I know everyone who would do things like that. This place is full of them, how does she not see?
"Whoever did this is a fool. It was a message job. Somebody’s trying to tell Tony something. Nobody kills one of Tony's guys and gets away with it though,” I say.
“But that’s not true, is it? Someone killed a whole mess of the family a few years ago, right? It was the biggest mob hit in history.”
She’s right. That whole mess of a family was my family. My father. My uncles and aunts. My best friend, and Giana—the girl I swore I was going to marry one day. My little mafia princess.
Those days were different. In the old days you had to ask permission to get rid of someone. It was respectful. But no one asked for permission for the execution of my family and now there's no more rules. Now it’s an open game where no one is safe.
Her blue eyes stare into mine, waiting, watching, as if I have the answers to all the universe’s questions. There’s something about this girl, just something about her.Why the hell is she here in a place like this?
"Go home, gorgeous," I say, leaning in close to her. "Pick up a paper on the way home, look for another job. A decent one."
She picks up her purse from off the table and slips the strap over her shoulder. “But this is where I belong. On that stage.”
“No, love. You deserve better.”
She walks out the back door without another word and I watch her from the open door until she’s safe inside her car. I don’t think whoever popped Franco would go after one of the girls, but I don’t want Felony to be a part of this. I want her home safe, working as some secretary behind a desk and keeping her legs open only for me.
"Hey, Cassanova,” Tony calls from behind me. “The boys are here. We’re closing the club tonight. Let's clean this up.” He gestures his finger around. “Corey, I’m going to break the news to Franco’s wife. He was like a brother to me. We have to find out who did this, then I'm going to kill everyone involved."
I spend the next few hours washing blood off the walls and repainting.
I’m a zombie as I drive Candy home and tuck her into bed still crying. I feel nothing until I’m home, collapsing into my bed, and polishing off half a bottle of whiskey to drown away the images.
But they’re not images of Franco I see as my eyelids close.
It’s the same nightmare I’ve had since I was fifteen.
Bright warm daylight.
An explosion of sound,rattatatatatatat.
A moment of utter silence, then a chorus of devils screeching out bullets. A blur of suits and men and sweat. Giana's face drained of color. Her always-beautiful baby blues grew large, then glassy and glazed. I held her as the bullets zipped past us. I held her until they came and whisked who they could to the hospital. Then I sat and watched body bag after body bag devour all of the people I loved.
Angelo. Angelo. Where's Angelo...Oh my God. MY GOD. My Angelo. My Angelo. My mother's shrieks.Oh God, Corrado. Thick Italian curses, blunt and violent, slammed into my ears as I stood, stunned and stupid, tracing the rivers of blood with my eyes until I crashed to my knees.
Tires peeled and screeched away. The smell of burnt rubber filled the air.
My eyes met uncle Tony's in the hospital. He was lying off to the side on a gurney; one lucky grazed bullet wound in his arm.
After the last funeral, after he took control of the family business and named himself boss, he joked about the bullet only grazing him because it was too scared to meet the true evil that lies under his skin.
And I absolutely believed him.
* * *
Two days passsince Tony had to tell Franco's wife and his son Junior about the hit. Tony asked everyone to lay low, and the club’s been closed, and the girls aren’t making any money. “Go home to your wives and your families,” he said to everyone. Not an option for me, most of my family is dead. The rest is Uncle Tony.
Franco isn’t even dead forty-eight hours before it’s business as usual, and Tony reopens the club, and dancers and drunks shuffle their feet over the place where Franco bled out on the floor.
Tony wants to make money and no one’s talking about the hit or taking responsibility. Tony thinks it might have been a personal thing.
I agree, fifteen bullet holes feels pretty personal to me.
At the club, Felony's tending bar. Her dark hair is pinned up in pigtails like a schoolgirl and I walk right toward her like a moth to a flame. "You okay? You don't look so good," she asks.
"Fine," I answer. She doesn’t need to know I’ve been up with nightmares or that the only thing that will make me forget for a minute is to be balls deep inside her. Or how fucking pissed I am that she still works here.
