Joey claps his hands. “Everyone out!” he hollers, and all the men file out, some complaining under their breath, like they want to stick around and watch the show. Joey hangs around until Maggie goes over to him and whispers in his ear. He tries to press a gun on her but she waves it off.
“I think we’re quite secure, aren’t we?” she asks, glancing back at me. “And you know I abhor violence, Joey.”
I start laughing at that, and I can’t stop, getting louder and louder and more out of control until Maggie takes three quick steps over to me and slaps me hard across the face.
It calms me down, at least.
“Aw, Maggie,” I slur. “You gonna give me a speech before you kill me?”
“I’mnot going to kill you. I wouldn’t dirty my hands with your blood. No, Joey will get that privilege.”
I lean my head back, trying to find a position where it’ll stop hurting so much.
“I ain’t leaving you without protection,” Joey says. “What kind of man would I be if I left my lady alone with—”
Maggie turns impatiently on Joey, and waves an imperious hand. “Fine. Give me the gun. Thenleave us.” Joey doesn’t seem to like being bossed around, his eyes flashing, but he hands over the gun and then makes his way out the door. I guess Maggie has him trained well.
She follows him right up to the door and then locks it behind him, before coming back over to me. She leans down to take in my face, like she’s planning the next place to wallop me. “That door over there is the only door out of here, just FYI. And I do believe Joey Fuscone hates you almost as much as I do. So even if you somehow get free of that chair, get my gun and shoot me—which we both know you won’t—there’s still no way out. Are we clear?”
“How long have you been in bed with the Fuscones?” I ask, like that’s the important thing right now. But I can’t hide my astonishment. “Andliterally, too? How can you even stand letting himtouchyou?”
She gives me an allover stare. “I could ask the same of you and yourhusband.” She just about spits the word out. “And as for how long I’ve been laying my plans…well, this has all been a long time coming, Howie. A long time.”
I don’t like the way she’s waving the gun around casually, like she doesn’t really know how to hold it. Fuscone took the safety off, too, so if she accidentally pulls that trigger, God only knows where the bullet will go.
I change tack. “Does Pops know about this?”
“Pops? What does he have to do with anything? Pops does what he’s told, just like these fool Italians do. Someone had to take the reins of our family, and it certainly wasn’t going to beyou, was it?”
After Mom died, it’s true: Pops kind of gave up on the world. I never saw him much after that, but every time I did he was a little bit smaller, like a sponge drying up on the shore. Even at my wedding he seemed like a ghost of his former self. I guess it would’ve been easy enough for Maggie, always his favorite, to twist him to her will. “Okay. Well, if you want to play matriarch, I won’t stand in your way. You don’t need to kill me to lead the family. Nothing to fear here. I’m a D’Amato now, anyway.”
She sneers. “I can assure you, I’m not killing you because I’m afraid of you. And it’s been clear your whole life that you’d never be man enough to head the Donovans.”
“Huh. So…why am I even here? Is kidnapping me part of some revenge plot against the Morellis for Mom’s death?”
“In part,” Maggie says coldly. “But not in the way you’re thinking of it. And it’s not just business, Howie. Watching you die will be a great pleasure for me.”
“Yikes. I gotta say, I really didn’t think our sibling rivalry ran that deep.”
She slaps me again for that, even harder than last time. “You’re no brother of mine,” she says softly, once I’ve shaken off the stars again. “I am my father’s daughter. But you—” She gives me a contemptuous look. “You’re just some mutt. But we wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you. If you’d just died when you were supposed to…” She gives a sigh, afakesigh.
“You mean a few months back when the Fuscone crew kidnapped me?” I ask slowly. “Or do you mean the time someone tried to kill me on my honeymoon? Or do you mean…”
“You know what I mean.WhenI mean.”
Her deep blue Donovan eyes look into mine, and yeah. I know. “That hit that took out Mom—”
“Was meant for you. Now you’re finally catching up.”
“Youordered the hit? But you were only…” I trail off. Maggie was in her twenties when it happened—young, but she knew the family business even then.
She laughs at me, a tinkling, refined little laugh completely unlike mine. I wonder now if she’s consciously decided to do everything opposite to me. To be reserved, cold, ambitious. To learn the family business, work hard, win by whatever means necessary. “Oh, don’t give me too much credit, darling. Pops ordered the hit on you—onmyrecommendation, it’s true. But if it’d been left up to me, I would have seenbothof you dead. You and that whore mother of ours, may she never rest. But Pops was still in love with the whore, and couldn’t bear to do it. It was only supposed to be you, but things didn’t work out that way, did they? Afterwards, it was too much for Pops, her death. But then, he never had the stomach for what it is we do. He’s weak, Howie, weak like you. He called off the contract on you, said you could live out your life as long as you never came back to Boston. So off you went to boarding school.”
My mind is ticking over. It explains a few things, but not all. “But Pops reached out to me a few times. Hewantedme to go to Harvard, come home to Boston. He gave me his old hoodie and everything…” I decide not to add that I palmed it off on Luca. Probably wouldn’t help my cause right now. Besides, I’m really over being slapped, punched, hurt. I want to get out of here.
I don’t want to die.
And that’s the scariest thing of all right now, that I actually want to live.
