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Enzo was standing at the front door when we arrived, probably thinking we were bringing his son’s body back to him, but when I pulled Ricardo roughly out of the trunk, I could see the relief on his face. “Smart move, asshole, bringing me to Papa,” Ricardo snorted, but I ignored him and pushed him toward Enzo.
Enzo looked at me. “What do you want me to do with him?” he asked.
“Give me a minute,” I mumbled, then turned to Romeo, who had gotten out of the car too. Allegra and Matteo were still in the backseat, huddling close together. “I’ll take care of this,” I said to Romeo, and he looked at me for a moment before nodding. We had made a trust between us, going after Ricardo and his men, and I thought maybe we’d understand each other better now.
I leaned down to the backseat. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said to Allegra, and she shivered and nodded. I knew she was traumatized, and I didn’t know how Matteo would recover, but I was going to be there for all of it. I’d made a decision in the midst of all this, and I planned to follow through. But for now, there was Ricardo to deal with.
Romeo got back into the car and they drove away, and I ushered Ricardo into the house, putting him in Enzo’s interrogation room, which was filled with everything I needed to get information out of him. I put him face-down on the floor so that he could look at the blood-stained drain where I had taken care of a lot of Enzo’s enemies. “Last time we were in here, you watched me pull out a guy’s fingernails,” I said almost conversationally. The anger that had risen in me had made me cold instead of outwardly angry.
Ricardo squirmed on the floor, his eyes wide with fear but also defiance. His voice shook as he spoke. “Papa will see through your lies. You’ll never get anything out of me. You’re nothing but a low-level thug. A nobody,” he spat.
I crouched down next to him, giving him a hard look. “You think Enzo won’t believe me? I’ve been a better son to him than you ever have, Ricardo.”
“Fuck you,” Ricardo shot back. “You’re not his blood. He’ll believe me. You’re just a stranger, an imposter pretending to be his son. You don’t belong here. You’re not a Gallo.”
Enzo stood in the open doorway but didn’t speak, just watched as I reached onto the table of tools that sat in the panic room, selecting a pair of pliers. “I may not have his blood,” I said, “but I have his trust. Something you’ve pissed away.” The pliers gleamed in the fluorescent lights as I crouched down again, flipping Ricardo over so that he could see his father looking at him. “You want to start with your toes or your fingers, Ricardo?”
“Papa,” Ricardo said, looking up at his father with a pleading look. “You can’t let him do this.”
Enzo took a step forward. “You went behind my back. You went to Romeo without me,” he accused.
“I just wanted the girl,” Ricardo said. “That’s all.”
Enzo smiled but it looked more like a sneer. “You think I don’t have eyes on you, Ricardo? You don’t think I know what you’ve been planning?”
“Papa—” he started, but Enzo cut him off.
“Rocco’s always been a better son than you have,” he said calmly.
Ricardo snarled at him. “He’s a nobody! Not even full-blood!”
“I know why you did all this,” Enzo continued as if Ricardo didn’t say anything at all. “When I told you I was leaving Rocco the business instead of you, you reacted just like a child. That’s all you’ve ever been, Ricardo, a child.” I gaped at Enzo, shocked. I had no idea he had been considering me for the position. I certainly hadn’t applied for it. I’d never had any intentions of taking over the business.
Ricardo growled, bucking beneath me. “Let me go so we can talk about this, Papa,” he pleaded.
Enzo turned and walked out of the room. “Do what you will, Rocco,” he said.
Ricardo screamed then, and his voice shook and broke. “Papa!” he yelled. “Papa, don’t!” I slammed the panic door room shut and went back for the pliers. “I’ve told you everything! There’s nothing else!”
“Who said I wanted you to tell me anything?” I asked calmly, and then set to my work. By the time I was done, Ricardo was dead and I was covered in blood and sweat. It was hard work, killing a man, and this was far from the first time I’d done it, but it was the first time it’d been someone I knew and kind of cared for. Ricardo had been dead to me the moment he talked to Allegra the way he did, though, and so I didn’t feel too badly about it. I knew Enzo would have a harder time with it.
I showered in my old room, taking a long time in there and watching the blood swirl down the drain. My injuries felt sore and I was trickling blood from the chest tube stitches, but it seemed to be healing around the edges. I put fresh bandages on them and got dressed in jeans and t-shirt, texting the cleaner, Dmitri, telling him I had a job out at Enzo’s. He’d get rid of the body, and I could go and speak to Enzo. I was still floored by learning that he’d wanted to leave me the business. He’d never mentioned anything like that to me before, and I still couldn’t believe it was true.
Enzo was in his office with a quarter-empty bottle of bourbon next to him and a glass with one cube of melting ice. “Enzo?” I called. He didn’t drink as a general rule, except socially. I guessed this was the right day to start drinking alone, given what had happened.
“Rocco, come in,” he called, gesturing me closer.
I sat down in the desk chair and he looked at me with glassy, faded eyes. “I’m sorry about Ricardo,” I said.
“I’m not,” Enzo said with a sigh. “That’s why I’m drinking. I don’t feel badly about it at all. I’ve known for a long time that I was going to have to do something about Ricardo, and this kind of took that off my hands.” He groaned. “I actually feelrelieved, Rocco. What kind of man does that make me?”
I shrugged. “A normal one. Ricardo has been a problem for several years.”
“He’s been going against me at every turn since he turned sixteen,” Enzo agreed. “I’m just mostly glad it’s over, even though I wish things could have turned out differently.”
“Enzo,” I said, not wanting to interrupt his odd feelings of relief and grief but wanting to know more. “Why did you leave me the business?”
Enzo leaned back in his chair, taking a sip from the glass. “You’ve always been the son I never had,” he said. “The grounded one, the one who was loyal. You know I’ve always thought of you as my own blood, Rocco.” I didn’t know that, not exactly, and it made my throat and chest feel tight with emotion. “I’ve always known you’d be a better leader than Ricardo, but at the same time…I wanted to give him a chance,” he said. “I wanted to give him a shot to make the right decisions.”
