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I walked to the front door and stared outside. Nobody was attempting to sneak onto the property, guards had been at it for hours.
So what gave?
We should have looked like sitting ducks. Instead, nobody was here to pick us off, not one single soul.
I was about to call it off when a car came screaming down the driveway. It was a red Maserati.
“Phoenix?” I said dumbly to myself. Wasn’t he supposed to be at his house waiting to get shot?
He didn’t even turn off the car; he left the door open and sprinted toward me. “Call the guys. We have to go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“The island from before, the manmade lighthouse one, in Lake Michigan. We have to go now.”
“What? Why?”
“They have them!” Phoenix shouted. “It was all a ruse. They only ever wanted Katya as a power move for Italy because they knew Tex’s hands would be tied as the Capo. So however they did it or accomplished peace, it would be something the Five Families had to accept no matter how many threats came our way. They’ll call a commission—Andrei, if it goes back to the Sinacore line, everyone in Italy will vote you out, especially if Mattia comes back with a bride of good faith from the Five Families. He’ll call for a vote; you know he will. And it will force our hand. Because to vote against you means to vote with them, don’t you get it? This was all Mattia! He wants full control, and he’s going to use your sister to get it.”
Numb, I could only stand there for a few seconds before I shook myself out of my stupor and started yelling. “Get the men, now! Call the guys,” I ordered Phoenix. “Fuck! How did this even happen?”
“Rat at Tex’s house, we think. Look, someone died giving me this information. We need to hurry, don’t make him die in vain, he’s been with my family for decades.”
I nodded and put a hand on Phoenix’s shoulder. “He won’t have died in vain.” I turned over my shoulder and yelled. “Open the armory.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Gangsters live for the action. The closer to death, the nearer to the heated coil of the moment, the more alive they feel.” —Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster
Santino
I’d never felt more helpless in my entire life. My body was battered and half-broken, but even then, I knew I could fight my brother to the death if he was brave enough to face me.
But I knew he wasn’t. After all, he hadn’t lost an eye by accident. He was a narcissistic idiot with impulse control issues and way too much time on his hands.
“First pet?” Katya yawned.
She was precious. To me. To the world. To her family, and she was lying on the ground, her white-blond hair mixing with dirt, her clothes just as dirty, asking me about my first pet, as if I wasn’t forced to shoot it in order to numb my feelings for it.
“A cat, actually,” I said. “I named it even though my parents didn’t allow pets. I’d feed it by the fence every day and talk to it.”
“What was his name?”
“Garfield. Duh.” I laughed at my own joke. “No, but seriously I wasn’t very original. I named him Garfield.”
“Was he orange?”
“Black.”
“Fat?”
“Skinny.”
She laughed. “You must have been a funny kid.”
I was. Until I was told that laughter was weakness and weakness wasn’t tolerated in my family.
“What happened to Garfield?”
