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“You’re calling us whores? Is that supposed to bother us?” I roll my eyes, and he grits his teeth. “Fuck off street hood.”

“Don’t make me gag that mouth, you dumb bitch. Actually, why don’t you tell Mommy what you’ve been up to lately, huh, Wifey?” Enzo says.

I look at Gia and pull her attention away from her bleeding arm back to me. “Gia. Honey. Gia. Look at me. He’s alive. Well, he was as of a couple of hours ago.”

“Ludovico?” I can’t let Enzo know Lou’s alive so I don’t react. “Salvatore?”

I nod and Enzo turns to his men with a grin as Gia begins to cry. I hold her gaze and whisper, “Both.” Her eyes widen as she realizes Lou is alive too. She should know. Because he loves her.

“How?”

Enzo crouches between the two of us. I spit on him. It’s all I can do. Gia laughs. And he slaps her.

“OMG, you’re so fucking cliché it’s painful. Stop being your own stereotype. Stop hitting women. All of you. Stop it,” I scold the room.

Gia spits blood out of her mouth and says, “Italians in power don’t hit people.”

I cock my head at him and add, “Two-bit, uneducated thugs who think they deserve power and money and can only do as they’re told, hit people. When your words fail you, you hit. That’s the stereotype.”

Gia laughs and I revel in watching Enzo squirm.

He looks at Gia. “My dear uncle faked his death to escape me. Thought it would keep his bitch and you safe. He was real fucking smart too. I was in the fucking room when he went down. Real fucking dramatic like. Squibbs and fake blood and shit. He even somehow stopped fucking breathing. Cops showed up so we torched the building as we ran out. All a fucking set up. But he made a mistake. And I’m sure at this point his death is no longer fake. Go ahead, mourn your dear brother, again. The beloved uncle who never gave a shit about me. But he couldn’t protect you. He left me everything I need to succeed.” We both wince but neither of us calls him out.

“Why should he give a shit about you? You’re not a Pietro in any way. No honor, no intelligence, no grace, and no fucking DNA. Your boss must have had your balls for not getting his blood before you torched him,” Gia says.

Gia’s lips curl up and her shoulders relax a smidge. She’s laughing hysterically now. I’m sure sharing that secret takes the weight off of her. And now I realize why he needed her blood. He needs her DNA for something. And mine.

He cuffs the back of our heads and both of us lurch forward. I narrowly miss dipping my nose into my blood. I’m getting a little light headed as the red puddle grows.

“Fix them up for now. Do you have enough?”

Dr. Evil, without the cat, approaches us and roughly glues our skin back together. That wound management can’t be sterile. I’m sure we’re both going to end up septic. I stare at the glob of glue mixed with blood like it’s pulled warm candy cane before it turns white.

A man wheels two safes into the middle of the room. One of them looks like the one from Sal’s closet in Los Angeles. There’s four other men in the room. No one is behind me. There are six men in total. I don’t know where the German-looking guys went, but it’s just Enzo’s inner crew and Dr. Jerkyll here.

He hands Enzo the syringe of our blood. “This better fucking work. It’s a fucked up idea but I trust him.” Cady. Whatever the hell this is, Cady figured it out.

“I designed it. It will work.”

Eww, Dr. Vampiretech created this fucked up thing?

He pushes a button, and small shelves scoot out from the safes. He breathes in and squirts our blood on it. There’s a series of whirls and tones and then a chachunk of a noise and the door pops open revealing stacks of what I can only assume are money or bonds or bank notes or something. He does the same with a second safe and this one doesn’t open.

Gia gasps.

It’s always about the blood.

Chapter

Forty-Six

Sal

The second scream was Poppy’s. I know they’re both alive. The gasp tells me one safe opened. What he doesn’t know is that the one with the real money, bank notes, family jewels, deeds, family documents, pictures, and dock permits, can only be opened with the third key. I wrap my hand around my St. Anthony medal.

They need a hell of a lot of their blood if this asshole is going to loot the vaults and safes all over the world. The DNA markers were Mel’s idea ages ago. Enzo probably shot his mouth off about who mattered to me and eventually, this Cady asshole figured it out. He’s a blunt instrument of resentment and grudges, which makes a dangerous creature. No cunning or art, just destruction in the name of domination.

It’s time. I nod to Johnny Grocer as he slinks up the stairs to take out whoever is on the balcony that overlooks the dining room where he’s set up his blood theater. A man outside goes down. Brick is taking them out one at a time silently.