Mercenary (Gangsters of New York Book 3)

by Bella Di Corte

  I checked my watch and sighed. “Fuck it,” I said, standing from the table. I didn’t wait on him. He waited on me.

  I turned the lights off in the dining room and went back into the kitchen. I sent Alcina a quick text.

  A minute.

  Five.

  Ten.

  She didn’t answer me.

  I checked the clock on the wall. Maybe she was sleeping.

  Doubtful.

  Even though it was late, I knew she wouldn’t sleep until I was next to her. She was anxious before she left. Eager for me to meet her.

  I considered calling her, but if she was sleeping, I didn’t want to wake her.

  On my way to the second level, I noticed the lights turned on in the dining room.

  It was empty.

  I smiled a little, knowing he was fucking with me.

  I left the lights on and went upstairs, double-checking that things were the same as I had left them.

  All was normal.

  The lights were turned out in the dining room again when I made it back to the first floor. A line of taper candles had been lit along the table. The bronze holders glinted gold in the soft light. The shapes of items in the room created shadows along the wall.

  I took a seat at the head of the table, getting comfortable, my eyes adjusting.

  If I had blinked, I would have missed the movement. A second later, he came forward out of the darkness, the candles bringing him to life. All I could see was the blue of his eyes at first, until his features took shape and created the man. He sat at the other head.

  “Boo, motherfucker,” he said, setting his gun on the table. “You wanted to see me.”

  I set mine across from his. “For a while.”

  He nodded. “This would have happened sooner, but my wife asked me not to.”

  “So she could meet me.”

  It made sense then. Why he had helped stop the men ambushing me on the way out of his restaurant. My sister wanted the chance to meet me. Because of that, he could kill me when he was ready, but if he was around, no one else could touch me.

  Famiglia.

  Blood could talk about blood, do to blood, but let anyone else talk or do?

  It was fucking on.

  He had that going for him, but nothing else.

  “I was sorry to hear about Emilia,” he said. “My condolences.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “She knew that you knew about me.”

  “She and I had a talk years ago. Emilia is the reason I never said anything to you or Mariposa about each other. She knew if you found out who your father was, you would go looking for trouble. You’d find it in the form of the Scarpones. Once they found out who you were, it would cause a war.” He shrugged. “Then there was the issue of who Corrado Palermo was. She didn’t want you trying to fill the shadow he left.”

  “We don’t fit.” I grinned. “His legacy is too small.”

  “We were not made to fill other people’s shadows,” he said. “We were made to leave solid marks. Shadows fade.”

  “Emilia knew about my sister,” I said.

  “No one knew about my wife but me, and certain people I trusted with my life. Once the Scarpones had been wiped out, it was safe enough for you to know who she was. If I felt in any way you could cause her, meaning me, trouble, she would still only be a woman named Mari to you. Nothing else.”

  There was no mistaking the possessive tone he used when he said, “No one knew about my wife but me.” He was letting me know that she was my sister, but she belonged to him.

  “What’s the fucking deal?” I said. “You let her live and then you fall in love with her?”

  “Whatever you’re thinking,” he said, sitting back, settling in more comfortably. “Wipe it fucking clean. Unless you consider falling in love with your wife something dirty. It happened the same way for us—between two adults.”

  He was fucking reading between the lines—it seemed far-fetched that he had left her alone all of those years, but my gut told me he was telling me the truth. At least on that.

  It still didn’t change who he was and who I was.

  “I appreciate you taking care of her,” I said. “Not killing her after her mamma.”

  His eyes seemed to grow darker when the light flickered, and then they were ice-cold. “She was a child,” he said. Like that meant anything to his people.

  I shrugged. “I knew your father and your brother.”

  He gave a short laugh, almost cocky. It was rough, gritty. “You don’t know me.”

  “I know enough,” I said.

  “I know everything,” he said. “I even knew your father, when you’d never laid eyes on him before a picture I let you have.”

  Our eyes connected from across the table. In less than a second, we were both standing, our guns pointed at each other.

  “I’ve been here before,” he said. “It didn’t end well for the other side of the table.”

  “That other side of the table wasn’t me,” I said.

  He moved. I moved.

  I moved. He moved.

  We circled.

  “You think killing me is going to kill the ghost. You’re fucking wrong. You can’t kill a ghost,” he said. “You exorcise them out. And even then, from experience, you wrestle with them time and time again. Nothing ends here.”

