“Signor Fausti.”
I turned to find one of the men standing behind me.
“Two men are at the door, requesting your presence. Rick Perez and Nick Lomas.”
Donato took in a lungful of air and blew it out. “You should have done the world a favor and cut his tongue out.”
We met the two men in the kitchen. Rick Perez introduced himself as Joker. He was the leader of the biker gang Nick Lomas was a member of. Nick was his nephew, his sister’s kid, as Joker called him.
I didn’t sit down to chat. The man in the footage made my instincts prickle. I instructed them to make it quick. We had a plane to catch.
“I didn’t realize the woman my nephew has been after all these years was yours.” Joker eyed the tattoos around him. “My apologies.”
“Keep going,” Rocco said, impatient. He had been on edge ever since Dario’s decision to marry.
“Four of my guys were killed last night,” Joker said, opening and closing his hands, his silver rings clashing against one another. “By one of your guys.”
“One of our men,” Rocco said, taking him more seriously.
A biker gang was nothing to men like Rocco. The night in the bar was a night out for us.
Joker knew it. He looked at me. “The man has the same tattoo,” Joker said, motioning around his neck.
Ettore. The rosary tattoo filled in with the lion and a sacred heart, symbolic of the Faustifamiglia, was around his neck. Marzio and each of his sons had one in the same spot, Luca Fausti included.
“He was after my sister’s kid, and he still is. We know it was one of your guys because Nick was hiding in a hole underneath the floor. We have hideouts in some of our places, you understand. For times when we don’t want to be found.”
“You wenth to taketh my tongue outth,” Nick said. “He cameth back for the reth of it!”
“Why are you still speaking that way?” Tito said, coming closer to him.
“I don’t knowth.” He stuck his tongue out.
It was a nice gash, but nothing to make him have a lisp.
Tito waved a hand. “Psychosomatic.”
“He’s always been that way,” Joker said. “But here’s the deal, and no disrespect meant. He’s my sister’s kid. I need to keep him alive. I can’t do it. That guy is not your average killer. He cut the hearts out of two of my men, left the other two to bleed out from their jugglers. Call him off. Nicky won’t come close to your wife again.”
“No,” I said, considering. “He won’t. And I wouldn’t send men to kill—I’d do it myself. Therefore, I can’t call him off.”
“Why not?”
“He’s not mine to control.”
“He’s a lone wolf.” Romeo howled and then winked at Nick Lomas when he met his eyes.
“Brando, did you have to make sucking marks on my behin—oh, hello,” Scarlett said, recovering so gracefully that it was almost comical. She had changed and was holding her tights away from her body; the fabric came back against her skin with a slap. “Who are you?”
Joker stood, offering her his hand and his name. She glanced at me before she took it. Then her eyes fell on Nick Lomas.
“Shit,” she breathed, looking between the two of us. “You did that to him?”
O ye of little faith, woman.I said nothing though. Marriage taught me how to keep quiet when the time was right.Most of the time,I amended.
“Yeth, he did,” Nick Lomas said, sticking out his tongue again.
“What happened to your tongue?”
