I return the phone to Maria as soon as I re-enter the bedroom.The room is neat and tidy now, all my new clothes in piles ready for laundering and dry cleaning.I want to mess it all up again.Trash this beautiful room, this beautiful prison filled with all my favorite things.
Because I want to stay right here.Forever.
And I want to make him pay for all he’s done to me.To my family.Pay in blood and pain.
But I don’t know which of those things I want more.
And it’s tearing my mind apart even as I stand here, returning Maria’s smile as she tells me to follow her to the kitchen for some lunch.
Why do my jailers have to be such nice people?
Why can’t I hate Matteo more than I love him?
Why am I so much weaker than everyone else in my family?
Chapter14
MATTEO
Gianna ison the balcony of our bedroom, the phone I told Maria to give her pressed tightly to her cheek.I’m still waiting for her to smile, while I watch the breeze pick up locks of her wet hair and a peachy rose color rise in her cheeks.She’s wearing black and her hair looks like dark honey when it’s wet.That’s not a bad combination.Though I much prefer her in gold.And smiling.
And I haven’t seen either in what seems like a very long time.
Caputo clears his throat pointedly as he taps me on the shoulder, bringing me back to the present.I just got back from speaking to Gianna’s father and arranged a meeting of what I consider my inner circle out here.Caputo, Leone, Nico, and a guy called Paulo Amato, a distant cousin on my mother’s side that I don’t know very well, but at least he’s blood.As is Nico.And Leone has issues with Ferro that prevent him from being completely loyal to him.Caputo seems to be Ferro’s man through and through, but he did volunteer to come with me and has been nothing if not efficient while running things here.I’m sure he reports back to Ferro, but I’m not too worried about that.
Leone is looking at me as though he’s waiting for an answer, but I completely missed the question.
Nico chuckles.“She’s gorgeous, but you do want some separation there.Otherwise you’ll get nothing done.”
I instinctively glance back at Gianna, but she’s no longer at the railing.
“You should apply some of that good advice to yourself and your coke habit,” I tell him.He’s not wrong, for what it’s worth.But what he said rubbed me the wrong way and I don’t know why.Maybe because I absolutely don’t want any separation from Goldie.But that’s just childish.
He doesn’t reply, just scratches his nose, something he does all the time these days.Too much coke, not enough sleep.I’ll have a real talk with him about that later, I shouldn’t have brought it up now in front of everyone.
“Anyway, where were we?”I ask, turning in my chair so the balcony and Gianna are behind me.
“You were going to tell us the next steps now that everyone’s here,” Leone says, looking annoyed.“And I asked what the timeline for everything is.”
Timeline?Go as slow as possible.
That’s the answer sounding in my head.Because when this is done, when Moretti is gone and I’m once again the top dog in LA, my curse will strike.I’m certain I won’t get to enjoy any of it, except the revenge part.So I need enough time to enjoy everything before that happens.Especially Gianna.
“First we need to assess the actual lay of the land,” I say.“See who’s who, who is allied with who and how everything stands.”
“Didn’t you work for Moretti for years?I figured you knew all the ins and outs of his operation,” Leone insists.He’s getting on my nerves more and more with each word he utters.Maybe he doesn’t belong in my inner circle.
“I wasn’t exactly in his closest confidences,” I say, ignoring the memories of all the ways Moretti found to humiliate me over the years that are now rising to the surface.“But I kept a close watch on what he was doing.I know more than he thinks.But not enough that I’d be comfortable just rushing in.I know how many men he has, but he’s also made some alliances.”
“With whom?”Nico asks.“The Russians?Japanese?And what else do you guys have here… the Balkan Mafia?”
“All of them, yeah.And the Mexicans.But the latest thing he was getting in bed with is a different beast altogether.Some sort of international syndicate, or conglomerate called Hydra.They can move in a fight, but that’s more or less all I know about them.”
“We’ve heard of them back East too,” Caputo says.“But their main thing is more business related, isn’t it?Ferro’s had a meeting with them already and the outcome was that if we leave each other alone everything will be fine.”
I glance back at the balcony, can’t help it.And am rewarded with a brief glance of Gianna’s honey gold head disappearing back into the bedroom.
“Out here they have their fingers in a lot of pies,” I say.“And Moretti was making some sort of big deal with them before I left.I blew up a bunch of their cars during my exit, hoping it would put Moretti on their bad side, but I don’t know if I succeeded.That’s something we have to figure out.Who Moretti’s enemies are.Because those might be our friends.”
