AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I know things,” he says.
“So do I, Johnny. Lots of people do. Not everyone gets WITSEC just because they know things.”
“Look. I just . . . I just need to know if I ever do get out, I get out, okay?” Ahh and there it is.
He wants the mob’s form of immunity, and he wants to convince me to give it to him.
“You want to make a deal?” I ask, my voice near incredulous.
“You work for the Carluccios and now you're in with—”
“I’m marrying into the Carluccios.” The line is quiet. “I guess you didn’t hear the news over in prison.”
“You’re . . . marrying in?” My eyes lock to my husband’s. Dante’s arms are crossed over his chest, his look fierce as he watches me, and I can just feel the way he’s dying to hear every moment, every syllable of this call.
“Uniting the families and all. I’ll head the Russos now and the Carluccios—”
“Carmine would never—”
“I don’t give a shit what Carmine would or wouldn’t do. Now what do you have for me?” There’s silence again, and I think I might have lost him, but then he speaks.
“Then you need me more than I thought,” he says, and his words are smug, like he just won something.
I’m over him.
“Jesus Christ—”
“You’ll need to pull the men to your side.” His words echo Dante’s from the other night and I still.
“I’m sorry?”
“To ensure you’ll be safe. Liza? She didn’t do that.”
“She didn’t . . .”
“Never bothered to get to know the men so at the end of the day, they were loyal to Carmine and Carmine alone. We all know how that went for her. The men loyal to Carmine, no one in the family questioned it, just like he knew would happen.”
I fight not to show Dante that Johnny’s words hold any meaning, fight not to show him this new bit of information that I don’t even really understand yet.
Allegedly, Dante’s mother was killed in a drive-by because she knew too much. Wrong place, wrong time, dangerous life.
That’s what he’d been told. That’s how he knows it.
But could it have been more? Something else?
Something worse?
“Pretty thing like you, you can convince them to join your side. Pull them in, tell them what they want to hear . . .” He pauses like he’s thinking. “You gotta put you first, Lilah, or you’ll be eaten alive.”
I fight the urge to argue or get mad that just like the rest of the world, he underestimates me.
Sees me as weak and silly and in need of protection.
I want to tell him to fuck off, that no one will be eating me alive, that I can hold my own, thank you very much.
Instead, I lean into it. Instead, I let him think that by sharing whatever information he has, he’s doing poor little unprotected me a favor.
Johnny worked with the family for years—my entire life, really. He knows the men and, more importantly, knows their weaknesses.
