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Who tipped them off? Someone had to have known we were coming? The only people who knew we were on our way to North Jersey were standing in the living room with us.
Sonny was still not the same. Being kept in a dirty basement and fed broth between beatings had left him more on edge than usual. He wasn’t the same as before. I wasn’t the same person either. Living each day in fear that it was Gia’s last, turned me into a maniac. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.
Pete stopped dead in his tracks in the center of the living room, his eyes fixed on the dead body on the couch in front of us. I held my phone up higher to get a better look. Michael “Fig” Figone wore a black suit with rips at the seams and buttons dangling off the strings. His chest was sliced up, small serrated slices that reminded me of Pete’s signature method of torture. The closer I moved to his body I could smell the turpentine Pete would use as an antiseptic to close the wound enough to reopen it. Each cut of his blade was meant to hurt more than the last.
Dom had to be behind Fig’s death. Only members of Pete’s crew knew his preferred method of torture. The men he repeated the same procedure on never lived long enough to talk about it. Judging by the blood under Fig’s fingers and the marks on his skin, he put up a fight. What struck me as odd wasn’t how Dom killed one of his own men. It was the masking tape over his mouth, stuffing something thick inside.
Pete motioned with his gun for Marco to remove the tape from Fig’s lips. He ripped it off in one swift motion and narrowed his eyes at Pete. “What the fuck?”
“What is it?” Pete squinted to get a better look at the black device jammed inside Fig’s mouth. “Give it here.”
Marco tugged on the end of the narrow black case and placed the recording device in Pete’s hand. Covered in blood and saliva, it was hard to see the strip of white tape that said ‘Play’ on it. Pete sucked in a deep breath and glanced over at me. Without hesitation, he hit the play button.
My blood ran cold at the shrill sound of Gia yelling for help. She was shouting at a man with a thick New York accent who told her he liked it when she screamed. Sonny clamped a hand on my shoulder, offering me support. I needed someone to keep me from falling apart. Blinking away the red-hot bloodlust from my eyes, I balled my hands into fists at my sides, my jaw clenched in anger.
“She’s alive,” Sonny said close to my ear. “We’ll get her back.”
“The boss will like you,” the man said to Gia.
“Pete,” I choked out. “I know what you said…”
Pete held out his hand to silence me. “No retaliation. Not until we know who we’re dealing with.”
“It’s obviously another family,” Marco added. “My guess would be Basile. We’re in his territory. He’s been backing Enzo from the beginning.”
“Tell me something we don’t already know,” Pete spat. “But we can’t go pointing fingers without proof.”
John “Big John” Basile was the head of the Basile crime family in North New Jersey. He’d been a boss for almost as long as my dad and close in age to him. My father was never on good terms with Big John, but they had an understanding. Neither man was to take sides when it came to turf wars between the families. We always had small beefs with New York and on occasion the DiSalvos in Atlantic City, but nothing which had ever amounted to more than worki
ng out our differences the old-fashioned way.
The old man believed Big John had broken their agreement and was helping out Enzo from the start, though we could never prove it. We had no clue what Big John could possibly want from Enzo that he couldn’t get from us. We were getting closer to uncovering the answers we needed to find Gia. But at the same time, we were so far away.
I took the recorder from Pete’s hand and hit play again. My jaw clenched in anger, the pain of losing Gia almost unbearable. I fought the tears, kept them at bay. I wouldn’t allow them to win. I couldn’t give Pete the satisfaction of watching me break.
The man who was hurting her would pay. He taunted me, tormented me with the essence of my girl. I could hear her voice and forced myself to listen to her screams. It made me feel closer to her. There had to be a clue. Why else would Dom leave the tape behind for us? He wanted me to hear the pain in Gia’s voice.
Maybe it was Enzo. I killed his son, even though I did the junkie a favor. But I doubt Enzo saw the blood on my hands that way. He wanted me to pay for shooting Antonio up with heroin until he seized and foamed at the mouth. Pete made me do it. I never wanted to kill Antonio. He was an innocent in all of this. Just like Gia.
My brothers had convinced me Antonio was a rat and his drug habit was interfering with our business. I knew better than to believe Pete’s lie. I murdered Antonio Mancuso because my brother wanted to show Enzo what happens to people who turn their backs on our family. Though he would never admit to it, Pete’s ego was damaged from the betrayal of some of his closest men. He wanted Enzo to feel his pain. Instead, I felt every bit of it. So did Gia.
Pete grabbed the recorder from my hand and hit the Stop button. I missed Gia’s voice the second we were left in silence.
“Time to go,” Pete growled, looking at each of us. He had an authority to his tone that begged each of us to notice. “Let’s see what else we can get out of Sal before we get rid of him.”
For Gia’s sake, I’d hoped Sal had another tip that could point us in the right direction. Whoever was pulling the strings fed us bits of information at a time, none of it useful. We were becoming the pawns in someone else’s game. But it wasn’t until that night even Pete realized someone was playing us.
Chapter Thirteen
Gia
My body was so weak, the illness I’d developed while in the DiSalvo’s possession sucking every ounce of energy I had left. For over a week, I awoke with my mouth watering and my stomach turning. Each day was getting harder than the last. I forced myself to open my eyes and pushed myself up from the mattress in my new bedroom.
Unlike the white room, with its padded walls and lack of windows, this one had a window that sat up about eight feet high and had bars on it. But at least I had natural light, even if the tiny bit of sunshine came through a dirt-covered pane. The sun on my face was the only way I’d known another day had passed. Apart from Lucky’s morning greeting, it was also my wake up call.
As a condition of my new living arrangement, I had to dress in skimpy clothes and prance around Dante DiSalvo’s house as if he were Hugh Hefner and I was one of his bunnies. I was one of the many girls who waited on Dante hand and foot. At least he hadn’t touched me. Not yet, anyway.
Women threw themselves at Dante. He was ridiculously good-looking with a muscular body to match, and surprisingly young for a Mafia boss. Dante was intimidating, but no one scared me more than Angelo Sr. He was the stuff nightmares were made from. I couldn’t comprehend how someone would go against a man as powerful and determined as Don Morelli. Dante was either brave or stupid, maybe a little bit of both.
