“He’s not that strong yet, but he’s rising. He’ll just cause more trouble for them.”
“He’ll be a pain in their asses.”
“You speak so eloquently.” He grinned.
I grinned, too. “It’s the truth, right?”
“Yeah, the truth. They don’t want more trouble right now. I caused a lot of strife between all of the families. I made it look like the other was to blame. I’m a ghost, Mariposa. They believe I’m dead. Arturo and his son couldn’t tell the other families that they suspected it was Vittorio fucking with all of them. Even if itweretrue, why would I target my own family? They’d all know then, for sure, that Arturo had me killed. They’re all just starting to play nice again, since Arturo convinced them that an outsider started the wars. The Scarpones can’t afford longer battles. I’ve been stealing their shit.”
“You’ve crippled them.”
“Close to it.”
Yeah, he was Machiavellian all right.
“Right here—” He pointed toward a building. He hit a button on his watch and the garage opened. “There’s no time to look around. Stay close to me. We’re in and out.”
“What do you mean…out? Uncle Tito’s supposed to meet us here.”
We were already hustling to get inside of the building. Capo had grabbed the box with the baby’s figurines and was practically making me sprint. The building was plain but huge. It had a ton of mismatched shit in it. All of the stuff he’d stolen from the Scarpones, probably.
“Another place.”
“Your arm!”
“It’ll be fine.”
He wasn’t fine. He was bleeding. His shirt was pasted to him.
Three buildings down, at least, he led us to another garage. He hit the button on a massive off-road type of vehicle and told me to drive again. This time I really hauled ass to get where we were going.
Another warehouse.
Uncle Tito, Rocco, and Rocco’s brother, Dario, were there when we arrived. Before Uncle Tito started to get to work, Capo secured my watch around my wrist.
“You take this off again—” he narrowed his eyes “—you’ll be punished.”
“I—”
He shook his head,no excuses, and went to sit on the table. There were two in the room, one on each side. The entire room had been set up to look like a doctor’s office, or a small emergency room. Uncle Tito made Capo remove his shirt, and when he did, rivulets of blood ran down his chest from a hole. The bloody smell was strong, mixing in with all of the antiseptics. Uncle Tito assessed the wound and then instructed Dario to slip a blood pressure cuff on Capo’s arm.
“Mariposa,”Capo said.
I had to blink a few times to focus on him.
“Sto bene.”
I’m fine, he had said.
I nodded, but I didn’t feel so well. When Uncle Tito took out a scalpel from his bag, the entire room faded to black. When I woke up again, I was on the opposite table, and Capo was grinning at me.
“Nice nap?”
I tried to sit up, but Uncle Tito stopped me. “Rest,nipote.” Then he slid across the room, to the other bed, on a chair with wheels. He checked the bandage on Capo’s arm.
“What happened?” I rubbed my eyes. “Are you okay?”
“You passed out,” Capo said. “As soon as you saw the scalpel. And I’m all good.” He patted Uncle Tito on the head. “The angel of life stopped death once again.”
