Capo Ricco

by Harley McRide

  Bella looked at her with a glare and rolled her eyes. “Really, gossiping and Wikipedia, what else will happen today?”

  “Well, just saying Dona Tomasi, you just jinked us,” Carmi snapped and glared at her.

  Ricco walked in the room, stared at the two women and said, “What’s up, breakfast is on the table.”

  “Breakfast, how can you think of food right now?” Bella snapped and Ricco frowned at her tone.

  “Bella—” he said.

  “No, don’t you Bella me. Did you know about the meeting?” Bella roared.

  Ricco’s eyes narrowed and he whispered, “Careful.”

  “Carmi, out,” Bella snapped.

  Her best friend laughed and said, “I’m gonna go eat and then make my list.”

  Ricco tilted his head. “List?”

  “Yep, I am the new Underboss of the Tomasi family,” she said over her shoulder and breezed out.

  “Underboss? Her?” Ricco asked Bella with a deadly tone.

  “Why not?” Bella yelled.

  “Because Raph will be mine, they will kill each other in a day!” Ricco yelled back. Bella grabbed a pillow and swung.

  “You knew!”

  Ricco dodged her and said, “No, I suspected, there is a difference.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “There is a difference?” Bella yelled at Carmi who was laughing hysterically on her bed rolling around. “This is not funny, how am I supposed to be with someone who keeps important stuff from me.”

  Carmi looked at her and smiled. “Sister, come on, he had barely found out himself, he told you. The phone call he got was from his father, and then Marco called after, which is why he was coming to find you in the first place, to tell you that he had to talk to you.”

  “That is not the point,” Bella pointed at her.

  “It is, and besides, your father called too. You were just asleep and missed it. When you called him back he gave you the good news,” Carmi said.

  “Good news? How is this good news? We are stuck here, right in the middle of nowhere, I need to plan things, they want an announcement made and soon. I can’t be here and plan this, people will wonder if I am hiding, if Ricco is hiding. It makes us look weak,” Bella snarled and Carmi shook her head.

  “No, it makes you smart,” Carmi said seriously.

  “How do you figure?” Bella snapped. “I have never run from a thing in my life.”

  “And you are not now, you are waiting, and when you and Ricco take care of the Black Hearts, everyone will know,” Carmi said and then sighed. “Why are you freaking out?”

  “I am not freaking out, I don’t do change, you know that, no change and in the last few days everything has changed,” Bella said and groaned.

  “Bells,” Carmi said softly and Bella looked at her. “This change is not bad, it is good, you needed someone. Not to be in charge of you, to balance you.”

  Bella was silent and she looked out the window, dammit she hated it when her friend was right, hated it. It was irritating. She opened her mouth to respond and suddenly the alarm went off. She looked at the door and frowned, they thought they had until tonight, when it was dark, but apparently they weren’t going to wait that long.

  Carmi stood, grabbed her guns, threw Bella’s at her and they went to the top of the stairs and looked down. Bruno was there and he said, “They are here.”

  Maria and Lucia came around Bruno and made their way up the stairs. When they got there, all of them moved to the third floor. That was where they were going to defend the house. Once they reached the top floor, they made their way into the large room that was up there. It had been used as large family room. But Ricco had changed it into the large conference room and locked the doors. Then they each went to a window and opened it.

  Bella saw the guys, she spotted Ricco walking tall slowly to the game house, the men moved around him and he continued to walk slowly. No one was going to make him panic, Bella thought. He was truly going to be a Don, and a good one. She saw him turn and make sure everyone was out of the courtyard, he looked up and saw her staring at him and even though they were far away, she knew he was smiling at her.

  There was an intercom in the office, and they heard it turn on. Ricco was talking and ordering the men into their places, she could hear the guns locking and loading and she bent down and checked hers. There was a stack of magazines as well as four different guns, she knew how to use them all. Maria and Lucia had their guns already on the windowsill as Carmi calmly loaded all of her guns and checked them several times before picking a rifle first. It had a scope on it, Bella grinned, Carmi with a scope, they should all give up now. She was that good.

