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The day after Dante stays at my apartment for the second time, I finally hit pay dirt on my quest to find information that can help my cause.
I’m starting to wonder if he isn’t a lucky charm. The first time we were together, I got the new position that allowed me inside access to the games where men whisper without worrying about who might hear.
If I might hear.
And that’s proven to be a useful position.
The thing about being pretty and quiet is that men with big egos who don’t value women forget you exist.
Forget that you have ears and a mind instead of just tits and ass.
They speak in front of you without a care in the world, assuming you won’t understand.
But I do.
I listen.
I hear.
I know.
That's why this afternoon, I get the first piece of information I need.
* * *
I’m sitting in my corner during a game featuring an older, well-known senator and a rumored high-up capo of the Carluccio family.
“So, I hear Vitale is fucked,” the white-haired politician says, glancing at the cards in his hands. “What happened there?”
Training tells me to keep loose, to leave my face uninterested.
But my ears—my ears are on high alert.
My mind is taking a recording so I can play it over again and again, dissecting each word they speak in my presence.
“Fuckin' stunad tried to kidnap some mayor’s daughter in broad fuckin’ daylight.”
“What the fuck would make him do that?”
“Who knows. You know he’s always been a loose cannon. Always running off on ideas and listening to Tony. Both of them are fuckin’ unhinged. Neither knows how to play the long game. That’s why they’re both locked the fuck up,” the capo says.
I wonder if he’d be talking like this if not for the fourth whiskey on the rocks he’s sipping. I fight the urge for my eyes to drift, to look over at Marco hiding in the shadows. I wonder what he thinks of this, of a soldier spilling secrets.
“That’s why Tony is locked up. Played too close to the sun. That anonymous tip to the FBI? Fucked, that shit happened to him.” I file that away, wanting to look into it. I haven’t focused much on Tony Carluccio, who is already paying with life in prison.
But they’re right. Who tipped off the feds? Who hated him enough that they would risk the code of silence to do that? Because word on the street is, if I remember the lore correctly, the call came from inside the house.
“Well, you remember what happened with Russo.”
Breath leaves and enters my lungs as normal.
I blink like normal.
My hands stay loose in my lap.
But every part of me is on fire.
“I still can’t believe that shit,” the capo says. “I don’t think Tony would do that, or that Johnny would just listen and carry it out.”
