“Maurizio’s crazy, not stupid. He’s not gonna start a war with the De Lucca’s. Just wants us to look incompetent.”
Since we hadn’t been able to sniff out Chains and his crew, our family’s competency and power were already under question. We couldn’t afford for anything else to go wrong.
“Did he do any damage before the men nabbed him?” I asked.
Mario nodded. “Sliced two of the tires of De Lucca’s Lamborghini. I already called for replacements. If Triple A isn’t out there now, they will be soon. We’ll have the whole thing handled before dinner lets out.”
“Good.” Michael handed me the mallet. “I better get back to the party. Dom, show our uninvited guest out and make sure he’s dissuaded from making another appearance.”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t do that,” the kid insisted. “If you let me go I swear you’ll never see me near this restaurant again.”
Michael shook his head and walked out the door.
“Just shut up,” I said, untying the rope to free him.
“You’re not gonna kill me, are you?” he asked. “I mean I don’t know anything and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell anybody and—”
I jerked the kid to his feet. “I said shut up.”
Mario and I took the kid out the back and released him.
“You’re really not gonna kill me?” he asked. “When I turn around, you won’t shoot me in the back, will ya?”
I chuckled. No point in killing him since he already had one foot in the grave. He just didn’t know it yet. “Look kid, I’m the least of your worries. You just rolled over on the craziest son-of-a-bitch in this city. If you don’t leave town, you’ll be dead by morning.”
He looked like he was gonna say more, so I pulled my sig out of my pocket and turned off the safety. “Now, get out of here before I change my mind.”
The kid took off.
“Think he’s smart enough to take your advice?” Mario asked as he lit up a cigarette.
I watched the kid disappear around a corner as I slid a smoke out of the pack and joined him. “Not a chance. But if I know my brother, he slipped out to put a man on the kid. Hopefully when the Durantes pop him, they’ll lead us back to whoever issued the order.”
A Triple A truck drove into the parking lot. Mario flagged them down and we led them to the Lamborghini with the slashed tires. They got to work as we leaned against the building and watched. Grateful for the reprieve from Valentina, I let my mind wander to Annetta. Thinking about her plump lips and her round ass served as a nice escape from the evening. I wondered how she’d held up tonight and what she was doing after work. Glancing at my watch, I realized she was probably already gone for the night.
“Damn,” I said, snuffing out my smoke.
“What?” Mario asked, glancing around.
“Annetta. I forgot about getting her home.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “The engagement dinner’s over, Dom. You don’t have to look out for her anymore.”
Right. My babysitting duties were over. I should feel relieved, but instead I felt… disappointed. Didn’t matter, though. Father had already set his sights on hitching me to Valentina, and Annetta didn’t seem like the kind of girl who’d be a side piece. Whatever had been developing between us needed to end. Reluctantly resigned to walk away from her, I lit up another cigarette and watched the crew finish up with Don De Lucca’s Lamborghini.
CHAPTER TEN
Dominico
WITH THE ENGAGEMENT party out of the way, the family went back to business as usual. Since no one had unearthed Chains and his crew,Father was still on the warpath, making it clear our heads were going to roll if we didn’t bring him theirs.Michael and I split up to increase our chances, me riding with Mario while my brother teamed up with one of Carlo’s soldiers. Regardless, it took five more days before we found Chains.
I knewChains was deadbefore we got the call. I knew it because we’d been watching his usual haunts, including his mom’s house and his girlfriend’s apartment, and hadn’t caught so much as a whiff of him. We had, however, tapped into her phone and listened as his mom called the cops, the news, local politicians, and anyone else who might be able to help her find her missing son.
See,Chains was Italian. And any respectable Italian man would tell you that if his life was in danger he might go a couple of weeks without getting laid, but there’s no way he’d make his mom worry like that. He would find a way to let her know he was okay. To do otherwise would be downright disrespectful, and she’d never let him hear the end of it.
Chains’s body showed up in a landfill northeast of Vegas. Carlo called me and Michael in and sent us up to look it over and see if anything on him would point back to the Durante’s. Chains’s killer had dumped his body naked, though, and judging by his ripe condition, more than a week ago.
Michael kicked the body over, and we both almost lost our lunch. I covered my nose with my jacket and got a brief look at the corpse before nausea forced me to turn away. The gunshot wound on the side of his head looked like it could have been self-inflicted. Of course, Chains would have had to drive his own bare ass to the dump before his brains leaked out of the hole, so Michael and I ruled out suicide.
