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“So, for all this time, that little witch lived dormant under my protection while she brainwashed my grandson, for what? For her to report back to that snake den?” Her voice was cold and chilly. “She wasn’t good enough for him then and still isn’t now. Here’s what you’re going to do to earn your money.”
The Finder looked up from the recorder, and I knew the dark truth about my grandmother was about to be revealed.
“She knows too much. I need you to kill her, and if he gets in the way, you better have two bullets.”
I felt like I was under water. My ears hummed, and my mind idled. I simply couldn’t think. I knew Vinni was talking about something, but I couldn’t follow. Everything and everyone just seemed to flow around me as though I was in a vacuum. Since the conversation with The Finder, I seemed to be stuck in time, not moving forward or backward, just nothing. My phone buzzed next to me, and I glanced at the screen.
Tieri: It’s been a while. I know you have a lot going on, but how about drinks Friday night?
I blinked and was tossed into a memory.
“I’ve known you for, what, six months now?” Tieri, the name he insisted on going by, grabbed the bottle of rum from the table and helped himself to a glass. “Every time I leave you alone and return, you have that same face on.”
“Your point?”
“Have you gotten any help for that?” He tapped his temple.
“I don’t need a shrink, Tullio.” I shot him a warning in hopes he’d drop the topic. He was the last person I would discuss Sienna with right now. I wanted to be alone with my pain. I missed her so much it hurt to take a simple breath.
“First, I only told you my real name as a gesture of good faith, but if we’re going to do this, it’s Tieri.”
“Do what, exactly?” I rubbed my head.
“My version of therapy.” He beamed and slid a map across the table with the southeastern part of Italy circled. “Do you know who lives there?”
“The Rosario Syndicate owns that land. Why is it circled?”
“Because you’ve been reading the papers. You’ve seen what they are doing. The whole place is a slaughter shop. Men, women, and even kids’ blood stains the streets. Everyone there lives in fear. The Rosarios are holding on to what little power they have left at everyone else’s expense.”
“My family is aware of this, and we do plan to deal with it.”
“Before or after the Coppolas make their move?” He handed me an email he’d printed off.
“Where did you get this?” I scanned the words. He was right. The Coppolas did plan to make a move to absorb more land.
“I have someone on the inside.” He smiled knowingly but grudgingly moved on when I didn’t ask him to reveal who. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter is us getting there before them.” He tipped the bottle of rum to coat the bottom of my glass.
“Why do I feel you have an idea?”
“We can tell your family’s chain of command what’s happening, or we, the two of us, can be the Santoro brothers to give you some much needed dark therapy to help with whatever the hell is bothering you.”
“Santoro brothers?” I smirked at the name.
“Yes, we’ll need to get ahead of the media narrative, so we can be anyone we want.”
“Why Santoro?”
“He was from an old movie in the fifties.” He shrugged.
“And you want to be like the Il Mostro di Firenze but down south?” I was referring to the group that went on a killing spree in Italy back in 1968.
“I have no clue who they are, but I just know we can’t be Tullio and Elio. So, choose a name if you don’t like my suggestion, and suit up because we leave tonight.” He stood and tucked the map inside his jacket pocket.
“Tonight?”
“Sometimes the best therapy is the kind you don’t think too much about.”
I spun the cap of the bottle between my fingers while I mulled over his proposal. I had planned on a trip to Southern California to visit an old friend, just to get away and dive deep into another life for a while, but the idea of beating the Coppola family to more land might be just what I needed.
