The mood is dark when we step into the place. Several men drinking at the bar climb off their stools, nodding in respect to Ben as we walk past. Ben shakes their hands before following Accardi and Barretta to the back stairs.
We traipse downstairs and into the small office at the back.
Ben removes his jacket before sitting down on one of the battered brown leather couches. I keep my jacket on as I drop down beside him. Barretta sits across from us, looking like death warmed over. Gino moves to the liquor cabinet, fixing drinks while we make the usual bullshit small talk with Barretta.
When we all have a drink in hand, the conversation turns serious. “Tell me what you know.” Ben drills a sharp look at Gino. The boss man might look composed, but he’s ready to explode underneath that calm façade. Gino was skating on thin ice before this attack. That he let it happen on his watch is inexcusable. Things are falling to shit in the Windy City, and it threatens to pull everything and everyone down with it.
Gino doesn’t look like a man hovering on the brink of this world and the next as he casually crosses one leg over his knee and begins explaining. Everything about the fuckface pisses me off, and I have to work hard to keep the animosity from my face. “One of oursoldatigot a tip-off that the Russians were about to imminently attack some of our warehouses, but we didn’t know where. I dispatched men as quickly as I could get them mobilized, dividing them into groups, to go to all our locations. The Russians were still there when we got to the site on West Pershing Road, but it was too late to stop the blaze.”
“You have them?” Ben sits up straighter. “You should have led with that.”
“I interrogated them personally,” Accardi says, drinking his whiskey. “They didn’t give us shit, so I slit their throats and threw their bodies into the burning building.”
Waves of anger roll off Ben, and he’s up, out of his seat, knocking over the coffee table, as he lunges at Gino, before I have- even processed his movement. Ben jabs his gun into Accardi’s temple. “I don’t need much incentive to blast a fucking big hole in your head,” he grits out.
Accardi presses his weapon into Ben’s stomach, and I pull my gun out, pointing it at Gino’s head. “It will take even less for me to pull the trigger,” I say, walking right up to him. “Release Don Mazzone or his face and mine are the last faces you will ever see.”
“Everyone put your weapons down.” Thomas Barretta stands, clutching the arm of the couch as his leg wobbles. “Need I remind you we are all on the same side?”
“Are we though?” Ben levels a lethal stare at Accardi, his jaw tensing, before he straightens up and pulls the muzzle away from his head. I keep my weapon trained on Gino because I don’t trust the fucker.
Gino withdraws his gun from Ben’s stomach, placing it down on his thigh. “You might be head of The Commission, but you don’t get to level accusations at me. I am still a don, and I was entrusted with this territory. That means I make the decisions and you don’t get to pull rank on me.”
“I have every right to question a man who would dispose of the enemy without holding them for formal interrogation.”
“Don Accardi made the best decisions in the heat of the moment,” Barretta says. “I was there when he questioned the men. They gave up nothing. Keeping them alive so you could personally interrogate and torture them would not have made any difference. We are getting hung up on the wrong things.”
Ben and I exchange a guarded look. Something about this whole situation reeks.
Ben retracts, returning to the couch. Accardi’s brown eyes meet my blue ones with equal levels of loathing and distrust.
“Messina.” Ben’s cold tone cuts through my stare down with Natalia’s husband, and I step back, keeping my gun out as I sit down beside my boss.
“How did this happen?” Ben asks. “How are we letting the Russians run circles around us in this territory again?”
“The men are losing faith,” Barretta says, palming his cheek as it spasms. “It’s coming up on a year since Gifoli passed, and things are in disarray.”
“Whose fault is that?” Ben asks, swirling the bourbon in his glass.
“I never wanted this gig,” Barretta says. “I let you and The Commission talk me into it, but I’m done, Bennett. Last week, I was diagnosed with ALS. It’s a death sentence, and I’m out of time. We need to discuss what happens next because my plane ticket to Sicily is already booked. I leave a week from Sunday.”
I can’t say this is a surprise because Barretta’s heart hasn’t been in it from the outset. He lost his will to live when his son was gunned down last year.
“I am sorry to hear that, Thomas. Truly, I am.” Ben’s expression conveys the truth.
Barretta nods. “This is not how I wanted to go out, but such is life.”
“Barretta’s loss will be another blow,” Accardi says. “We need to make bold, decisive leadership decisions now. There are a few men with potential we have been working with though none of them are ready for the kind of responsibility that comes with being a don.” He looks at Barretta for a second before swinging his eyes back to Ben. “I am willing to relocate to Chicago permanently. If I take charge of The Outfit as the official don, I will restore peace and order.”
I snort. Can’t help myself. “Because you have done such a stellar job in the time you have been here.”
“The men won’t bond with Gino while they know his role here is only fleeting,” Barretta says.
It’s a fucking bullshit statement because I watched my boss lead our men for years without the official title while Angelo was battling cancer. Oursoldatifell in behind Ben without question because he is the kind of man who commands respect, loyalty, and trust.
Gino isn’t. And therein lies the problem.
“Give him the official title and responsibility, and they will fall in behind him,” Barretta continues. “This can’t wait, Bennett. The time for action is now before we lose men or the Russians gain more ground. This won’t be an isolated attack. They will keep coming at us until we are severely weakened.”
