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“Are you fucking kidding me?”I slam the front door of my father’s house shut behind me as I walk in, hearing my words bounce dramatically off the vaulted ceiling. Lowering my voice, I try to calmly ask, “What do you fucking mean you can’t fucking find her, Dean? She’s a twenty-one-year-old waitress at Sabatini’s casino. According to Emma, she still fucking works there. FIND HER.” We’ve been working around-the-clock to gather the information we need against Sabatini.
Even with Mike working his magic, we still need to get Emma’s friend Maria on board with our plan. She told us she’d do what she needed to. But she’s been unreliable. I’d hoped we wouldn’t need her. But I was wrong.
Mike was able to get the pictures from her phone, but Pop wants more.
He wants concrete evidence.
This means Maria has to fall in line and be kept safe.
A dead Maria will fuck up my world right now.
“Her apartment’s been cleared out. Not a fucking trace of her, man.” A door slams in the background, and I cringe.
“FIND HER.” I control the urge to throw my phone across the room only because Nonna is staring at me, concern shining in her eyes.
Frail arms lace through mine as she guides me into the kitchen. “Sit,” I’m instructed with a nudge toward one of six stools surrounding the butcher block island. “Your father is in with the doctor.” Her pale blue eyes hold mine, whispering secrets that aren’t registering yet. “He’ll be out in a minute. Let me get you something to eat.” Nonna grabs a bowl from the cabinet and picks up the ladle next to the stove. “I made minestrone soup. It’s been simmering all afternoon.”
“Nonna, I’m not hungry.” My grandmother still believes she can fix all our problems with a bowl of soup and a piece of bread.
She pushes the hot bowl in front of me and rests her small hand on my arm. “Eat, my boy. You need your strength.”
The creak of a door is followed by two voices I immediately recognize. One belongs to Pop. The other to The Family’s physician, Doc.
“I’ll check back in with you next week,” Doc tells Pop.
The two of them stop in the kitchen, my father’s eyes hardening when they land on me. “Thanks for coming, Doc.”
Nonna moves to usher Doc out while I’m joined by my father at the counter. “Didn’t realize you were stopping by this early, Samuel.”
“Why was Doc here, Pops? Is somebody hurt?”
Pop glances around the room, no doubt looking for Nonna. “Come on. Let’s take this into my office. These walls have ears.”
Once the door closes behind us, he sits down at his desk and picks up a cigar resting next to his keyboard. “Your mother used to hate when I’d smoke these things.” He lifts it to his nose and sniffs. “Guess I should have listened.”
“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” My stomach drops as my father avoids my eyes.
He places the stogie back down on his desk, then steeples his fingers and blows out a long breath. “Doc was checking in on me, Sam. He’s been doing it for the past few months.” He absentmindedly straightens the picture of Mom on his desk before continuing, “Have I taught you everything you need to know about sitting in this chair, Sam?”
“Pop...” I stop him, my brain swimming with what he’s telling me.
“My job as your father, not just as your boss, is to render myself useless by the time I die. To have imparted all the knowledge and ability a man needs to not just survive, but also to thrive in this world. In our world. Have I done that?” He subtly shakes his head. “It’s cancer. Aggressive fucking cancer.” He opens the top drawer of his desk, pulls out a key, and then hands it to me. “That key unlocks the safe behind my wedding picture, Sam.”
The weight of this single key is more than I want to own right now.
A thumb drive gets pushed my way. “And that has all the information you’ll need. Accounts and that kind of shit.” Pop starts coughing, and my mind begins to focus. To piece together everything he’s not saying.
“Keep your circle small—Uncle Nick, Dean, and Bash—when you can. No one else. Don’t give your trust away. It’s your most precious commodity.” He clears his throat. “Iron fist, son. They need to fear you.”
I nod. “Yeah, Pop. I remember. I learned from the best.” Thirty fucking years old, and my voice just cracked at the thought of losing my father.
“The crown is heavy, Sam. You need to be strong to wear it. Never forget that.”
“You’re gonna be fine, Pop. The crown’s yours. I don’t want it yet.” I lean forward, my elbows on my knees, feeling like that little boy who’d just been told his mother died.
“Fairy tales are for women. You need to be ready. Now tell me about the girl. Do we have her yet?”
“They’re looking for her now.” I pull my phone from my pocket, but there are no new messages from Dean.
