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“Mouthy whore!” Rocky shouted, his face turning beet red.
“Shut up, Rocky.” I cut him off and turned to Aurora. “I don’t care too much for this tasteless-looking bordello. So, I’m putting it up as the winning prize in a private poker game tonight.”
Aurora rolled her eyes, folding her arms. “Am I going along as an accessory with the house?”
“No. You’re my accessory. I’m leaving Rocky here with you.” I pulled out my car keys and headed back to the front door.
Rocky may have helped me and Nolan save Gina from death at the hands of the Carusos, but Aurora was right in calling him a rat. I would never trust him completely.
***
I drove over to Push and Nadia’s mansion in Georgetown, where the high-stakes poker game took place. The parlor was set up with three tables with four players per table. We brought in some cocktail waitresses from the MGM, thanks to Nolan. The poker game was invitation-only; powerful businessmen along with a few underbosses from Atlantic City and the Washington, DC area. The room soon became filled with plumes of cigar smoke as the waitresses stayed busy serving drinks.
Nolan’s bodyguard, Brody Huntsman, sat with me on the black leather couches in the parlor, drinking some deliciously aged scotch. Push and Nadia sat across from us on a couch together as I reminisced with him, telling stories of some high-dollar poker games we used to play there in the parlor.
The poker games went into early the next morning. Dirty Donnie from Atlantic City played his best cards at each table. He was overconfident, and I knew he could lose the next game just like any of the other men in the parlor that night. Just before sunrise and after drinking a good amount of scotch, the parlor doors flew open, and in came Bernardo Lombardi – aka Banger Bernie, Nick Caruso’s cousin from Chicago. He entered the parlor with guns drawn.
“All of you, get the fuck out!” Bernie shouted as another man entered, his arm wrapped around Aurora’s shoulders with the barrel of a gun pressed to her temple.
All the business men held their hands up as underbosses and capos stood from their chairs, reaching for their guns. Brody and Push reached into their suit jackets as I stood from the couch. All the men scrambled out of their chairs and left the room. Nadia didn’t move, staying seated on the couch. Push stood, raised his gun, and took aim at Bernie.
Bernie pointed his gun at me. “You fucked up, Dane Neri. Not only do I have Michael, but I also have his mother too.”
Michael? Michael who?
I looked at Aurora. Her eyes were wide with fear.
“No, you don’t.” I sneered. “Because if you did, you wouldn’t be storming in here with that desperate look in your eyes.”
Bernie’s eyes were wide and frantic. He nodded to his man, who held the gun to Aurora.
“You got him?” I whispered to Push.
“Yes.” He replied, his hand steady, aiming at the man holding Aurora.
The next second, a bullet pierced the man’s forehead. Aurora and Nadia screamed as he dropped to the floor. Bernie shoved Aurora, and as she fell to the floor, he ran out of the parlor.
Brody and Push ran out after him when I came to Aurora, lifting her off the floor. She clung to me and sobbed uncontrollably.
I pulled her away and felt her body tremble as I gripped her arms. “What happened?”
“Bernie came to my house! He killed Rocky, and that man lying on the floor grabbed me, and another man drove us here!”
I gripped Aurora’s arms tighter, and she winced. “Who is Michael?”
“My son.”
“Am I Michael’s father?”
“Yes.”
