THE NEXT EVENING… "Such an unfortunate turn of events, what happened with your father.
Truly… tragic." The woman's voice is laced with the right amount of sympathy, but there is an undertone I don't like. Reluctantly, I look up from the whiskey I'm nursing. A dark foreboding grows in my stomach as a red dress, an hourglass waist, and high breasts come into view. One that is confirmed when my gaze reaches her face.
"Donna Margarita," I greet her. The woman is in her seventies but doesn't look a day over forty. I know the other women gossip like magpies about her, but most men never care if beauty comes from surgery or not. All that matters is that she is a drop-dead gorgeous Sophia Loren lookalike. She is the only person bold enough to approach me at this party.
"To what do I deserve the honor of your condolences?" If a few months too late… I think sardonically. "It's not a condolence. You and I know well enough that Jacomo and I couldn't stand each other. Still, to be gunned down during a dinner party," she shakes her head, tsking. "I don't know how you haven't killed Carlos yet."
She is right. My father couldn't stand her, and now I remember why. She is as cold as a dead fish, as cunning as a spider, and as trustworthy as a scorpion. If the devil ever came to the surface, he would use her to disguise himself. She's a true succubus—a demon disguised in a beautiful body. I've seen pictures of her when she was younger and heard rumors of many lovers.
I blame the booze for my words as I empty my glass, "Me neither."
"Oh, Antonio," she pats my arm, and cold ripples run down my spine, "always so much self-control, just like your dear old dad."
From across the room, the sound of deep laughter rings out, coming from the very throat I want to cut more than anything in the world. Carlos Orsi.
How he was let out on bail unexpectedly late this morning is a miracle—a very suspicious one. Judge Lambert is a known hardass, who holds no friendly feelings for the Cosa Nostra. He is holier than the Untouchables were. No bribes, no threats, no promises, nothing works to get this man on our side. Many of us have tried. It's actually one of the few reasons Carlos is still breathing. It's not by chance he's on this case. If I didn't have so much trust in Judge Lambert, I would have defied the explicit order to stand down issued by our Capo di Capi, Don Edoardo Zanello, and gunned down the bastard the same way he did my father. Were it not for the family I am now responsible for, I still would. But as a capo, many lives depend on me, and in our business, one does not defy direct orders and live to tell the tale.
Unless one is Carlos Orsi, apparently. According to Edoardo, Carlos killed my father on his own. But we all know the truth; we know he gave the order. The question is: Why?
Our leader punished him by forcing Carlos to hand me his Los Angeles territory. Blood money, as if that makes up for my father's death. It's more of a headache than a compensation. I live and work in New York City. Los Angeles is a six-hour flight from here and a nightmare to boot. The gang wars remind me of the wild west. And now there are a ton of new gangs coming in, fighting for territory. Armenians, Chinese, Cambodians, and lately the Venezuelans as well. Forget the wild west—LA is a powder keg with a lit fuse and no sheriff in sight.
"He's so close," Margarita whispers seductively in my ear, reaching for a glass of wine the bartender filled for her. Revulsion pulses inside me, not because of her age, but because there is something about her that makes my skin crawl. She's a born manipulator, my father warned, and according to rumor, he would have known; the word is that he and Margarita were in love before they hated each other. I've never believed those rumors, because it would have meant my father cheated on my mother, but I never asked him about it, either. And now I won't have a chance ever again, because Carlos killed him.
I grip the glass of whiskey tighter, nearly breaking the reinforced crystal, picturing all the ways I'd love to kill the bastard. A knife drawn across his throat or a bullet would be too fast for him. He needs to suffer. Maybe drowning? His son Angelo allegedly died like that. Allegedly. I know better.
Still, that would be poetic justice. The thought settles some of the darkness inside me that has been trying to claw its way out ever since my father's death.
"Donna Margarita, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to tempt me into doing something your son-in-law forbade me to do." I force a smile onto my face, waving at the bartender to refill my glass, keeping a close eye on our Don's mother-in-law to see her reaction.
I'm only here because it's expected. A celebration of Carlos's release on bail.
Vito, my second in command, is already digging into how the fuck this happened. Like I said, Judge Lambert isn't a man to give in to bribes or threats. The only angle I can think of for Carlos's goons to have gotten to him would be through his family, and as far as I know, he only has one daughter. She could well be the reason Carlos is walking on bail right now.
It might be time to have a little talk with the judge. A quick glimpse at my Rolex tells me I've been here twenty minutes now. As soon as Margarita decides to descend back into the bowels of hell, where she belongs, I'm out of here. I came, I drank, I'm ready to leave. I made my mandatory appearance; nobody said I had to enjoy being here at this farce of an impromptu release party.
Not even Marcello, his second son and now heir, is here.
I've heard there is no love lost between Marcello and Carlos. It's not a secret that Carlos groomed his firstborn son, Angelo, to take over one day.
Unfortunately, Angelo got drunk, fell overboard, and got caught in the propellers of his yacht's rotors—according to the official version, only two people know what really happened—still, a nasty death. He was a few years older than me, so I didn't know him very well.
