I arrived at headquarters and strapped on a vest underneath my shirt. Sometimes if they saw your vest on the outside of your clothes, they would purposely take headshots. If they didn’t see it, they would just take the easiest shot they could find. The less your enemy knew about you, the better.
I grabbed all the guns I wanted from the armory, and the guys loaded everything into the SUVs parked in the roundabout.
To my surprise, Don Russo was joining us.
He was decades older than me, in decent shape, and he had a great shot, but regardless, he was still in his fifties. The reason he had lieutenants and captains like me was to do the dirty work on his behalf.
“Don, it’s probably best if you stay out of this one.”
He slipped a pistol in the back of his jeans and wore a slight smile. “All hands on deck.”
I lowered my voice so the other guys couldn’t hear. “I don’t know about this, boss.”
“If Icarus is really there, I want to make sure we put him in the ground. Show him that Sicily belongs to Cosa Nostra and not some Florentine asshole. We’ve been running this island for generations, and he doesn’t get to come in here and take a piece of that, let alone the whole fucking thing, without asking.”
This was the Cosa Nostra I remembered—proud as hell. Sicilians became part of Italy in the late 1800s, but for centuries, we wereour own country. We were still our own country as far as we were concerned.
“Let’s bury this asshole alive and see how he fucking likes it.”
I smirked. “I like your spirit, Don Russo.”
We left in a line of cars to Trapani, the same place where Warren had had his clandestine meeting where I’d intercepted Leo. That felt like too much of a coincidence that Warren had just been there and now Icarus had crossed the entire island to come for Ciro. Seemed an odd place to start. There was definitely a connection between Warren and Icarus, but I wasn’t sure what it was, considering they had opposite interests.
When I’d gotten that phone call, it had been six in the evening, so by the time we arrived outside of Trapani, it was almost sunset. Trapani was another coastal city, but Ciro’s operation was farther inland. He got his deliveries from the dock, smaller quantities since he avoided customs, and then handled his operations on his own acreage. The gangs didn’t deal their drugs only to Sicilians. Some exported them south through Morocco, while others went through Istanbul in the Middle East. In a lot of ways, Sicily was just a hub for distribution from South America. Off the radar from the rest of Italy but with a noteworthy population of five million people, it was small but unique, easily overlooked and underestimated.
I sat in the back seat with Don Russo as we traversed the winding roads.
Nothing was said on the ride. Don Russo was his normal calm and collected self.
I was like a pressure grenade about to go off at the slightest bump. The adrenaline surged in my blood and gave me razor-sharp focus. Gave me a maniacal edge sharper than a butcher’s knife. It was a high I’d spent my life chasing, but now, it didn’t hit the same way it had before.
Everything was different when I had someone waiting at home for me.
My life was somehow mortally intertwined with another. If I died, she died, and if she died, so did I. Our relationship had a distinct purpose, and that purpose was a heavy responsibility. My life suddenly had value when I’d never cared before whether I lived or died.
Don Russo turned to me. “I like your woman.”
I snapped out of my thoughts and looked at him.
“I can tell she’s tough, which is exactly what you need.”
“You could tell that just by talking to her for five minutes?” I asked incredulously.
“Along with everything you’ve shared about her, there’s the fact that Don Mancini wanted her to run the business instead of his son and the fact that you’re obsessed with her. Beautiful women are like fish in a barrel. They’re easy to catch. She’s obviously more than a pretty face to you. She has substance.”
Substance and depth and complexity and a spitfire attitude.
“She would be a good wife to have in Cosa Nostra.”
“We’re five minutes away, and you’re really going to try to poach me?”
He smirked. “I might get a bullet in the head like Don Mancini in five minutes. Should say my piece while I still can.”
“We’re coming up,” Santino said from the passenger seat.
Nicolo radioed in from the front. “We’re too late. They’re already here.”
“Or we’re here just in time,” Don Russo said.
