by Ws Greer
“Oh, those greedy bitches!” Rock snaps. “They can’t stand the idea of someone being able to come up if it makes them look like they’re not the top dogs anymore. Assholes!”
“Yeah, they claim it’s because they don’t like the way we conduct business, which tends to be loud and draw a lot of attention, but that’s just how we do things, we ain’t changing for them, or anybody else for that matter. Anyway, when they told us to take the money and go, Solomon shot them down,” Nix explains. “So, they claim to be giving us some time to think about the offer, and after a few days, we’ll hear back from them to meet up again. I’m sure you all know what that means.”
“Yeah, they’re gonna come after you,” Rock answers for the group. “They’re gonna show force.”
“Exactly,” Nix says, followed by chugging the rest of his champagne. “That’s why we wanted to meet with you all. When they set up the sit-down, they called my personal cell. I don’t give that number out to almost anybody, so that means they’re digging on us, and if they’re doing it to me, they might be doing it to all of you, too.”
“Shit,” Marcell exclaims.
“Yeah, so we need all of you to be on your toes over the next forty-eight hours or so,” Nix goes on. “I don’t know what the hell to expect, but we all know how deep Angelo’s operation goes. They have their fingers in a lot of shit, and they have tons of people on their payroll, including cops and judges. Italian restaurants are probably a no-go right now, at least until we hear from Dante.”
“Damn, man! I love Italian food!” Rock says, smacking his large hand on the table.
“Hey, we’ve got pasta here!” Nix replies.
“You ain’t got no Italian cooks back there!” Rock fires back with a grin.
“Don’t be knocking my cooks, Rock,” Nix replies with his own smile.
“Hey!” I snap, making everyone stop in their tracks. “Before we get loose and start acting like everything is hunky-dory, do you all understand what Nix just said about being careful? They already reached out and snatched a job away, and they did it right in front of us. I hate them with a furious passion, but I’m not dumb enough to underestimate them, and you shouldn’t be either. Before you relax and indulge on Nix’s food and alcohol, I need to know you’re aware of what could happen.”
The four men look around at each other, sensing my seriousness. I’m not sure how else to convey the enormity of this situation, but slowly the four of them nod their heads.
“We got it, Solomon,” Rock says.
“Yeah,” Marcell agrees. “We’ll keep it low key until you say otherwise.”
“Good,” I say to them all. “Now let’s eat.”
An hour and a half can go by in the blink of an eye when you’re having fun. That’s what happens when the six of us start drinking and having conversation in the VIP of Nix’s The VP restaurant. Before any of us knows what’s going on, there’s multiple bottles of Cristal on the table, surrounded by countless plates of nearly half the dishes on the menu. We’ve gone all out tonight, feeling like the kings of the world that we are.
At one point, I even saw Rock get up from the table and follow one of the waitresses into the bathroom. After ten minutes behind closed doors, he came back out looking awfully satisfied with a shit-eating grin on his face. I also couldn’t help but notice the waitress wiping her mouth when she came out of the bathroom. I’ll let you guess what happened in there.
At the end of the night, about an hour before The VP is supposed to close, Nix stands up with a champagne glass filled with Cristal. He raises the glass and taps it with a fork to get our attention.
“Hey, listen up, you assholes!” he chirps, slurring his speech a bit. “We’re all a little faded tonight, but like we discussed before, when we leave here, we all gotta be on our game. I don’t want to hear about anybody in this room found dead or some shit on the news tomorrow. Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah!” Ricky mocks, raising his glass. “You just make sure that Italian bastard gives us the money they stole from us, otherwise, me and my brother will find where they stashed it and go get it ourselves!”
“Damn right!” Donny agrees with a raised glass of his own.
“Let’s toast to the good life, gentlemen,” Nix says as the rest of us raise our champagne glasses and toast with him.
“To the good life!” I yell with a smile, before knocking back the rest of the golden liquid in my glass.