"What if I were?" Margarita answers. I lean back in my chair, regarding her with new eyes. What is she playing at? She has been rumored for years to be the one running the Giordano branch of our organization, officially headed by her son, Giovanni. I've never given those rumors much thought, but she is the mother of our Don's wife. It takes some serious manipulation to get where she is, especially as a woman—a widowed, unmarried woman at that. Political alliances are a strong part of our world, which is why Edoardo's marriage to Margarita's daughter, Isabella, had always puzzled me. Isabella was one of his capo's daughters, and there was absolutely no political gain for him by agreeing to it. He hadn't fallen head over heels in love with Isabella, either; it was an open secret that he was in love with Helen Gordon. So why did he marry Isabella, not Helen? My suspicions that the reason was sitting right in front of me grew with every sly word that left her mouth. Margarita was as cunning as they came, and she had been around long enough to know where the bodies were buried. Bodies that not even our Don wanted to ever come up again.
"Now, why would you do that?" I say, but I'm already calculating.
Margarita is dangerous, but danger can be useful. If she wants me to kill Carlos, then she's invested in the outcome. And if she's invested, it means she has something to lose. That's leverage. And leverage is power.
"I'll leave you to figure that out, my dear boy," she leans forward to kiss me on both cheeks, sending more cold shivers down my spine. Her hand caresses the inside of my thigh, and it takes a good amount of self-control not to jump off the bar stool. She's an attractive woman, but way too conniving for my taste.
"In the meantime, you should have a chat with Judge Lambert. Ciao." She calls over her shoulder before she walks off like a high-paid runway model, but I don't give her ass a second glimpse; my mind shifts to what she said and hinted at. Maybe it would be a good idea to talk to Bruce Lambert. It's been a while.
"Don't look so gloomy. They're all staring, and what did the old bat want?"
Enrico plops into the chair next to mine. Holding up his hand, he indicates to the bartender that he wants whatever I'm having.
Slow and measured, I plaster a smile on my face. Enrico is right—I don't need to give the others what they came to see. But I let them look, let them wonder what I'm thinking, let them question if I'll snap. I like the way their gazes linger too long, how they shift uncomfortably when they catch my eyes. And well they should. I'm not called savage for nothing. My part in our family might be tame compared to some of the others—money laundering—but none of the others understand how much fear is needed to keep all the middlemen under control. Everyone wants to siphon from the top. It's my job to ensure they don't even get tempted.
Enrico's father deals in arms and gambling. His dad is grooming him to take over, just like mine did me before Carlos gunned him down. Enrico and I went to the same college as all the other capos' sons, but Enrico and I are closest in age and hung out a lot together. Not to mention that we've known each other since we could walk. He's more collected than I am, so more often than not, we complement each other perfectly.
Family is everything in the Cosa Nostra. No matter what, a large family reunion is held every six months, with a big party that usually ends with a fistfight and sometimes gunshots, but hey, we all have fun.
This party doesn't qualify as a family reunion, but most of the family is here and expects me to either kill Carlos or be happy that he's out on bail.
I empty my glass after the bartender refills it for a second time and point for another.
"You're right." A nod is all the thank you Enrico will get from me. He knows me better than that to expect any fucking sentimentalities.
"What are you planning?" Enrico asks, leaning forward.
He's been asking me that question since we found out my father was killed.
And like every time before, I put an innocent face on. "Me? Why would I plan anything? I was compensated for the loss. Generously."
I refer to the LA territory that Carlos was forced to concede to me.
"Toni, it's me," Enrico persists. "You know you can talk to me."
I swirl the last of my whiskey in the glass, watching the slow spin of the amber liquid. Enrico isn't just any man—he's my oldest friend, the heir to his father's kingdom, and one of the few people I trust. But trust doesn't mean I'll lay all my cards on the table.
I exhale, tilting my head slightly, measuring his reaction. "Let's say I was planning something," I murmur, keeping my voice light and casual.
"Something that would shift the balance."
Enrico's expression tightens. He's already thinking ahead, weighing the consequences. That's why he's the only one I'd even entertain having this conversation with.
"If you were," Enrico says slowly, "I'd tell you to be smart about it. And to make sure there's no blood on your hands when it's done."
I let the silence stretch, considering him. He's not asking for details or pushing for the answers he knows he won't get from me. That's why we work.
A smirk tugs at my lips as I toss back the last of my drink. "Smart man."
I clap him on the shoulder, sharp and solid. No more words are needed. We both know what we're talking about without saying it outright. The understanding is there, silent but absolute.
There are five branches of our New York ring—six if you count Edoardo.
Each family controls a vital piece of the empire. Mine is money laundering.
The Orsi family handles extortion and loan sharking, the Giordano's control narcotics, prostitution, and drugs, Enrico's family, the Sartoris take care of arms trafficking and gambling, while the Conti branch deals in fraud and cybercrime.
Whatever I do next, I can't upset the balance too much. A bloody vendetta within our ranks would be a death sentence, not just for me but for the entire family. We're already standing on a battlefield.
The Russians, the Hondurans, the Chinese—every major syndicate in New York is waiting, circling like wolves. One misstep, one sign of weakness, and they'll carve us up and take what's ours. Which is why I have to plan carefully. Move too fast, and I start a war. Move too slow, and I'll be called weak. It's a tightrope. Good thing I have excellent balance.