Marco and Charlie glanced at each other but didn’t say a word.
Shaking his head, Bruno left the room and went down the hall.
In the kitchen, Bruno saw his mom sitting there. His shadow fell across her and she looked up. “I’ve heard about a man they call Castillo, in America,” he told her. He felt very good about it.
Martina pulled his big body into a tight squeeze. “I made you boys take English lessons so you could communicate with foreigners, but I never dreamed it would be where you would in up, in America. But there’s something special about you, Bruno De Luca. My intuition knows this.”
Bruno held her in his muscular grip as he gazed down at her face
She sighed. “Just be careful, son.”
With that, Bruno turned and disappeared upstairs to collect his luggage bags. With a ticket to America and a couple of hundred dollar bills in his back pocket, he hauled his bags downstairs.
At the door, Bruno handed over his gun to Marco.
Marco stuck it in his jacket.
Bruno turned dramatically and left the house.
His taxi hit the road for the airport.
Bruno prayed. He knew in his heart, he was a good man. His father was, and would always be his idol. He could remember, vaguely, his fathers’ most important lesson,‘You can’t trust nobody in this life, even yourself sometimes.’If he had a dollar for every time his father said that to him, he’d have a mansion of his own by now, buying Dalmore 62 whiskey by the case full.
Bruno sighed. If only his father had listened to his own advice, he would probably still be alive.
He knew it was dangerous. But he figured he’d be running the streets in San Diego early on. He knew about that life by now. He also always knew he’d do whatever it took to survive. That, he promised himself. For all the bad that had happened, all the mourning and all the tears his family had shed, Bruno knew something good would come of it.
Chapter Four
Only the good, die young.
Coronado, San Diego. 1975
Keeping firm eye contact at the man built like a shit brick house guarding the door, Bruno De Luca killed the engine. Waiting on some of the others to arrive, he eyed the man up and down. The door bouncer. Disgusted by what he saw, he let out a husky sigh of disapproval.Fucking prick!Seemingly, there wasn’t anyone in the world Bruno cared to impress.
Dressed in casual jeans and an off-white shirt, a size or two too small stretched over his hulking chest, this buffoon was every part the classic bad boy dickhead.
Still stalling, Bruno’s eyes roamed the warehouse. Nothing special from the outside, it had dents and rust spots all over. Large, and as wide as it was tall, it wasn’t a modern fortress ? only enormous sheets of welded grey steel and a near-flat roof. The building looked as dispirited as his mood, but it was safe for cons and fugitives. Ultimately, that was all that was important.
This was Castillo’s hangout. Mob territory. The place where he did all his business. As was usual, there were several goons standing guard. With thisjackassat the main door, two outside the front gates, and another two patrolling the perimeter with walkie-talkies linked up to the guys watching the twenty-four hour surveillance cameras. Security was very important since there were only a few of them in the mob family ? twelve men was all they were. So formidable was their reputation, the world thought they were an army. Nobody, not even the FBI, knew there were only a dozen of them.
It was a perfect, dead, quiet Sunday morning. Sunlight cut through the windscreen. Slipping a pair of black shades over his dark eyes, De Luca studied his tanned, bestial face in the central rear view mirror. He was handsome and the highway of adversity ahead would see him become even more handsome. Clean-shaven, chiseled features honed to a fine edge. Eyes black as coal, with the magnetic spark of twin diamonds. Always precise and impeccably dressed, he combed his severe black hair straight back and checked himself up and down. He reached with two fingers to center his tie and as he did so, his fingers graced the cool metal of the silver cross he wore around his neck. A small, gentle touch against his two hundred pounds of pure feral power….His mother’s trinket and she’d made him promise he’d wear for good luck. He was religious, but not superstitious. Bruno didn’t need lucky trinkets for shit, but it was a vow he’d keep for someone he loved.
Sideways glancing at the brute at the door, he closed a loose fist around the cross for a moment and contemplated the potential causes for today’s meeting, then tossed it back under his shirt. As tense always, there was the not-so-slim chance somebody had fucked up, and that somebody was in deep shit with the boss. And in this world, deep shit usually came hand in hand with a bullet between the eyes faster than you could say the words, death sentence.
In the early hours of the morning, Bruno had received a call while he’d been sleeping in bed. Prying his eyes open, he grasped his phone from the bedside cabinet. The call had been from Vincent Castillo himself ? the undisputed mafia boss of San Diego. The boss told him he was calling a special meeting with the crime family at ten a.m. sharp. Which meant he’d better be there by half nine or shit would go down. He couldn’t complain. At least there was never a dull moment in this life. But judging by the anger in no-nonsense Castillo’s voice, the only thing Bruno was sure of was that it definitely wouldn’t be a pleasant meeting. De Luca didn’t know it yet, but today was the day when everything would flip upside down…
As usual, today’s meeting would be held in up-state San Diego, at this warehouse beside the docks in a tiny town of only eleven thousand people named Coronado. Coronado, San Diego was hardly a high-crime area. People left their keys in their trucks and didn’t lock doors. All the work Castillo and his guys carried out was the organized kind, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about petty theft ? a straight up big money kind of guy. Surprisingly, it was the mob who kept them safe. Not intentionally. It just so happened even criminals shook at the knees at the thought of Castillo and his gang of dark and deadly men. So, it was smarter for them to give Coronado a wide berth. The residents of Coronado didn’t want to believe that, but it was the truth: If Castillo and his crew didn’t put the fear into criminals like they did, they’d be really fucked.
Bruno opened his car door. As if on cue, two men in chalky grey sedans nosed up to the pavement alongside him. Glancing out of each side window, De Luca nodded at the two men behind the wheels. To his left, Frank Ammacino, king of the snooker table. To his right, Blade...just Blade ? nobody ever knew his real name and no one even dared ask ? a miserable fucking bastard with two red eyes and dark receding hair. Sliding out the driver’s side of his vehicle, he shut the door, stepped onto the pavement and made his way toward the entrance. When he heard two car doors open, he stopped and looked over his shoulder at his crime brothers as they got out of their vehicles – both tense, humorless men, dressed in suits and ties.
Both of them marched his way.
Both looked dead ass serious…
Striding over to him, the slapping of their patent leather shoes reverberated from the pavement.
Bruno turned, struck out his palm, and shook hands with the guys.
