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I manage to load him into the passenger seat and pull the seat belt around him, watching him cringe as I buckle him in. I slam the door shut and run around to the driver’s side, watching the road.
Still black.
Still quiet.
Still undetected.
I gun the engine and peel out of the parking lot heading away as fast as I can. Except I don’t know where I’m going. I slam my hand on the steering wheel. “Dammit!” I shout. “I have to get you out of here before anyone finds out. I need to tell Nico before Mikey and Gianni do…if they haven’t already. Argh! I fucking can’t believe you, Dad! What in the hell were you thinking? Were you thinking at all, for Christ’s sake?” I slam my foot on the brake as a traffic light turns red and twist my head every which way to make sure we aren’t about to be railroaded by a car or five.
It’s only a matter of time before that happens. I’m sure there’s already a hit on both of us, and Nico is the only one who can make it all go away. I need to tell him. He has to hear it from me. It’s the only way.
His loyalty is to the family. He worships the ground my sister walks on, but at the end of the day, he bleeds Salesi blood, not Oriani blood. He’d give the order to take out Shaye’s whole family if it meant preserving his own.
But he’s also reasonable. If I can explain the whole thing, if I can figure out some way to redeem us both for this betrayal, there may be a chance…a slim one, but at least it’s something to cling to.
“There’s more, Max.” Dad murmurs, staring out the window. “Mikey and Gianni, they’re not just out for blood. They have plans to take over our territories, and they have money. And lot of fucking backing.”
“Who are they working with?” I hold my breath, not sure I want to even know.
“The Cinques from California. You know they’ve always been tight with the Cappodamo crew. They lost out on a lot of business when Frank and Luca were killed, and now they want their money. Mikey and Gianni are their puppets, and they’ll do whatever the Cinques say because it feeds them even more power. They want to crush us, Max. They won’t stop until that happens. They want to take down the Salesi family, exactly the way we took down theirs.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
The Cinques are bad news. They recruit the worst of the worst, low-lives who spend more time in lock-up than out, and they’re heavy into drugs and trafficking on the West Coast. They make sick cash smuggling in drugs and young Mexican women to sell on the black market. They are also probably one of the wealthiest families in the country, so I doubt they want money as much as they want revenge.
And for the Cinques, revenge isn’t sweet. It’s fucking brutal. I’ve seen the evidence. Sticking my cock in a vise would be a vacation compared to what I’ve seen the Cinques do to people who cross them.
“Sonofabitch,” I mutter under my breath. “When did you find all of this out?”
“About a week ago. Once Gianni was released, Mikey let a few things slip out during one of our meetings. They thought I was with them since they were payrolling me and wanted me to get information.”
“What kind of information?” I ease my foot off the brake and press the gas, following a darkened back road toward my house. It’s the only place nobody will look for him. Everyone knows we’re at each other’s throats most of the time. It’s not exactly like we’re known for doing any father-son bonding garbage. I turn on my brights so I can at least see a few feet in front of me.
Maybe taking this road wasn’t such a great move after all.
I grit my teeth and tighten my grip on the wheel, pressing harder on the gas. I just need to make it to the next traffic light and we’ll be back on a main road. And Christ only knows, it’s damn easy to get lost in northern Jersey traffic.
“What kind of information, Dad?” My voice is strained like there’s a noose around my neck, squeezing my throat closed and slowly suffocating me. Death by asphyxiation would be a welcome blessing compared to the Cinques’ alternative punishment.
“They want Nico.” His shoulders sag and he slumps back against the seat. “They know he’s pretty much running things now that Joe is out of the game, and they’re after the club.”
“What do they want with the club?”
“They see it as a safer way to move drugs and women around. They can use it as a front and do the exchanges all in one place.”
“How the fuck do they plan to do that? He’ll never—” My mouth stops working. They don’t plan to take him on as a partner. They’re gonna kill him and infiltrate Culaccino, his exclusive nightclub.
And who the fuck will be left to stop them with Nico out of the picture?
My heart thuds harder and louder with each second that passes. I have no idea what to think or who to trust. It doesn’t make sense that they’d let my dad in on something like that. At the end of the day, he’s the biggest lying snake of them all. None of this makes sense. “What if it’s all bullshit? What if they made it all up so you could pass off bad information, making us cover our asses when their big play is something completely different?” Wait… “And how the fuck does all of this even make sense if they beat the shit out of you tonight? Why would they come after us if you were supposed to be their mole?” I spin the steering wheel left and right, weaving around cars to get to my exit.
“Because I told them I wouldn’t do it, that I was done with this whole thing. That’s why they came after me, why they threatened you. They took me to the job site and tried to convince me to change my mind. I told them they could cut off my whole damn hand and it wouldn’t matter. I was done.” He lets out a labored sigh. “But I didn’t know they were coming for you. I figured they’d just leave me for dead.”
“They knew I’d go after you. The question is, what were they planning to do after sending me into their trap? If they wanted us dead, we’d be lying in a ditch somewhere. That means they need us for something. I just need some time to figure out what.” I glance over my right shoulder and stomp on the gas to get ahead of a car in my blind spot and careen around the exit ramp. A blaring horn incites me, and I stick my arm out the window to flip the guy off as I screech around him.
“You should never do that. The guy could have a gun,” Dad mutters, shifting again in the seat.
I let out a dry laugh. “Do you really think that scares me, Dad? After what you just told me? Let him fucking pull a gun on me!” I scream, maneuvering the car around a bend.
