Page 77 of The Beast Who Begged Me

“Sebastiano Conti is dead,” I tell Gallo at last. “So what do you want from me?”

“Well, I got no interest in working for the Bratva. I fucking hate vodka. Tell me to follow you, I’ll follow you.”

Who the hell does this guy think I am, the Messiah? “You won’t be following me. You’d be working for Caligula Clemenza—if he’ll take you.”

He hesitates as he takes it in. But then he nods. “I never had any beef with the Cees. And if the Russians hate him, I guess he’s got something going for him.”

“Prove it. Prove you’re not bullshitting.” I nod at Russo.

Russo’s head snaps up. “No, no, no⁠—”

He’s cut off by a final shot from Gallo’s gun.

“Now toss it,” I tell Gallo, and he throws it aside, puts both hands in the air. “Ferraro! Get over here.” Ferraro hurries over. “Tie this asshole up and get him in a van with the crew.”

The sirens are three blocks away but closing as they load him into the van with the rest of them. I grab the guns scattered across the shop floor and get into the front of the van, where Ferraro has already taken the wheel.

“Where are we going?” Ferraro asks, starting up the engine.

“Start driving. I’ll figure it out on the way.”

I don’t trust Gallo. Not yet. But if he can’t be useful as a warm body, he can still spill information before he’s a cold body. I need to get him somewhere quiet to have a heart-to-heart. Somewhere no one will hear him screaming if the conversation goes south.

And it needs to be somewhere safe enough to let Caligula attend, because he’ll want to look this guy over himself.

A new source or a new soldier for Caligula. Either way, I think I’ve done him proud tonight. And I think he’ll be okay with me making my next move—it falls under “do whatever you need to do.”

I take out my phone and dial.

CHAPTER 25

DAMIANO

“I’m getting real tired of cleaning up Clemenza messes in the middle of the night,” Nick Fontana grumbles as he pulls out a key to a Morelli warehouse.

“So next time I should call your Boss and ask him instead?”

He sends me an exasperated look. He knows as well as I do that Luca D’Amato needs to know as little as possible about the dirty work, especially now, when the Feds are pulling him in more regularly.

“Just tell me what the fuck’s going on,” Fontana growls, pushing the door open and waving me in.

Strike Ferraro and the others from the van stream in behind me, Victor Gallo hauled along between them, a hood over his head. They zip-tie him to the chair in the middle of the warehouse floor.

Fontana looks him over before turning back to me.

“You didn’t say it’d be wet work,” he says with irritation.

“They didn’t tell me that either,” Gallo says sharply, his hooded head turning our way fast.

“No one’s dying in here,” I tell Fontana, and then drop my voice. “I just wanted a place to question the guy. If I don’t like his answers, we’ll clean up our own mess.”

Fontana looks at me for a moment, then throws me the keys. I catch them in my good hand. “Lock up when you’re done,” he says, and then he’s gone.

“Lose the hood at least,” Gallo says, as I walk over. “I can’t fucking breathe under this thing.”

“You’re lucky you’re still breathing at all,” Ferraro growls.

Which is exactly what I was about to say myself. I’ll say this for the old man: the resurrection of his Family seems to have given him a new lease on life. This is not the guy Caligula and I spoke to a few weeks ago. This is the Strike Ferraro his reputation always suggested: competent, practical, and deadly when need be. I was impressed by his performance at the body shop, even if I didn’t show it.