, as if doing so could somehow save him.
“As much as I’d love for you to get the chance to finish what you started” —Stephano shrugged, pulled one hand from his pocket and examined his nails— “I’m going to have to go with Zee.
I mean, he is fucking my sister after all. ”
My throat closed up as the kid turned his smirking face my way. Cosimo stepped toward me, raising his gun to my head once more. The old man stared down at me with a scowl on his face.
“I’d like to say it’s been nice knowing you, Doctor, but that would be a lie.”
With cold steel pressed to my forehead, I squeezed my eyes shut. I wasn’t ready to die. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the people I loved, to leave Clara behind with nothing but memories and a broken heart.
But I had no choice.
I swallowed hard and waited for the gun to go off.