That’s when I hear the first gasp through the doors blocking us off from the main seating area. The gasp is followed by shuffling, and then more gasps. The rest of the crew notices me turning suddenly serious, and they follow suit, shifting their heads towards the closed VIP doors to hear what the hell is going on. There’s more chattering now, and it’s clear something is happening. You can feel the intensity picking up as a sudden calmness and quiet flows through the restaurant, even though there’s still plenty of people in the main section.
“Nix, maybe you should go have a look,” I say to my partner, but before he can even agree with me, the VIP doors slide open. The redheaded hostess walks in first with a horrified look on her face, followed by Detective Anthony Mason, and at least ten uniformed cops.
“What the hell is this?” Nix snaps, still holding the champagne glass in his hands.
“Hey there!” Mason greets in a chipper voice. Just from the look on his dumb face, I know he’s about to drop a bomb on us. “Nice to see you, Nix. You too, Solomon. Looks like you boys have been having a party up in here, huh.”
“You really wanna do this right now, Mason?” I ask him as I rise to my feet and glare at the detective. He stands out amongst the group of cops because he’s the only one wearing a gray suit, while the rest are in their black uniforms.
“Solomon, I’m so sure!” Mason says with a smile. I don’t like his good mood. Something’s about to go down. “Hey, I’m glad you’re here, Solomon. I lost that ten grand you gave me. Know anything about that?”
I don’t have an answer, and I suddenly feel more vulnerable than I ever have. What the hell is he doing here with all these cops?
“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Mason continues. “We’ll get to that later. Right now, though, I’m here to serve a warrant.”
“What? A warrant for who? For what?” Nix snaps, his face melting into a full scowl. This is going to get bad real fast.
“I’m glad you asked, Nix. A warrant for Donny Fontane.”
“What the fuck?” Donny snaps as he stands up. “For what?”
“Hi, Donny!” Mason says as he starts to walk up to Donny. “For your involvement in the robbery at Hyperion Bank a few days ago.”
“Get the fuck outta here, man,” Donny yells. “I didn’t do that shit. That wasn’t me and you know it!”
“Do I?” Mason asks with a sly smile, and that’s when I realize what this is. This is Dante Rossi. “According to the anonymous tip we received—who also anonymously tipped us that you were having dinner here tonight—you had something to do with it, so I gotta take you in.”
“Anonymous tip my ass!” Ricky says now. He slams his fist on the table as Mason walks up to his brother, pulling handcuffs from his back pocket. “Get the hell away from my brother!”
In a flash, Ricky bolts in front of Donny to protect him, and then all hell breaks loose. Like a scene from a western movie, Mason quickly whips his hand to his side and removes a Taser from its holster, aiming it at Ricky. He pulls the trigger and the weapon lets out a pop that sends little white sticks with thin wires hanging from them into Ricky’s flannel shirt. Every muscle in Ricky’s body tightens as he falls to the floor in the fetal position.
“Bad idea, man!” Mason yells down at Ricky, but his voice is cut off when Donny punches the detective in the jaw, sending him stumbling backwards.
Mason drops the Taser and clenches his jaw, but Donny is running towards him with a bottle of Cristal in his hand at full speed. Mason steps back with a look of fear in his eyes as he braces for i
mpact, because Donny’s coming too fast for him to pull his gun, but the impact doesn’t come. Instead, what comes is the sound of gunshots.
Pop!
Everyone freezes, except Donny, whose momentum is carrying him forward so he can’t stop even if he wants to.
Pop!
Blood splatters on the dishes in front of me as Donny’s body jerks with each flash of the weapon being aimed at him by a uniformed cop.
Pop, pop!
Donny’s body jerks two more times before falling to the floor next to his brother, who’s lying there clutching his chest where the Taser got him. As soon as I see the look on Donny’s face, I know he’s gone. Just like that. Here one second, gone the next, right in front of his brother.
“You motherfucker!” Ricky screams as he tries to get up, but the same uniformed officer who shot his brother is now right on top of him, pointing the hot barrel right between his eyes, daring him to move another muscle.
“Make me do it,” the cop says, glaring down at Ricky who now has tears in his eyes.
“Damn!” Mason says with a chuckle. “That got out of hand real fast! It always does when it comes to you, huh Solomon? Oh well. Alright, one of you call an ambulance for Donny, and Officer Lariosa, please take Ricky Fontane out of here for interfering with our arrest and assaulting a police officer.”
