“You can’t kill him,” she says, her eyes popping wide. “You said so yourself. It’s too risky. They will come after his killer, and I can’t lose you and Mateo. We need to go to Papa.”
I shake my head. “We can’t, Nat. If we do that, we have to come clean about everything. If he finds out the things that bastard has done to you—how he has disrespected you and tarnished your honor, he’ll start a war. A bloody war where no one is safe, especially not you.”
“And he would kill you,” she whispers, gripping my shirt tighter. “You are right, we can’t tell Papa. But what if Mateo tells him?”
“Mateo won’t tell him. Mateo will want to dole out justice, in the same way I do.”
Steely determination replaces her tears as she looks into my eyes. “I do want you to kill him, Leo. Hell,Iwant to kill him but not at the expense of your life or my brother’s.”
“We’ll be careful. We will find a way of deflecting the attention from us and on to someone else.”
“Do you promise?”
I take her hand, bringing it to my mouth, planting a soft kiss on her palm. “I promise,amore mio. The only life ending is Carlo Greco’s, and we will be alive to dance on his grave.”
* * *
“Stop.”I pull Mateo away from the wall, grabbing his torn knuckles before he can inflict more self-damage. “You can’t help me kill that motherfucker if you have broken both of your hands.”
I survey the trashed basement with a hint of envy because I haven’t yet expunged my rage. I’m keeping that to unleash on the bastard who dared to put his hands on my love.
“I am going to beat the shit out of that prick until he’s a bloody mess on the floor. He will be so unrecognizable by the time I’m done no one will be able to tell he was human,” he snarls.
“We need a plan, and we need one quick,” I say, letting him go, now his anger has cooled a little.
“Agreed.” He flops down on the couch, and I sit in the chair across from him. He buries his head in his hands, and his shoulders heave. His pain is my pain, and we will make that bastard pay for what he’s done to Natalia. “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me.” He lifts his head, shaking it. “Why didn’t she come to us?”
“He had her terrorized. She was afraid he was going to kill us.”
“The only one dying is that prick,” he snaps, cracking his shredded knuckles.
“We need to organize this carefully, and we need to cover our tracks.” I run a hand through my hair, bristling with unspent anger.
“I want to grab his ass now and inflict the worst pain on him,” Mateo growls.
“You think I don’t?” Unspoken words filter between us. I fudged the truth a little, not wanting Mateo to direct his rage in the wrong direction.
I have decided to come clean after we take care of Greco. I know it will mean staying away from Natalia, but right now, eliminating the threat is my sole priority. Keeping her safe will always come before my own needs and wants. “I want to slice my knife into his flesh over and over and defile him in the worst way so he feels the humiliation and fear she must have felt.”
Mateo’s eyes burn with hatred, as he nods his agreement.
“But we have to be smart. We can’t go charging over there. That will only get us killed, start a war, and leave Nat even more vulnerable.”
Mateo sighs heavily. “You’re right, but how do we go about this?”
“I have an idea.” I can’t keep the grin off my face at the prospect of murder and mayhem and retribution.
His eyes brighten, and he sits up straighter. “Let’s hear it.”
20
Leo
“That double-crossing snake,” Mateo hisses under his breath, as we watch Carlo meet with the Colombian cartel, from our hiding place in the eaves of a derelict warehouse two miles from Port Newark. Down below, Carlo is finalizing a drug deal that will see him flood the streets of New York with a competitor’s product, hitting all the New York families where it will hurt.
While Caltimore Holdings—the Mazzone family enterprise, started by Mateo’s great-grandfather back in the nineteen twenties—has lots of different interests, our drug supply business is the most lucrative one.
Traditionally, the business was heavily focused on construction, shipping, and transportation with the usual extortion and racketeering on the side. Under Angelo’s stewardship, we have branched out into the retail sector, and Mateo’s family owns a number of restaurants, casinos, and seedy clubs. All are a great way to wash cash and to keep nosy do-gooder cops and FBI agents out of our hair.
