I chuckle. “I’m not a rat. And if you kill me, you’re making a big mistake.”
“Oh, yeah?” He tips his head to one side. “How do you figure?”
“Listen, I don’t know who’s been telling you lies about me—”
“No one’s had to tell us anything,” Vitali says. “We got the information straight from the source. I’ve been tracking your phone and your laptop this last week. We know where you’ve been. What you’ve been doing.Whoyou’ve been doing.”
I almost laugh again. Vitali and his goddamn security obsession. I should’ve known not to trust any equipment from him. But under that cynical amusement, I do regret that I let things get so far out of hand, let things go on so long that Luca actually thinks I’ve betrayed the Family. I let my own bullshit get in the way, along with the mess that we’ve been cleaning up. Admittedly, there was a lot of mess to clean. “Knowing where I’ve been ain’t the same as knowing what I’m doing,” I point out with a sigh.
“Boss got word from Iggy Barrano, who got it from Donnie Gee. You’ve been kissing up to some West Coaster called Dellacroce.”
That’s the last time I ever visit Uncle Iggy. Or maybe Donnie Gee took losing that chess game harder than I thought. “Yeah, that’sreallynot what happened.”
But Vitali doesn’t seem in the mood to chat after all. He stands again and aims the gun back at my face. “Maybe. Maybe not. But the fact is, you disobeyed direct orders, Fontana. Think we don’t know where Carlo Bianchi has been this week?”
“Listen, I’m happy to explain everything. But not to you, Vitali. I need to speak to the Boss. I should have told him months back, when it first happened, but…”
“But what?” asks a familiar voice.
The three of them have been surrounding me in a little semi-circle, but they break ranks to let Luca D’Amato walk into their huddle. I’ve never seen Luca looking more like what he really is: a cold-blooded killer. “Well, Fontana? Here I am. What exactly do you have to say for yourself?”
For a moment, I can’t speak. I’m trying to think as fast as Carlo does, figure out the best way to handle this, but that’s exactly what got me into this mess in the first place—thinking I could handle everything myself.
Turns out, not so much.
“I’m sorry, Boss,” I start slowly. The way Luca is staring at me, I might as well be a stranger. It hurts more than I expected, but it’s only what I deserve.
Luca looks down at the large, black-stoned Morelli ring on his hand, turning it back and forth in the light. He runs a thumb over it as he says, “The Alessis fished Ray Gatti out of the ocean this morning.”
There’s no point denying it. “I can explain that, too.”
“I already knew that was your work, Fontana, soon as I heard what killed him. You think I haven’t seen you end a man that way with my own eyes? Breaking his neck over your knee? It’s not pretty, but it’s effective.”
I don’t know what else I can possibly say. “Yeah. Okay, I killed him. But I did it to protect Carlo. Someone sent Gatti after him that night.”
Luca regards me with the detachment of a scientist observing the results of an experiment. Then he turns to the other Capos and flicks his fingers at them. “Leave us. Not you, Vitali. I’d like your impression of this story Fontana’s so eager to spin for us. We might as well have a laugh before we spill his brains.”
“I’d like to stay and hear it, too,” Al Vollero growls.
Luca doesn’t even bother to look at the old man. It’s Vitali who jerks his head to the side and says, “You heard the Boss. Get lost.”
Snapper pulls a grumbling Vollero away, and the remaining three of us listen to their retreating footsteps until we hear the side door of the warehouse slam shut again behind them.
“Well, you certainly have a lot of explaining to do,” Luca says calmly, crossing his arms. “But fair warning, Fontana: you’re not leaving here alive. Whatever your story might be, however entertaining, you’ve done too much damage to the Family. Tome. I don’t know what the hell you were thinking, and I’m sure you’ll be very persuasive, but I can’t let this stand. You understand?”
I have never been so close to death as I have in this moment. Not even that last night at Tino Morelli’s, when I tried to hold back the attack from the Clemenzas and Fuscones along with my brothers. We failed that night, and I’m quite sure that whatever I say here will fail as well.
But I don’t want Luca to think that I purposely betrayed him. And maybe, if I can make him see it from my point of view, he’ll give one last message to Carlo from me. I desperately want Carlo to know I was thinking of him in my last moments. That all of this was worth it to me, because of him.
So I start from the beginning, from the wedding, and I begin to explain.
It takes a long time. I stumble over parts, have to go back and revisit things I forgot the first time. When I get to the part about Matt, how his father Dellacroce beat him and the other kids, I can see Vitali is listening closely. He sends a sidelong glance at Luca, as though he’s half-thinking he might break in, but he stays silent in the end.
“I didn’t know Gatti had resurfaced,” I finished up. “But I knew it was only a matter of time. I meant to come to you today, Boss—tonight. I know I should have told you all this before, and that’s on me. But I haven’t sold anyone out.”
“On the contrary, Fontana,” Luca says, and his voice is very soft now, so I know my time is near. “You sold all of us out the moment you killed Gatti to protect your fuck buddy.”
I’m opening my mouth to protest when someone else does it for me.
