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TWENTY-NINE
GIANCARLO
I called a meeting.
Asked Anthony and Bastien to get their asses to the lobby bar of another one of my hotels, figuring Bastien wouldn’t be showing his face at the Warwick again anytime soon.
Anthony strutted in, giving the place the stink eye. “You get six hundred dollars a night for this place?”
I pushed off from the end of the bar and straightened my tie. “Did you look it up?” I proudly glanced at the loft-style sweeping ceilings and industrial columns of this edgy gem I’d bought a few years ago. I lived at the Warwick because it was on Park Avenue. I didn’t want to live on West Broadway.
“Yeah. Keeping my eye on what the Byrnes are pulling in.” Anthony waved his guards off and they took seats near the front window of my lobby.
I chose not to hire a personal guard. I had something better, the name Byrne. That scared the fuck out of most people. My mother however, was still a Bianco. My father kept guards on her around the clock. That’s how much he loved her.
“Worried we don’t need Sunrise and you do?” I asked Anthony.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I don’t need anything.”
“Keep up that attitude.” Maybe someone will actually believe it.
Although, they controlled a hell of a lot more bars and restaurants than we did hotels. From a territory standpoint, the Messinas were more powerful.
“What are you drinking these days?” I asked, turning to walk back to my bar.
“Anything that costs more than five hundred dollars a bottle. Wholesale.” He grinned, knowing that meant we charged around two grand for it.
Shaking my head, I snapped my fingers to the bartender when I got to the polished granite slab that made the whole place shine. “Open a bottle of Dalmore 18.” I wasn’t wasting the 25 on Anthony.
“Yes, sir.”
I turned and spotted Bastien swagger in. Head held high, looking fucking pristine in a blue suit. I wasn’t even sure what to call the color. Somewhere between navy and baby blue. Another custom number.
God, the way women looked at him. Anthony hadn’t glanced up from his phone. Not wanting to leave those two to either commiserate without me, or start a brawl in my bar, I said, “Bring the bottle and three glasses over there.”
I didn’t wait for a response and marched over.
“Nice place, Giancarlo.” Bastien unbuttoned his suit jacket and then stared down at the stool. “Have anything better to sit on?”
“Your ass is too good for a stool?” Or does it hurt because Anthony keeps pounding it? Ignoring his request, I said, “We need to talk.”
Bastien lowered his head and then eyed me. “I heard from Silas you swept in to be the hero last night.”
My server brought the Dalmore and the glasses. “I got it.” I lifted the bottle and poured a round of shots. “Yes, I did.”
“Define swept,” Anthony asked, suddenly interested, but downed the entire glass before I could answer.
Shaking my head and pouring him another, I said, “I made her come in my private lounge.”
Bastien coughed into his scotch and then wiped his mouth. Anthony just gripped his glass, glaring at me. His beady gray stare, rimmed in black, suggested he added the score up really quick. I had just as much of a shot with Rebecca that he had now that her father wasn’t around to put pressure on her.
From the cheap seats where I’d been sitting this whole time, Anthony’s chances were about nil.
Even with the bullshit move Bastien pulled, if the guy got out of his own damn way, he and Becca would be married tomorrow. I certainly would not give him a map. In fact, I was about the turn everything upside down.
“This was a bad idea.” I swigged, but didn’t drain the glass like Messina. “I say we—”
“You say we shame her. Now you say we... We what?” Anthony snapped at me.
“I fucked up last night,” Bastien said softly. “It’s still a good plan. I say we keep going.”
“Oh yeah?” I challenged him. “What’s your encore? Are you gonna fuck her on the dessert table next time?”
Bastien didn’t answer.
“I say we just get our fathers together and tell them how we feel about Sunrise,” I pushed out before anyone could stop me.
“How do we feel about Sunrise?” Anthony asked, mocking me.
Shaking my head, I said, “Is it possible our fathers didn’t understand what the drug would do?”
Bastien tented his fingers. “From what I briefly read, the effects were fairly clear. Not sure how else to interpret semi-paralysis and partial consciousness.” His tone went dark, like it bothered him.
“Right, what you read.” I pointed out. “With all due respect to our dads, we weren’t there. Isn’t it possible Giovanni didn’t tell them what the drug would do?” I poured myself another drink. “That he just shoved the paperwork at them and said sign because we all know what fucking Old Man Domenico wanted, he got.”
“I’m not making my father sound like a prick, but I doubt he’d care.” Anthony held out his glass.
“Fucking pour it yourself.” I pushed the bottle to him. “Do you care?”
He stared at me and then glanced at Bastien. “No comment.”
Were the Messinas in trouble and needed the money?
“Bastien?”
“Yes, I care.”
“That’s two against one. So—”
“Hold on.” Anthony waved the bottle. “You think this is some fucking democracy? Most votes win?”
“Giovanni didn’t anoint a successor if his business went under,” I reminded him. “As far as I’m concerned, the playing field is level.”
Anthony snorted and finished pouring.
Bastien downed his drink. “Does your father feel that way, Gian?”
“What my father feels is none of your business.” A good snappy comeback was all I had because I hadn’t asked him. Like my mother, he was dealing with my brother’s disappearance. “Old habits die hard. Our fathers have been used to following Domenico’s orders. As one.”
“Amazing no one’s tried to topple the other,” Bastien said quietly, hinting those days might be over. “Stuck by that damn tribunal rule.”
Now they might buck it since Giovanni Domenico was gone.
“Alone, each of our fathers can wiggle their way out of the drug deal, play dumb to the Feds, say they only saw the signature page.” I knew in Anthony Sr.’s case that wouldn’t be too hard to prove. “Let’s get them in a room. Stand together, us, like they’ve done all these years. They’ll respect us. And Becca was right. Dumping this deal would make us look good. Do we really want to be on the side of a date rape drug in today’s cancel culture? You think the blow-up pro-union rat in front of one of your bars is bad, Anthony? Try a mob of angry women.” I drank my scotch. “I’d take the rat over them any day.”
“No.” Anthony shook his head and then pulled on Bastien’s tie, bringing their faces close together. “How did your dick feel in my fiancé’s mouth?”
“Fucking fantastic.” Bastien pulled his tie back. “And she’s not your fiancé.”
Anthony’s words suggested everything I’d been saying had gone right over his head. I needed to put more bugs in Messina world. Something was going on there. Anthony was a cold-hearted prick, but I didn’t believe he’d look the other way while women got raped in the back alleys behind his bars.
The Messinas had to have needed the profits Sunrise would bring in.
“You want to tell them everything?” Bastien asked me, angling his body toward me. Snubbing Anthony.
We had to be united here though.
“We’re not telling them about Becca going to the FBI,” I suggested.
“She said they came to her,” Bastien said.
“Same thing,” Anthony snorted.
In a way, he was right, just talking to the Feds would drive a cold shock down my father’s back and I assume their fathers’ too.
“Then how do we know about this? Out of nowhere?” Bastien asked me.
“Good question.” I held my glass, although my father knew I had eyes everywhere. I could say some idiot at Messina Associates scanned the pharmaceutical report and saved it on their servers. Unless he knew Domenico collected the copies. Anything was possible though.
And that so wasn’t the point.
“Enough.” Anthony adjusted his groin and stood. “I get her tomorrow night. I’m gonna put an end to this bullshit. She’ll give me that evidence by sunrise. No pun. Fuck yous all later,” he said and waltzed out.