  The intercoms were open to all of the rooms. Polo was in the office, watching the screens and telling them where the Black Hearts were coming from. He was to be their back-up if anyone made it into the house, him and Doc.

  “Still a mile out, they have spread out into a diamond shape pattern. All of them have semi-automatic weapons,” Polo said.

  Carmi looked through her scope and muttered, “I can see them.”

  “Blow the bombs,” Ricco ordered and Bella looked out into the desert. She couldn’t see the men yet, but she did see the explosions. One, two, three, they went off. Carmi was talking again, so was Polo. It was hard to listen to them both but she tried.

  “A few are down, but they were ready for it,” Carmi muttered. “They are wearing something for protection.”

  Bella nodded and listened as Ricco began to speak again. “Wait until they are close enough to hit, don’t waste ammo, slow and steady,” he said and his voice calmed her. She bent over, picked up her rifle, it didn’t have a scope on it, but she waited, moving it slightly, looking at the edge of the grass knowing that was how close they needed to be before she fired.

  “Bruno and his men are active,” Polo said, which meant the Black Hearts had reached the first of their hidey holes. Bella held her breath and waited.

  Carmi was muttering, “They are swinging to the left of them.”

  Good, it meant they were holding their own. Then Polo said the next place was active, and they held their own as well. This was Ricco’s plan; they were drawing them in right where they wanted them. If they were spread out, it would be more difficult to catch them all, there were only ten of them. This made them come down a tunnel to get to them. With our men flanking them on both sides, hopefully they will cut the numbers down.

  Carmi said firmly, “First one on the horizon.”

  Bella looked, and she could see the outline of a man, moving, shooting. He was barreling forward, not stopping for anything. She held her breath, more came over. She heard Polo say, “Shit, there are more coming.”

  Ricco said, “How many?”

  “Another fifty at least.”

  A hundred to ten, those odds sucked bad, Bella thought and then Carmi snapped, “Keep your shots until they are close. The more that are coming, we will need the ammo.” Maria and Lucia both made noises in agreement and they all focused.

  The first man went down, one of the men had gotten him, but more followed. They were moving faster, in groups, when one went down the others didn’t stop. They kept moving.

  One of them threw something, and the garden exploded. Bella flinched but then waited. Two men came out of the smoke and she fired. One went down. Carmi fired the other went down.

  Ricco was yelling at someone; they had been hit in the shoulder. He told them to drop back. The noise was deafening. She blocked it out and continued to shoot. Another. Carmi yelled, “We are two and two.”

  Bella grinned, they were keeping count, it was a way Carmi knew that Bella would remain focused. She moved the muzzle of her gun and shot. “Three,” she called out and Carmi responded with, “Three and Four.”

  Bella heard Maria cussing, a man had made it to the back patio so the older woman stood up and point down and shot. Bella saw him fall. Maria began cussing in Italian and she smiled, it reminded her of her mother when s
he had gotten pissed.

  Bella pulled her rifle out of the window and grabbed her semi-auto, it had more bullets and could fire faster. She waited and then aimed. “Four and five,” she called and Carmi cussed at the men.

  “They are taking all of them, dammit. Move it,” she snapped and Bella chuckled. Some may say they were a little psychotic, but this was their world, and the Black Hearts, they were scum. She remembered what Ricco had told them at breakfast about the Black Hearts. Creed and Fork had called, they were into all kinds of shit, they especially liked to beat their women.

  Carmi shot and they exchanged numbers again. She was focused. They would not make it in, they would not hurt her, or Ricco.

  She heard the firing below and knew Ricco was defending his home, his men, and her. Polo called out, “Bruno and the others are down. I can’t see them.” Bella grimaced and then focused. No, he was not gone, she would know. He was like a brother to her.