  “It has to,” I said. “There is no other way. Our blood can’t exist together in harmony.”

  “It does,” he said. “Through my son.”

  “You don’t want to kill me,” I said.

  “I do,” he said. “But again. I’m exorcising the demons. The only reason we’re standing around this table, and not sitting at it, is because of you.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you fucking exorcise,” I said. “You’re still a Scarpone. That’s why you’re standing there.”

  “And that’s why you’re about to fall, Palermo,” he said.

  I knew it was just a matter of seconds. The winner determined by who was quick enough to get the draw.

  One.

  Two.

  Three breaths.

  My hand was steady, my finger about to pull the trigger.

  A light hit my eyes, so bright that I blinked from the shock of it. The entire dining room was flooded with it. It brought Scarpone into focus, and for the first time, I saw the entire man he was in this room.

  He was a tall and wide motherfucker, a similar build to my own. The tattoo on his hand was a reflection of him, like the scorpion was an echo of me.

  He blinked at me, doing the same.

  Our guns held steady, neither of us trusting the other enough to put down our weapons. Whoever had hit the lights was of no importance. A flash of gold-colored silk moved in my periphery. I ignored it.

  The moment between us held steady, ready to decide the victor. It wouldn’t be Vittorio. My finger was magnetized to the trigger. One pull and his life was mine.

  His eyes narrowed, but before I could process what it meant, the cold barrel of a gun touched me behind the head.

  “You don’t get along with anyone, do you?” My sister’s voice came from behind me. She pressed the gun harder to my head. “Drop your gun, Corrado.”

  “You, too,” my wife said, holding a gun behind Scarpone’s head. She was wearing a gold silk shirt.

  Scarpone and I looked at each other, narrowing our eyes even further.

  This fucking complicated things.

  How were we supposed to shoot at each other with them in the room?

  Still. He held his gun, and I held mine.

  “This is what you have done to us,” Alcina said, looking at me. “You have forced our hands. If we kill you both, then one of us will not be forced to hate the other for the rest of her life. One of us will not be left without our other half, while the other goes on to be whole.”

  “Fucking ridiculous,” Mari said. “Trying to send us away so you both could do this.”

  Alcina’s eyes moved from mine to the woman standin
g behind me. In a move that seemed synchronized, they stepped away from us, pointing their guns at each other.

  “Put the fucking gun down—” Scarpone’s voice and mine melted together when we both sent out the same order, except he said his wife’s name and I said mine.

  We were no longer looking at each other, but at them. They were staring at each other, guns raised, determination etched in their features.

  They were both dressed up, like they had prepared themselves for a funeral.

  “Fitting, yes?” Alcina said, staring at Mari. “You both came dressed and prepared in suits. We will go in our finest clothes, too.”

  “Maybe we should have worn our wedding dresses,” Mari said. “Real poetic.”

  I moved my gun slightly. Mari pulled the trigger of her gun, the bullet slicing through the fabric of my wife’s shirt. Blood started to spill right after, turning the gold purple.

  My wife’s hands started to shake, but she didn’t lower them. The bullet must have just grazed her skin. It stuck behind her in the wall.

  “Put your fucking guns down!” Mari shouted.

  “Or both of us die!” Alcina screamed.

  “One,” Mari said.

  “Two,” Alcina said.

  Scarpone and I both set our guns on the table, our hands forced, and stepped away from it.

  “If we kill you both, then one of us will not be forced to hate the other for the rest of her life. One of us will not be left without our other half, while the other goes on to be whole.”

  If we kill you both.

  They were going to kill each other.

  “Fuck me,” I muttered.

  I could see it on Scarpone’s face. He never saw this coming either.

  “We want your words,” Alcina said, keeping the gun steady.

  “Swear on Saverio and Eleonora,” Mari said, doing the same. “You don’t have to love each other, even like each other, but you have to pretend, for the sake of the kids.”

  “I swear it—”

  We both started to talk at the same time and then stopped.

  “Really?” Mari said, shaking her head. “Capo, you go first. Only because you’re older.” She rolled her eyes at me.

  He cleared his throat, looking at his wife. “I swear it on my son. This ends here.”

  “Corrado,” Alcina said.

  “I swear it on my daughter,” I said, meeting her eye. “This ends here.”

  Both guns dropped, and the breath moved easily in my chest. I went to Alcina, looking at her arm. She moved it out of my hold, giving me a look that could have killed.

