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I tasted bile.
“So—so if?—”
“If he joins, he’ll become a mafioso. The police don’t help mafiosos, they shoot them. And if the mafia finds out the police are looking for him they’ll think he’s a snitch, and they’ll do a lot worse than shoot him .”
“But—”
Mom shook her head, holding me tight. “We can’t do anything, Mary. We can’t do anything at all.”
Chapter Two
SALVATORE
When people died, they tended to take their secrets to the grave, and I had to know everything Nicola Pellico had up his sleeve.
Usually, when I was staring this intently at a photograph, it showed a crime scene.
Or, occasionally, a future crime scene.
I was not used to inspecting a series of photos of one dead man and a random assortment of people he’d apparently known.
I sighed, rolling my head to loosen the tight muscles of my neck.
Flavio glanced back at me in the rearview mirror; he was a good man, as far as mafia men went, and deeply loyal to me as the last Mastro. He knew better than anyone else how personal this situation was for me, and though he wasn’t stupid enough to tellme to take a break, I could tell he was keeping an eye out for anything he could do to help me.
I returned to the photos in my hands. Each one was taken in a different location, at a different time of day, and even though Nicola was the constant in every picture he was the one thing I wasn’t looking at.
After all, he was no longer a factor.
No, the trouble I had was with the small group of people that seemed to revolve around him, only some of whom I could identify.
Lorenzo Sprezza and Francesco Faci were both soldiers in the Pellico family, but neither of them held any importance within the organization; there were two women, one seen more frequently than the other, that my consigliere was working to identify, and two other men who were also yet unknown to me.
If the rumors were true, and Nicola Pellico had been planning some kind of coup, these were the only people who could tell me about it.
Truthfully, the idea amused me to no end. I despised the Pellico family, in part because they were the natural rivals of the Mastros but more personally because Cristiano had forced me to watch as he ended my family and my childhood in a wash of blood.
The nightmares had never ended, and the rage only grew more bitter with each one.
Nicola was just Pellico’s son, but that was enough for my hatred to extend to him. Nonetheless, that he could have been scheming right underneath his father’s nose, ready to upend his family and possibly send everything Cristiano loved and felt pride in crashing to the ground, brought me incredible joy.
Part of me hoped that Cristiano figured it out before Nicola found the wrong end of the muzzle. The betrayal must sting something terrible.
I wanted Cristiano Pellico to feel true despair before I put a bullet in his head.
How awful would he feel, in his final moments, to suffer as my father did? His children murdered, his lineage snuffed out, his empire left kingless? Everything he’d worked for in his life gone?
I rubbed absently at the scar Cristiano’s bullet had left in the center of my chest when I was too young to even know what kind of life I was born into.
No, killing the man wouldn’t be enough. I had to destroy him.
I refocused myself on the photographs.
If Nicola really was planning a revolt and these people were on his side, then they were more loyal to Nicola than Cristiano andmight tell me everything I needed without having to deal with the messy affair of torture.
If they did, I’d offer them a swift, clean death.
The men, at least—not like Cristiano Pellico. He had never held true to theCosa Nostralaw to keep women and children out of mafia business. I had experienced that personally.
