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“Arrivederci,” he said, then got up and strode past me, headed straight for a slim brunette in a black sequined dress that was even shorter than mine.
I stood there for a moment, trying to remember how to put one foot in front of the other. It came back to me eventually, and I was only too happy to hightail my butt out of there.
Heck, I was tempted to hightail my butt all the way back to California.
Chapter Fourteen
Nico
I stood in the middle of suburbia, staring at the tidy row of two-story cookie-cutter houses in front of me. Every one of them was surrounded by the iconic white picket fence. I could imagine the minivans tucked away in the garages, ready for the next soccer practice or ballet lesson. It was enough to make me gag.
Inside the unimaginative vinyl-clad house in front of me sat the kind of scum that made me sicker than just about anything else. This particular garage was empty—the wife and twin seven-year-old girls were out with the minivan for the next hour, leaving more than enough time for what I’d come to do.
“Go ahead, Cesare,” I said to the tall, gangly man on my left.
Cesare didn’t look like much, but the guy had broken more than his fair share of bones since coming to work for us, and he was loyal to a fault.
He nodded and took off around the house just in case the scum inside tried to make a hasty exit.
Gabe and Salvatore followed me up the front walk, which was lined with actualdaisies. At the front door, Gabe worked his magic. My brother could crack any lock and disarm any security system in thirty seconds flat. If the mafia life didn’t work out for him, he could make a killing as a bank robber.
Inside, the house was just as unimaginative as the exterior. Wall-to-wall carpeting, beige walls, and white wainscoting. The fridge on my left was peppered with cheesy hand-drawn pictures. Just a typical family from suburbia. At least, it looked that way. The man of the house, who I could hear rummaging through papers somewhere further inside, was not the typical suburban family man.
I nodded, and Salvatore strode ahead, past the dining room on the right, and they disappeared around the corner.
The meaty thud of flesh against flesh followed a second later, then the shatter of glass.
“What the—” a gruff voice shouted, cut off by another meaty thud.
By the time Gabe and I rounded the corner, Cesare was coming in through the back door and Salvatore had Mr. Suburbia facedown against his walnut desk with his arms bent up behind him.
“Thank you, Salvatore,” I said, moving around the room to take the seat behind the desk. I waved a hand, and Salvatore released him.
“Have a seat, Gino.” I motioned to the vacant chair on the opposite side of the desk.
Gino took a cautious step back, but then paused. His gaze flashed to the men around him but kept coming back to me. He was a smart man, I realized. Instead of panicking, I could see his mind working in overdrive, trying to calculate the outcomes of every possible move. Too bad there was only one outcome for Mr. Pisano today.
Maybe coming to the inevitable conclusion that he had no other move to play at the moment, he perched himself on the edge of the chair, loosening his tie like it had begun to strangle him.
“It seems you didn’t heed my warning, Gino, and you know what that means.”
In the movies, this was the part where the mafia guy gave the long, drawn-out “I’m disappointed in you’” speech, and then the guy begged and begged, building tension until the inevitable end.
I wasn’t much for speeches.
“Whatever you think I did, I didn’t do it,SignorCosta,” he said, meeting my eyes with a level stare.
“Save it, Pisano,” I said, then nodded to Salvatore, who then dropped an envelope into Gino’s lap. The envelope Belemonte had given me.
His steady gaze faltered, and he reached into the envelope with shaking hands. The photo he withdrew was all the proof I needed.
“I warned you what would happen if I caught you recruiting kids again. You do recall that conversation, don’t you?”
It was the kind of conversation that involved broken bones, so I imagined it would be difficult to forget.
“You don’t understand,SignorCosta. I needed the money.”
“I don’t care what you needed.”