  Slowly men came up over the rise, these men were moving faster. Bella aimed and shot, then aimed and shot, one by one she picked off as many as she could. She reloaded, and started again. Some of them hit, some of them didn’t.

  Carmi was yelling now, “They are coming fast.”

  One of the men stopped and looked up. Bella fired on him as he fired to their windows. She heard a crack, and she heard Lucia scream. Bella didn’t look, she couldn’t right now. Damn it. Then she heard crying, alive, she was still alive.

  Raph was yelling now. He had been in the pool room, she knew that. He had been moved back. “Ricco, they are coming around the side.”

  She heard Ricco yelling and then running. Polo yelled at Doc and said, “First one in.”

  Then Bella heard gunfire in the house. She pointed again and fired. Shit, there were so many bodies littering the ground, she couldn’t tell who was dead and who was wounded. They were moving, distracting her, pulling themselves closer to the house so she couldn’t fire on them. The men would need to deal.

  She focused on the next wave of men. Polo yelled something about the front of the house and Bells stopped and looked at Carmi. Fuck, they weren’t only coming from the back. Carmi nodded and Bella stood and walked to the door and listened, nothing yet.

  There was a large window across from the conference room, she opened the door and looked quickly, no one coming. She stepped into the hallway and across. There were two men on bikes coming up the drive, they were older, Bella squinted, the President and his lackey, she thought and then she ran back into the room and grabbed Carmi’s rifle that was loaded and waiting on the ground. She ran back into the hallway, ignoring the sounds coming from around her and she counted as she watched them.

  Moving targets, she had to time it, if she shot too soon they would be gone before the bullet got there, she focused. Her father had told her this when she was young, she remembered. At the time every other girl was learning about dancing with boys, Carmi and Bella, they were on the firing range with their fathers, learning about trajectory.

  Carmi was still calling out numbers, focused and Maria was now joining in, using it to focus as well. Lucia was back at the window, she could hear the woman calling out to the other two, giving them directions to fire now. Helping them out. She watched and counted, one thousand one…one thousand two… one thousand three. They were there.

  Bella used the butt of the rifle and broke the window quickly. She had not wanted to give away her location until now. She didn’t wait for the glass to fall, she raised her gun, looked at the landmark she had made and she fired. One of the men went down. She didn’t think she shot him, but she did get the bike at least, smoke billowed up. The other driver began to swerve, more so she was having a hard time following him. He was trying to make it to the front where she wouldn’t have a shot. Fuck him, she thought and then pointed again and counted. He was closer, fuck, too close, Bella pulled up the rifle, threw it on the floor and grabbed her pistol and walked to the stairs and looked down. Nothing. Doc and Polo had kept them back. Bella grinned.

  She moved down the stairs as she heard Carmi yelling for her. She didn’t listen, she moved faster. She reached the second floor and then paused and hid against the wall overlooking the foyer. That fucker was going to try to come in through the front door.

  She heard the glass break, she heard the crunch of glass under someone’s boots and she looked. A large older man with a beer gut stepped into her house, it was hers, asshole. If she and Ricco were going to be whatever, it was hers. No one came into her house.

  Bella stepped slowly out and raised her gun. The man looked up and grinned at her. He was the leader, she thought, cut the head off the snake. “Mi familia,” she whispered and fired right when he did.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Carmi yelled from above and Bella looked up. “Shit, you were supposed to move, he was my twenty-five. Why did you move?”

  “You shot me?” She heard Raph yell and she grimaced. Shit, she thought and then Ricco was in the foyer looking up.

  “I told you to stay in the room,” he said softly and Bella shrugged.

  “No, you suggested, there is a difference.”

  Ricco’s eyes narrowed and he rolled his eyes. Carmi and Maria were coming down the stairs, with Lucia between them. Carmi was muttering and stomping. She looked at Bella and said, “I win.”

  “No,” Bella said calmly. “I do, the head of the snake,” she said and pointed down where Ricco had kicked over the large man with the word President on the front of his cut.

