Seb isn’t the only one in the Family who knows just how deep my vendetta against the Clemenzas runs. But heisthe only one who knows I plan to do something about it.
Unfortunately, he also knows I’m under orders not to.
He rises when I enter, greeting me with a back-slapping hug and kiss on each cheek. He’s a touchy-feely kind of guy despite the muscles. In the old days, the real old days back in Rome, he would’ve done well as a gladiator—or maybe not. He’s a little too fair, a little too honorable. He hates playing dirty and he loves being part of a hierarchy, because he knows where he stands atall times. It doesn’t bother him that his younger brother is the Boss now, because he never expected any different, since Big Gee was legitimate, and he wasn’t.
If not an ancient gladiator, Seb would probably do pretty well in the military, too, with that respect for hierarchy. Lucky for us he chose a life of crime instead. He’s good at it, but he doesn’t enjoy the work the way I do. He sees violence as a tool.
I just enjoy hitting shit.
The butcher’s wife has been busy in the kitchen, because she comes in with a meal for us both. It’s tough to get the stink of raw meat from below out of my nose long enough to enjoy it, but it doesn’t seem to bother Seb any. As we’re eating, he tells me about the job. There’s a problem in a dockside warehouse in Red Hook. “Not ours. Not Italian at all,” he adds.
“The Russians?” I ask, because they’ve been on my mind.
Seb shakes his head. “Independent crew. But they’re skimming shipments that are moving through our channels, and they need to be dissuaded from doing so.”
“When?”
“Now,” Seb says. “Before it becomes a bigger problem. Make sure they get the message, but don’t go too hard on them. Most of them are kids, got no idea how the world really works.”
“I’ll handle it.”
Conversation turns to other things. The butcher’s wife comes in to take the plates away. She replaces them with coffee, and I wonder what’s coming next. Seb asks about a crew out on Long Island that needed a little encouragement last week, and then falls silent.
“Anything else?” I ask at last, because I don’t like the way Seb is hedging. The man is not a hedger. For a Family man, he’s as straight up as they come.
“I heard a rumor.”
“Yeah? You shouldn’t listen to those.”
“This one was crazy,” he tells me. “So crazy that I figured it had to be bullshit.” He leans forward and drops his voice. “Rumor has it you were at the Obelisk last night. That you bought Caligula Clemenza in one of their slave auctions.”
It’s not a question. It’s a statement he hopes is untrue. But I don’t bother softening it for him. “I did.”
That fucker Daniel King was not going to let me get away with it. I should’ve known that. I assumed my membership at the Obelisk granted me certain privileges, such as some goddamn privacy, so that I’d have a few days to figure out a way to break the news to the Boss. But that was my own stupid mistake.
Or maybe King just didn’t like me snatching up the Clemenza under the nose of his Bratva pal.
Seb’s hand, resting flat on the table, curls slowly into a fist. “Jesus Christ,” he says quietly. “You better be joking, Orsini.”
I say nothing. He leans back in his chair, dragging a hand down his face. When he looks at me again, there’s something like horror in his eyes. “You were ordered to keep your hands off the Clemenzas,” he says. “Explicitly.”
“I was ordered not tokillthem.”
“That is not the point and you fucking know it.”
I shrug. “He was on the block, Seb. The Bratva were circling. You want the last Clemenza heir wearing a Russian leash?”
He stares at me, incredulous. “So you bought him.”
“Yes.”
“From those evil motherfuckers.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re keeping him as property?”
“It’s for his own good. Maybe no one likes to talk about it, but someone out thereispicking off the Clemenzas one by one.”