“He didn’t touch you!” Marcell shouts, but it’s pointless
“Ah, semantics,” Mason says with an arrogant shrug.
The cop who shot Donny, who I now know is Officer Lariosa, holsters his weapon before turning Ricky over and forcing his hands behind his back. He slaps cuffs on him and has another officer help bring him to his feet. Before we know it, Ricky is being dragged out of the restaurant.
Rock, Nix, Marcell, and I look down at Donny’s motionless body, and we can barely believe what we just saw. Once again, Dante Rossi has reached out and touched us without having to lift a finger, and the hatred I feel inside is on a level I didn’t even know I had.
“It didn’t have to be like this, Solomon,” Mason says as he steps over Donny’s body like it’s a dog in the street—like he means nothing. “This is on you, but what you need to remember here, is that it can get worse. Much worse.”
“You piece of shit,” Nix says in a low, hushed voice that’s dripping with anger.
“Don’t say too much,” Mason says, stopping him. “You wouldn’t want to threaten a police officer, would you? Not after what just happened.” Nix doesn’t answer. “I thought not. Have a good night, fellas.”
Without another word to us, Mason turns on his heel and walks out of the room, closing the sliding doors behind him. Some of the uniformed officers quickly usher the four of us out of an exit in the back of the restaurant so they can fix up the scene and bring Donny’s body out.
Before any of us could ever see it coming, Dante Rossi showed us what he can do. He just brought the war to us.
IT TOOK LESS than twenty-four hours for Nix to get a call from Tony Belinelli. When Nix answered the phone, I was sitting right next to him on my couch in the loft. When it rang, we knew who it was, and we knew what they were going to say. Ironically, Nix and I were discussing what our next move was going to be after everything that happened at The VP. We had a plan, and when the call came, the adrenaline built up in my stomach like volcanic lava, and in that moment, I knew our plan was going to be put into place. According to Nix, Tony Belinelli kept it brief, and he had the tone of a man who knew he was in control. All Tony said was the time and location of our next sit-down with Dante Rossi. “Tomorrow, seven PM, La Famiglia Ristorante.”
Tomorrow is now today, and seven PM is now five minutes away.
And I’m going to kill Dante Rossi and Tony Belinelli.
I thought long and hard about what it is I’m going to do, and Nix was there to be my angel on the other shoulder, but in the end, even he agreed that we can’t allow Dante to get away with what happened at The VP, and Tony will try to defend Dante, so he’ll die too.
Donny Fontane died for nothing. Detective Mason knew Donny had nothing to do with the robbery of Hyperion’s truck, because he’s on Angelo Scarfo’s payroll, and he knows it was them who pulled off that job. So, his actions two nights ago got Donny killed, and for that, after I kill Dante tonight, I’m going to Mason’s house, and I’m going to kill him too. Not his family, just him. I want them to feel the pain of losing him, so I’ll spare all of their lives, but I’ll make them watch for what he did to Donny and Ricky. They need to know how crooked their husband and father is. I don’t care if it was Angelo himself who put Mason up to it. Every one of them will know not to bring war to my house.
Contrary to popular belief, I’m not completely insane. I know what this will do. You can’t kill the underboss of any Italian mob family and get away with it unscathed. There will be blood in the streets, and we’re ready for that. Regardless of how long the seventy-one-year-old boss of the Scarfo family has been in the life of crime, I’m smarter than him. I’m smarter than all of them, and this war will go on for a century before I let them get me or Nix. This will put us at war until either Angelo or me is dead, because there’s no way Angelo is going to forgive me for killing his underboss. So be it. Such is the life of a gangster. Regardless of the drama and danger this act will bring to our lives, I will not give them a pass on this. No man will ever hit me or my operation and go unpunished. Ever. Tonight, Dante Rossi will die. The war will begin.
