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“I needed to talk to you last night, but my fucking phone died before we finished up with Vanessa,” Slayer’s voice comes over the line. “Where are you? I’ll come to you.”
“Vanessa’s my baby mama,” Giulio explains for the crowd. I resist the urge to facepalm, although it’s a close thing. “You can’t come here, Slayer. These guys would all want to murder you.”
Slayer laughs. “Yeah, because that’s something new and different,” he says dryly. “Jesus, Jules, do you have me on speaker in the middle of your meeting? I can hear myself echoing.”
“Yep! You want to say hi to Slayer, Nilo? Lauro?” Giulio winks at the two men, who seem shocked at this turn of events. Not that I blame them. Giulio tends to have this effect on everybody.
Nilo stares at Giulio as though he’s lost his mind. “We’re in the middle of—” he starts to hiss, only to glance at the phone and stop talking.
“Which Lauro and Nilo?” Slayer asks. “Maybe I want to say hi to them.”
“I don’t think you’d know Nilo. He’s still a baby,” Giulio responds. “But his daddy’s a big deal. Not as big a deal as my old man was, of course, but he’s still alive so that’s a point in his favor.”
“Shut up,” Lauro hisses, taking a threatening step in Giulio’s direction. “And turn that fucking phone off.”
“Ohh,Lauro. That Lauro. Yeah, man, he’s bad news. Feds are looking awful close at him these days,” Slayer says with a low whistle. “Kid doesn’t even have a record yet though.”
Nilo’s face turns red. “This is highly unprofessional, Giulio!”
“Man, Nilo is soyoung. I really think we should show him around, um, Ruby’s. Yeah. Unless he’s not a lady’s man at all.” Giulio winks at Nilo. “I know a few places with nice boys, if you prefer that.”
“You can hang out with him if you want. I’m not getting into the feds’ business. Call me when you don’t have an audience, asshole,” Slayer says. Thankfully, he hangs up, all while Nilo still seems like he’s sputtering to try to answer.
Lauro is completely red in the face. “Who the fuck was that? What are you playing at?”
“Man, I wish I were playing!” Giulio laughs to himself. “You’ve got the feds on your back? Is that why you were so desperate to meet with me?”
In the next instance, Bucci draws his gun and aims it at Giulio. “Fucking shut up,” Bucci growls. “And show some fucking respect.”
I reach for my own gun, but Giulio puts his hand on my arm to stop me.
“Luigi, chill, chill! What’s gonna happen if you murder me? My buddy Slayer will know exactly who did me in, and he has enough of an in with the feds that he could bring your entire business crumbling down instantly. Aside from that… Well, his name isSlayerfor a reason. You get me?”
Giulio slowly bends down to unzip his backpack. Luigi keeps his gun trained on Giulio the entire time, and my hackles rise. I don’t like how dangerous Giulio is playing this. I am certain that Romano is carefully weighing the consequences of murdering Giulio right now. I do another quick assessment. If it comes down to it, I’ll have to focus on Nilo. Despite how unimpressed Lauro seemed with his reactions, he’s still a son, and he did bring him to teach him the family business. Either Nilo is expendable or treasured—I hope it’s the latter.
“Okay, so, you heard my proposal. I want to know what yours was going to be before I tell you to shove it up your ass.” Giulio reaches into the backpack and pulls out… a grenade.
Fucking hell. I knew Giulio was going to play dangerously, but I didn’t think he was going to risk blowing us all up.
“Giulio,” I warn. “Be serious.”
“Damien,” Giulio says in the same tone of voice I’d just used. “I’m always serious.”
Nilo’s eyes look like they’re about to bug out of his head, and it has the other foot soldiers frozen, too. Luigi keeps the gun on Giulio, but for the moment, no one says anything. No one so much as moves. Hell, they’re barely even breathing.
“Well? Come on, what’s your proposal?” Giulio urges. “Lauro, don’t tell me you were going to accept my terms and we were all going to leave happy. I wouldn’t have brought a grenade if I thought that’s where this meeting was going.”
Lauro sneers at Giulio. “You aren’t fit to take over your father’s business. Leave all the drug operations to me, and get out of the central districts.”
I wince, because that’s a spectacularly bad offer even when Giulio isn’t holding a grenade.
Giulio bursts out laughing so hard that he folds over, still clutching the grenade. “Seriously? That’s what you came to offer? Damien, did you hear him? That’s an insult, isn’t it? A complete insult!”
“It is,” I answer, because there’s no other way to spin it. “Giulio, please don’t wave the grenade around like that.”
“Like this?” Giulio asks, waving the grenade even more furiously, one finger around the pin. “Why not? It’s not like Lauro here cares about our safety. He just fucking insulted me whileI’m waving a fucking grenade around. You can’t think faster on your feet, Lauro? This is where you improvise and provide something that’s enticing!”
Nilo and Lauro have both backed up a few steps, but if Giulio throws the grenade, nobody is running fast enough to escape. At best, I could grab Giulio and get us behind some of the warehouse pallets, but it’s a toss-up as to whether that protects us or does us in if the pallets get caught in the blast and impale us.
