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CHAPTER1
MAX
The Boss isn’t happy.That’s the first thing that strikes me when I walk into the grand salon at Redwood Manor.
The second thing is, he’s got a visitor.
An auburn-haired, hard-eyed, smiling visitor who smells like honeysuckle and rain in these close quarters.
“Ms. Esposito,” I say carefully, andafterI’ve nodded respectfully to Sandro Castellani.
“Maestra,” she says, “is what my sons and daughters call me.”
Far as I know, she’s got no kids. Guess she takes the concept ofFamigliato a whole new level.
“Sit down, Pedretti.” The Boss isn’t in the mood for pleasantries, so I take a seat and I steel myself. It’s my job to make sure the Boss is happy. If he’s not happy, I’m not doing my job right.
And it’s not just the Boss. On the way in Darian, the butler, was acting all strange—stranger than usual. And on my way downstairs I overheard what sounded like a distraught Julian Castellani being soothed by his Lion, Leo Bernardi.
Nice to have someone like Leo on our side now. Nice to have him to keep Julian in check.
“The Maestra, here,” Sandro continues, sounding a little too ironic for my taste, “has come to collect.”
I wait. She smiles.
It’s the kind of smile that suggests motherly attention, but I’m about her age and I buried my own parents a long while back, so it doesn’t do much for me. Besides, I know the kind of person who rises to the top in organizations like ours.
Like hers.
And a woman, too. She must be tough as nails under all that red lipstick and dewy honeysuckle.
Neither she nor Sandro say anything, so I ask the question I guess I’m supposed to ask.
“What have you come to collect, Maestra?”
Her smile gets wider.
CHAPTER2
MAX
“Pedretti,your departure is a great loss to the Family,” Sandro Castellani sighs a week later, shaking my hand over his desk.
“It’s not forever, Boss.”
It doesn’t seem to reassure him, so I just clasp both my hands behind my back when he lets go and wait for him to show me the door. No point making a fuss. Today’s the day.
Today I leave the Family I’m sworn to, and enter…not enemy territory, not exactly, butnewterritory.
It’s all wrapped up in delicate language. Guest. Envoy. Emissary. But the truth is, I’m a hostage. A trading card handed over to Anna-Vittoria Esposito as an apology for certain sins of our Family.
If I was the kind of man to have opinions about things, I’d have a strong one about this. But opinions are for rookies. I’ve been a Castellani for twenty-odd years, located at Redwood for a decade of those, and with the big 5-0 right around the corner, I’m now head of security for the whole estate. I like to think of myself as experienced enough to understand my role.
Unfortunately, it’s my experience that put me where I am right now: about to be handed over to the Espositos for an unspecified period of time.
“You know your mission inside-out,” the Boss says, half-sitting on the edge of the large desk still stained with the blood of his father. “But I want to stress: our relationship with the Esposito Family is delicate, to say the least. It is crucial that we do not upset them further. And you know, Pedretti, I prefer having friends to enemies, particularly after gaining our Lion.”
He’s not wrong; Leo Bernardi leaving his own Family and pledging to ours sent shockwaves through the LA underworld, and the Bernardis are still tearing themselves apart in a not-so-civil war after the killing of their Don. Hard to tell which Bernardi brother will come out on top: AJ or Gino.
