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“Fifteen minutes.”
Vitari grinned. “What’s the problem? You gettin’ hard, Neo?”
“I fuck women.”
“No shame, man. I’ll help you with that bi-awakening, since we’ve got some time to kill.”
“Fuck you, and fuck off with the bi shit.”
Vitari chuckled, but as they turned onto a familiar road that hugged the turquoise coast, his heart sank. Almost home, where fate awaited.
He’d killed for Francis without hesitating, and he’d kill his father for him too, even knowing Stanmore hadn’t been his fault. But what happened after, Vitari had no control over.
If he prayed, would God even listen to a wicked person like him? Francis had said He would, that people like Vitari were who God heard the most. But he didn’t believe it. If God existed, why the fuck had He let a bunch of innocent kids grow up in a pedophile ring?
The driver cruised the car through the waterside village and up the long, winding road toward the family home on the hill. He didn’t get the same kind of settled-soul feeling as they arrived at the sprawling stone villa like he had when touching down on Italian soil. This Calabrian slice of paradise didn’t feel like home. He wasn’t sure it ever had. Giancarlo had always made it clear he was the outsider, like he didn’t deserve the house, the business, the life. And all Vitari had ever done was try to be good enough, be brutal enough, be loyal enough. He’d killed for Giancarlo, butchered for him, waved the fucking Battaglia flag as though his life depended on it—because Giancarlo had made it clear. It did.
Neo climbed from the car first and gave him another warning about not fucking up, but this time he muttered it under his breath. Francis’s survival hinged on Vitari following this through.
They walked through the gardens, then up over the veranda, through the arches, and into the house. Housekeepers stared as they sauntered by. They’d probably all mourned Vitari, as much as they could someone they hardly knew and mostly feared.
Giancarlo and Sal weren’t home, Neo said, after asking one of the staff. But Giancarlo was due back by the evening.
Vitari stood in the sprawling split-level living room feeling like a tumor feeding on the Battaglia veins. He rubbed a hand down his whisker-rough, filthy face, trying to sweep away the churn of emotion. To do this, he’d have to be L’ Angelo della Morte. He couldn’t be Vitari, son of Giancarlo, son of Stefania. He couldn’t feel.
The problem was, since meeting Francis, all he’d fucking done was feel.
“So uh… I can’t be here,” Neo said, glancing around, eager to get away. “Plausible deniability. But I won’t be far, and if you fucking leave this house, I’ll know, and?—”
“You’ll make Francis pay. I get it.” Vitari gestured rudely. “Vaffanculo already Neo, you piece of shit.”
“Do this, and you know… he’ll be safe.” He shrugged as he said it and headed for the door.
Vitari had been wrong, Neo wasn’t a snake. He was a worm. Vitari watched him leave, heard the car engine burble to life and fade away, then stood alone in the living room again. A small shard of fear poked at his resolve. What if Francis was already dead, his body rotting somewhere in the jungle?
He closed his eyes and dropped his head back. “Madre di Dio, prega per noi peccatori, adesso e nell'ora della nostra morte. Amen.”
Francis wasn’t dead. He had God on his side. Someone had tried to execute him on the steps of St. Peter’s, and he’d survived. He’d survived DeSica hitmen, survived the massacre at El Cristo. He’d survive a fucking apocalypse. He was alive. Vitari had to believe it. And to keep him alive, Vitari had to kill Giancarlo.
He showered, dressed in some of his finer clothes, since this moment would define the rest of what remained of his life, and removed a lockbox from among his rack of handmade shoes. The gleaming gun inside had been given to him by Giancarlo—after Vitari had executed his first man—as a welcome to the Battaglia gift.
The Italian-made Chiappa 1911-22 gun sported a custom engraved grip. A work of art. It gleamed in his hands.
He loaded the clip with a satisfying mechanical click. He’d never used it, probably because right after he’d killed for his father, he’d spent the rest of the night on his knees throwing up.
The house was all but empty; even the housekeepers had vanished. He went straight to the study. It wasn’t locked. Nobody dared enter without permission. Not here, in Giancarlo’s castle.
Vitari drifted inside, numb, hiding under the skin of L’ Angelo della Morte. His gaze skimmed the black-and-white pictures featuring all the things important to the boss of the largest, most notorious organized crime syndicate in Europe. Cars, dogs, guns. Not a single picture of his son.
He found himself at the desk and reclined in his father’s well-worn leather chair. Giancarlo had told him all of this could be his—the empire, the throne. But that future had been a dream, not for the likes of him.
He didn’t want it anyway.
What he wanted was a little farm with a well out back, a whole lot of nothing around him, and Francis. That was fucking paradise. Not whatever this place was, built on a foundation of blood.
Fucking hell, holier-than-thou Father Francis Scott really had rubbed off on him.
Rummaging through the desk drawers produced a bottle of whiskey, unopened. Vitari cracked the seal, poured himself a glass, then a second for Francis. “To surviving, amore mio.” He downed his, wincing at the burn, but left the second glass untouched.
