Page 7 of Made in Love and Blood

“Does Nico know he’ll have a keeper?”

“He will when his flight lands and you’re there to pick him up.”

Fuck.

Another nagging thought pressed at the back of Sal’s mind. “What time does his flight land?”

“Six tonight. Laguardia. Flight 2207. I’ll send more details if you need but you don’t.”

“And it has to be me that picks him up?” Sal pressed.

“Expectations should be set immediately. There isn’t any other way to deal with Nico.”

Sal could think of other ways...

“My daughter has—”

“An eighteenth birthday coming up. And a graduation party at some point. I look forward to an invitation, old friend.”

No, that wasn’t what Sal wanted to say, and they were certainly not friends at this point in life. Francesca had a soccer game starting at five against a rival academy. He’d wanted to surprise her, and while he hadn’t explicitly said when he would return home, he did suggest he would try to make that game.

He wasn’t going to make that fucking game. Again.

“Anyone else...just this one time.”

The boss didn’t even shake his head. His gaze said it all. “And if you see Marco,” Giorgio added, nodding toward the closed double doors, “then send him back to see me.”

Just like that, the consigliere was dismissed. More than anything, Sal wanted to get out of the man’s presence, and so he spun on his heels to leave before he said something worth regretting, or worse, the boss came up with another problem to add onto the pile.

His hands barely curved the knobs to open the office doors when Giorgio spoke behind him once more. “And I want to know the very moment Christiano Lombardi gets bond.”

“How do you know I managed to get him bond at all?”

“You wouldn’t have made the trip or stayed so long.”

The man was right.

Sal glanced over his shoulder. “I got the call a half hour before I walked through your front door. Like I said, give it some time, I’m still waiting on another call about restrictions. Consider now how to deal with your capo after the trial is over. Marco was right and rules are rules. Just because you’ve murdered a wife doesn’t mean others can.”

He let those parting words suck the rest of the air out of the room as he chose that moment to exit the space, the heavy door swinging shut behind him with little effort on his part. An empty hallway greeted Sal, but he found himself grateful. He didn’t look for Marco, or the enforcer, as he navigated the corridor leading to a massive staircase that took him down to the ground level from where he had climbed to the third.

It wasn’t until Salvatore sat in his black Mercedes coup with illegally tinted windows that he let out the string of curses choking him. Every fuck accompanied a slam of his fist against the steering wheel. While his windows were opaque enough to give him privacy, his vehicle wasn’t soundproofed by any means. When he put the car in reverse to put this shitshow behind him, Sal’s foot immediately hit the break pedal.

He rolled his driver’s side window down enough to stare at the enforcer. Matty took another drag from his cigarette and watched Sal from where he stood under a nearby birch tree.

Matty spoke first. “I did tell you it was bad, didn’t I?”

2. — run it out...

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Staten Island, New York

Francesca Gallo, Ashbourne Academy

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“What was that?”