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The man’s eyes darted to Corrado again before he excused himself, the nurse leaving with him. The tension in the room quadrupled upon their exit. Carmine lay there, trying to find the words to address the situation, but Corrado beat him to it.
“The rules are simple,” he said, still staring out the window. “We don’t have many, but the ones we do, we expect to be followed. Stay away from drugs and stay out of the limelight. Which part of that didn’t you understand?”
“I, uh . . . look, I didn’t mean for it to go that far, I . . .”
“I don’t want to hear your meaningless excuses, Carmine. How long have you been doing it?”
“A few weeks,” Carmine admitted. “Two months at most, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Well, I haven’t kept a fucking calendar or anything.”
“You will talk to me with respect.” The tone of Corrado’s voice sent a chill down Carmine’s spine. He wasn’t speaking as family—he was addressing Carmine as his superior. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. And what in the world possessed you to do a job out at Sycamore Circle? Everybody knows that’s Irish territory!”
“I, uh . . . I got a text.” Carmine looked around for his phone, spotting his clothes laying in a heap on the floor. “I thought you ordered it.”
“Must’ve been Sal,” Corrado muttered to himself, shaking his head. “Three men were hospitalized, you know. One nearly died. And you just fled the scene . . . fled to go get high.”
“I went to find you,” Carmine said defensively. “It was an ambush. They were waiting for us.”
“Of course they were. They warned us weeks ago.”
Carmine said nothing. He didn’t know what to say.
“Do you know the history between the Italian and Irish in Chicago?” Corrado asked, glancing at him and raising his eyebrows.
He nodded hesitantly, clearing his throat. “They hate each other.”
“It’s deeper than that,” Corrado said. “We’ve clashed since before Prohibition, when John Torrio was building our empire. He was diplomatic, believed just because we were criminals didn’t mean we had to be savages. Bugs Moran, the underboss of the Irish Mob at the time, tried to kill Torrio. He was severely injured in an assassination attempt, which forced him to hand over control to Al Capone. Capone continued what Torrio started, but he wasn’t above equal justice.”
“An eye for an eye,” Carmine muttered.
“Exactly,” Corrado said. “Moran tried to kill Capone a few times but failed. He wasn’t a very good hit man. A peace conference was called, where Capone said he believed Chicago was big enough for all of us. Said it was like a pie, where every gang should have their fair slice.”
“Makes sense,” Carmine said, even though he had no clue where the conversation was going.
“Makes sense to me, too,” he said. “For a while, after that meeting, the bloodshed ceased, but it didn’t last. You know what happened next, right?”
Carmine stared at him. “Uh, sorta. I was never good at history. I failed it in high school . . . both times.”
Corrado laughed dryly. “This is the history that matters . . . our history. Moran started killing Capone’s friends. Capone’s patience wore thin until he finally decided enough was enough. He sent some men dressed as police into Moran’s warehouse, lined six of his associates against the wall, and slaughtered them.”
“Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.”
“The bloodshed stopped after that. And it’s only because we’ve respected those boundaries, because we’ve shared the pie, that we’ve had peace.” Corrado paused. “All of this ends now, Carmine. If I ever hear of you touching drugs again, if it doesn’t kill you, I will. I won’t allow you to become a heroin addict.”
“I didn’t know it was heroin,” he said. “It was supposed to be Molly, you know, MDMA.”
Corrado turned from the window. “This is Molly? I thought you had a girlfriend by that name.”
“You thought I was seeing someone?” he asked. “That’s crazy.”
“No, crazy is infecting your system with illicit intoxicants for a thrill instead of indulging in something safer, like a woman.”
