Page 60 of Saving Wyatt

I tucked my phone back inside my pocket and pressed my knuckles against the door a couple of times before it swung open and King appeared behind it.

“Wyatt! Thank you for coming,” he said, running a hand over his dyed-blond hair and stepping aside to let me in.

“Are you okay? What are we doing here?” I asked him.

King pressed his lips together into a smile and nodded, closing the door behind me.

“He told me you needed to speak to me,” the man behind the desk said, and as he rolled his office chair around, I came face to face with an imposing figure with dark features and a tiny dog in his arms.

I straightened up before I closed the distance between us and took a seat opposite King’s brother and current godfather of the Ferraro family, Nino Ferraro.

“Hello,” I said, bypassing the usual pleasantries of new encounters.

Meeting a criminal to take down another wasn’t pleasant. It was a necessity, and as much as I wanted to give the man the benefit of the doubt considering he was King’s family, he had still chosen to take up his father’s mantle. He had chosen to stay a criminal instead of doing anything else with his life.

But at least he was terrorizing New York City with his bullshit. And he might prove useful with taking down our very own criminal.

“You go by Nicholas Stone now?” I asked the man sitting opposite me as King sat down next to me.

Nino laughed. “No, Nicholas is out on the field, but he lent us his office for our meeting. Away from prying eyes and ears.”

I turned to King and narrowed my eyes before I said, “So the farm is yours.”

It wasn’t so much a question as it was a statement. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together and realize the crime lord of NYC had dipped his fingers into Mayberry’s pie. Because what this island needed was more criminals.

“Just an investment. An excuse to keep an eye out for my big brother. It’s a legit business,” Nino said.

I bit my tongue.

Legit business, my ass. Did he want to keep an eye out for his brother or seize an opportunity to take out the local threat so he could be the new Salieri?

“Then you must know Salieri has revealed himself,” I said.

“Of course. King here told me as soon as you guys found out.”

“And you haven’t done anything to reclaim your money from him?” I raised an eyebrow.

It was an open secret by this point that Wilson, aka Salieri, had been Ferraro’s right hand before he stole a bunch of money and contacts and set up shop in Mayberry Holm. Nino’s father had wanted him dead.

“I’ve been a little busy in New York with my own rat,” Nino said but didn’t elaborate, which was probably just as well.

The less I knew about the goings-on of the Ferraros the better.

“But you’re here now. Are you ready to take him out now?” I asked.

Nino put his dog down and leaned forward. The dog wasted no opportunity to sniff my feet and then did the same with King before begging to be picked up by him.

“Oh, I’m more than ready, all right. The question is are you ready to deal with the consequences?”

My expression hardened, and I readjusted in my seat. “What consequences?” I asked.

Nino joined the tips of his fingers in front of his face and smirked. “I take out the head, you have to deal with his associates. They’ll be scrambling to take over power. You have to cut them down before any one of them replaces him.”

I stared at the man and didn’t waver, nor did I crack when I spoke. “You take out the head, we’re more than ready to take out the rest of the body.”

“Great,” Nino said and sat back, exuding so much more confidence than I ever felt in my life. “I’ll set up a meeting and take care of business. You get your men ready.”

I didn’t give him an answer. I simply stood up and gave him my hand and walked out of there, hoping I was doing the right thing.