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“Gia’s a smart player. She’ll keep her silly butt safe. I’ll try not to get attached to my vineyards.”

I swing the car into the roundabout, and the front door is open. I help Poppy out and head inside.

I bellow from the front walk, “Gia! You here? I have a bone to pick with you. GIA!” I grin, thinking about my sister and me running through this house fighting over the last ricciarelli or Christmases we’d celebrate here instead of in LA. My sister likes to bust my balls so I figure it’s better to shock the fuck out of her then slowly reveal I’m not dead.

I knead Poppy’s perfect ass and ask, “When is my appointment?” She smacks my chest. We turn towards the house and this overwhelming feeling just about suffocates me. Il malocchio. There’s bad juju. Nobody’s out front on the corners of the porch. Poppy shivers and then looks at me.

“It’s too quiet.” There’s a hair out of place on the back of my neck. There’s nobody anywhere. Poppy gasps and points to a red smear on a window off to the right of the door. We bolt inside and I sputter out, “Gia—fuck. Poppy, get the fuck out of here.” I reach for my gun which isn’t in the fucking back of my pants. Shit.

I can’t do anything but back away from the scene. Poppy bolts from the house and returns with my Glock. Then she gets behind me as we take in the bloody scene.

I sneak to the first body in the entryway and nudge it with my foot. Stone cold dead. Knife to the throat, brutal and bloody. He didn’t even get a shot off, I’d guess. I kick the gun away even as I realize it’s useless.

My blood and skin are cold and crackling. “Go the fuck to the car.”

“No.” The blood isn’t fresh but it’s not that fucking old. The smell is acrid, slight decay and bitter copper. The blood pooled and partially dried is the same color as the smell. If someone is fucking alive here, it will be someone who’s real good at playing possum. No fresh bloom of crimson in the room, only dark splatter staining furniture, walls, other bodies, and rugs.

I mutter in astonishment, “It’s a goddamn slaughter. Go! Get out of here, now,” I hiss and I nudge her toward the door. She looks shocked, but I don’t have time. “Get a club or something and hide. Now.”

“Don’t die.” Then she runs outside as I round the living room. More bodies and so much fucking blood. But so far, my sister isn’t among the carnage. There are knife cuts but also some execution style shit with two tight in the chest and one to the head like a fucking mafia calling card. Jesus.

There are others who are sloppy who got caught in a spray of bullets and the other men are riddled like a sieve. That’s Enzo. A hail of bullets when one will do the job. Years I tried to teach him that sometimes you just need to kneecap a guy. And you can only kill a man once, or in my case twice. But wasting all these marbles is fucking so stupid. It’s like it fucking rained bodies in here. All these assholes shouldn’t have been clustered together. Unless someone rounded them up. Christ, what the fuck? And some of these guys are my old crew. Good fucking guys.

As opposed to the bullets, the cuts are too precise. It’s a goddamned battlefield with clothing and flesh ripped up. This is a mass murder. An act of war with a purpose to get my attention. It’s dramatic and unnecessary, but that’s who Enzo is. I don’t see any sign of my sister and since they want me, the smart play is to keep her alive. Not that Enzo is smart. I’m hoping it’s a message and not a trap. Not while my wife’s outside somewhere hopefully hiding her skinny ass.

I step over the bodies, poised to shoot anything that moves. If I were a normal man, my stomach would churn at the carnage. My brain would be hung up on guilt or remorse. But I’m not a normal man. I’m a dark machine that’s fire has now been stoked to stop all this and protect what’s mine.

I keep my gun up and then hear a rustle toward the back of the house. I backtrack and go through the narrow hallway that enters the kitchen through the pantry. If these assholes don’t know this house they won’t know about it. I breathe evenly, settle, and unleash the monster. I fucking become the killer I keep buried deep down. I could pray this is local lowlifes looking for quick cash, but I’m too schooled for that shit. None of this is local talent.

I crack the door and cover myself as I look in. I see a sure fucking sign he knows I’m in Italy. That’s he’s not a Pietro. He’s ready to get all this shit over with, too. And he has my sister.

I rush to the man laying on the ground and feel for a pulse among the sticky, thick, semi dried blood. It’s weak, but it’s there. The message isn’t lost on me. Both of Lou’s knee caps are slowly bleeding onto the floor and the head wound isn’t bad but it’s a jagged cut meant to drip and look gruesome with dried blood covering his face. My guess is he’s been bleeding out for hours. My heart seizes when I see the wall behind me. There’s a gasp as she sees it at the same time through the backdoor. Poppy’s carrying some sort of garden tool. Like that would stop a fucking bullet or my goddammed nephew. Who I’m going to kill very fucking soon.

Smeared in what I assume is Lou’s blood is an invitation.

Family Dinner. 6 pm. Bring your wife

“LOU!” She screams as she tears into the room through the back door, her gardening thing skitters across the floor.

Everyone’s too far gone. I have no one at my back except my precious wife who thinks she can stop bullets or carnage or death with a command and a pitchfork.

I keep moving around the room, knocking into shit. I hurl a glass from the counter, shattering it against the windows at the end of the room. A voice and rage that simmers on the edge of insanity breaks free. “They’re all going to fucking die.”

My roar is laced with blood lust. I hear Poppy in the corner with Lou, but she’s behind a veil now that’s tinged with blood. I tear into the other room, kicking weapons and bodies out of the way. Bolting up the staircase running room to room and finding them all empty. Furniture splintering in my wake. “Are you fucking here? Did you leave more presents for me, you pussy piece of human waste?” A curtain flutters down the hallway, and I unload my gun in a hail of bullets.

I squeeze my eyes tight to push their faces from my mind. Nothing survives as I pass back down the hallway. I lift a table that’s probably been here for a century and shatter it against the marble staircase, watching as the pieces embed in the wall.

All these good fucking men are dead and this blood will live on my soul forever. This is the shit I forgot to carry while we were gallivanting around fucking Rome. This is the shit I need free of but now, I don’t see how. It will always come for me, and if I don’t watch for it, she’ll die too. That’s something I will never ever be able to handle. My only hope to survive Poppy’s death will be if they blow my head off first.

I stand at the top of the stairs, and when I close my eyes, all I see is Enzo’s gruesome greeting card invitation. I hear Poppy on the phone. None of that matters. Nothing fucking matters. Surveying the front room, I kick the shells out of the way and hoist the felled chandelier. My mother loved this one but now just like everything I fucking touch, it’s ruined. I hurl the crystal and glass piece at the wall, watching as it sprays its beauty for a moment and then becomes nothing more than broken pieces and dust. An unsolvable puzzle.

I pick my way back to the kitchen, looking through the doorway. I let my gun drop to the floor next to me. She’s dabbing at Lou’s injury with her scarf. Her carefree pink polka dot scarf mocking what our future could be. It will always be blood soaked, and I’ll have to figure out how to be strong enough to keep all of this away from her.

I have to be strong enough to figure out how to be away from her, or she’ll always be blood-soaked. It’s not only my family but my goddamned legacy. I barrel out the side door away from the fucking mess and scream at nothing.

Chapter

Thirty-Nine