  “So not cool, winning by default,” Carmi grumbled and Raph staggered into the foyer and looked up with a murderous expression. “Okay, this is getting old, you are not allowed to have a fucking gun in my presence, ever.”

  Carmi smirked and shook her head. “Sorry, Underboss, I can do what the fuck I want.”

  “Yeah, well, I am the other Underboss, and right now, we are establishing some rules,” Raph said and Bella looked at him closely.

  “That scratch?” she said.

  Raph looked up at her and glared. She snickered when Ricco put a hand over his mouth. He had been shot in the shoulder but even from where she was standing Bella saw it was a graze, a deep one, but still a graze.

  Raph turned and pointed at Ricco and opened his mouth, then he closed it, opened it, closed it and yelled loudly, “Arggggghhhhhh,” and he stomped out of the room.

  “Baby,” Carmi called after him and Raph lifted up a hand and flipped her off.

  Ricco looked up at Bella and said, “Come on, we have clean up, and some people to call. Plus, I think there is one or two still alive, we can make sure they don’t go anywhere.”

  Carmi clapped and said to Lucia, “Come on, let’s get you to the doc so I can go have some fun!”

  Bella closed her eyes. She leaned against the banister and sucked in a breath, then opened her eyes and looked at Ricco. “Bruno?”

  He looked at her sadly and said, “Alive, but hurt badly. The doc already called the ambulance for him. Come on, let’s go see him first.”

  She nodded and walked down the stairs, this sucked, but it was a part of their life too. She took his hand that he held out and together they walked through the rubble of their house, noting every single detail of the destruction and ignored it all. They needed to make sure their family was okay, then they would worry about the rest.

  Marco Acciai and Gino Tomasi sat in the large living room of the Acciai house and waited. Neither of them said a word, they had been notified by Ricco’s men they had arrived. Now they had to wait and see.

  Marco turned to Gino and said, “When they are married, we will truly have built something to be proud of.”

  Gino nodded and leaned back. “When my Marcia was alive, she talked about Bella and when she grew up. She said it would take a special man to tame her, she was wild, she is still wild, but she is strong. Ricco is the perfect fit for her. I wish I would have thought of him sooner, maybe all of this would have been avoided.”

  Marco chuckled and sh
ook his head. “Ricco and Bella are going to be the perfect match, we will have very little to worry about with them in Las Vegas, and monitoring our other assets. However, I am not sure about the rest of this. There is a lot to clean up. The east coast is a mess.”

  Gino looked out the window and sighed. “There are three men who need to be taken out of power, I don’t know if there is anyone to take over for them though. It could mean bringing in some people from the outside, and I don’t know if Don Perdimo will like that.”

  Marco nodded. “I have a few in mind already. We can make that call as soon as we make sure Bella and Ricco are ready to take over.”

  Gino shook his head and looked at Marco. “After this, I am sure we will not need to worry, they will be ready to clean up this mess all on their own if I know my Bella.”

  “When Ricco was growing up, I knew he would be the one I would turn my family over to in the end. I am sure you are right.”

  “Then as soon as they call, we make the arrangements. Don Perdimo is waiting for an answer, if we give him the word we will take care of the National, he will back off I think,” Gino said.

  Marco’s and Gino’s phone rang at the same time. They looked down at them and both grinned when they saw who was calling.

  “Yeah, take the calls, and then we make our own,” Marco said and Gino nodded and pushed the button.

  “Bella, what took you so long, I was about ready to send more men out there,” Gino growled

  “Ricco,” Marco said smoothly. “Are you done with your vacation, we have a lot of things to go over.”

  Bella and Ricco walked through the front lobby of Italia and stared at everyone who stopped and looked at them, daring them to say anything at their disheveled state. Ricco’s people all nodded and continued, but the tourists, they stared and a few of them even pulled out a cell phone and tried to take a picture.