As we sit at the stoplight just a few hundred yards from La Famiglia Ristorante, I hold my chrome nine millimeter pistol in my hands. It’s a beautiful weapon, and I smile at the thought of using it again, knowing it will rid the world of another one of my enemies. Tonight, I’ll use a black silencer on the front of the barrel to keep people from rushing outside at the sound of gunshots. I turn it clockwise, putting it in place just as the stoplight turns green and Nix steps on the gas. Once it’s firmly attached, I tuck it into the holster that’s slung inside my black leather jacket. Ready.
Nix rides in the driver’s seat next to me wearing navy blue jeans and a jacket to match. His long facial hair is perfectly edged and touching his chest as he lowers his head and raises his eyes to drive. He’s pure focus. He has his own gun under his seat, but he won’t be using it tonight. The honor of avenging Donny is mine, and Nix will simply drive us away from the scene when the deed is done.
Just a few seconds later, we’re pulling up to the curb in front of the restaurant. The lights inside are on and there’s obviously plenty of people in the place, but there’s only two people sitting outside. Dante and Tony. Two dead men.
As we park behind their black Mercedes, I see Tony wearing his usual double-chin and a gray suit. He’s fancier than when we met a few days ago, and so is Dante, who’s wearing a black suit and a white button-up with no tie. Both of the men look happy and proud of themselves as they sip wine from crystal glasses. I guess I can understand that. I’d be chipper too if I knew my power extended into the police department and criminal justice system in all of Philly and then some.
As we get out of Nix’s SUV, I can’t help but notice there is a third seat on the left of Dante this time, closest to the entrance door. There’s a wine glass too, but it’s empty, so maybe it’s just an extra setting.
When the two of us approach the tables, Dante and Tony raises their wine glasses to us, as if toasting to our arrival.
“Ah, Solomon King and his partner, Nix Malone,” Dante says, smiling from ear to ear. His confidence is definitely up since our last visit. “Please, come have a seat. We’re just getting started having some drinks. Won’t you join us?”
Nix and I sit down—me in front of Dante, Nix in front of Tony. I see Dante’s scruffy bearded face and I want to skip the BS and start pulling the trigger now, but I’ll humor the situation. After all, it’s my game.
As soon as we sit down, a waiter comes rushing out with a bottle filled with dark wine and two more glasses. He doesn’t use the one that’s si
tting next to Dante.
“Please, have a drink,” Dante says, waving his hand at the waiter to pour each of us a glass. “This is special edition Bolgheri Superiore, nearly three hundred dollars a bottle. Enjoy.”
The waiter pours our glasses and quickly leaves, making sure to avoid eye contact with me. I watch him leave before addressing Dante.
“I’m glad to see you’re in a good mood, Dante,” I say as I lift my glass and sip the wine. It’s disgusting, but I’d expect no less from a snake like Dante Rossi.
“I am in a good mood, Solomon,” Dante replies, setting his glass down. “I’ve had a good few days, and now I’m here about to have dinner with friends.”
“We’re not friends,” I snip.
“No, we’re not. I wasn’t talking about you,” Dante answers. “Speaking of friends, though, I heard you lost one of yours. Very sad. My condolences.”
He’s talking about Donny, and my blood immediately heats up, shooting warmth throughout my entire body. I shift my position a bit just to feel the sway of the gun in the holster under my jacket. Their arrogance in assuming we wouldn’t do anything to them in public will cost them tonight. No one in the Scarfo family will ever have a sit-down without searching their guests ever again. The fact that they’ve never patted us down is an insult in itself. I’ll fix all of that tonight. When the first shot rings out, that’ll be the first thing they think, “Why didn’t we pat them down?” Then, the rest of the shots will follow, and they won’t be able to think at all.
“Your condolences,” I say, repeating Dante’s words. “I assume you’d like me to believe you had nothing to do with that, huh?”
“You can assume whatever you want,” Dante spits back. “It’s just a shame it had to end up that way. One of your friends being killed by police, his brother being arrested for assaulting police. People in your crew have had a rough few days. After a while, no one will want to do business with you two.”
“So, that’s your plan then?” I ask, shifting again. “You wanna pick off my associates one by one, until there’s no one left, or you scare them all away, and poor Nix and me are all alone and forced to leave for greener pastures. An elaborate plan, Dante. Might take a while to complete.”