  She slapped me behind the head and then started cursing in Sicilian. I stared at her, not truly understanding. Sometimes when she got that way, I couldn’t make out a word of it.

  “You made your point,” I said, finally getting a word in.

  She set her hands on her hips, fuming at me, and then she threw herself into my arms. I caught her and brought her close.

  “Stop crying,” I said, the urge to whip her ass and comfort her at war. I wasn’t sure how to feel about all of this yet. It was hard to process what just happened. I almost lost my wife, my entire family, in one night.

  “It keeps bleeding,” Mari said, pointing at Alcina’s arm.

  Blood stained my hands. The smell of salt and iron was thick in the air, mixing in with the perfume of the candles still burning on the table.

  Amadeo—Vittorio Scarpone—Mac Macchiavello—my sister’s husband—Capo—whoever the fuck he was—had his hand on Mari’s neck. He took one look at her face and grabbed her before her knees gave out.

  “Tito,” he said, holding his wife’s limp body in his arms.

  I nodded, looking at Alcina’s arm. My jaw clenched. She needed stitches. “We’ll meet him at one of the places.”

  We both went for our guns, and Alcina made a noise deep in her throat.

  “It’s not for us,” I said. “It’s to hold Tito back when he finds out what we’ve done.”

  It was the first time I saw a true smile on her face in months, brightening her eyes.

  39

  Corrado

  One Year Later

  “Take a seat.” I offered Mac a seat across from me, at my grandfather’s desk. My men took a seat around us. Tito did, as well.

  The women were right. We didn’t love each other. We didn’t even like each other. But it was what it was. We tolerated. Fought our demons for the greater good of this family that somehow connected us.

  That scene with my wife and sister haunted me. Taught me a great lesson. Never underestimate a woman when she needed something.

  It made sense.

  If they could give birth, they could do anything.

  “Some things are coming down the wire,” he said, getting right to it.

  “Charges,” I said.

  He nodded. “Your grandfather heard some things. Came to see me at the restaurant. He wasn’t too surprised to see me. He knew what I was capable of. I respected Emilio. That’s why I never fucked with him directly, when I was toying with the rest of the families.” He cleared his throat. The scar made it hard for him to keep his voice level at times.

  “The day we met at the restaurant, before he was ambushed, he wanted to discuss me leaving you alone. He said some men wanted to see you fail. He asked me to stay the ghost everyone believed me to be. Then he asked me to help squash some trouble you had gotten into a while back with the law. In Vegas. He said he would owe me one.”

  “They left it alone,” I said.

  “Until now. It’s not about that anymore, but about other things. Things your men have done. Things you have ordered to be done. Things they can trace back to you.” He looked at Calcedonio, then back at me. “It’s too many counts. Wiping won’t help. They’re not forgetting this time. It’ll just come back. They’re hitting all of the families at once. History repeating itself.”

  “I gave them something to go hard at,” I said. I had worked at changing what this life of ours had become and what we needed it to be. Bringing the life back to the golden age again, and was successful, for the most part.

  “By changing the game again, giving this life a second chance at the golden age, they’re doing the same thing they did back then. Going at it the same way. All five bosses will get the worst of it. They’re coming soon with charges.”

  “What am I looking at?” I said.

  “A hundred years.”

  Calcedonio stood with his back to the wall, his arms crossed, shaking his head. Francesco looked at Tito and Uncle Carmine, who both stared at the wall.

  “Terrible, terrible food,” Adriano said. “A hundred years-worth. I’m looking at ten and dreading it. I have Gilberts to think of, too.”

  They were coming after Adriano with ten, unless he talked. One thing about him. He only opened his mouth for food. If they changed the menu, who the fuck knew what he’d do. And then he was in love with a fish.

  “Leave us alone,” Mac said.

  The men all nodded and left, shutting the door on the way out.

  He leaned forward a little. “Even though you made the game harder for them, a little more exciting, it’s not you they’re focused on. Not like the others.”

  “Drugs,” I said. My family didn’t fuck with them.

  He nodded and then stood. “All you have to do is say the word,” he said. “Corrado Capitani won’t exist.”

  “I’ve been exiled before,” I said. “I refuse to hide.”

  “You can be sitting in the same chair you’ve always claimed, but if you don’t exist, they don’t see you. Even when you’re sitting right in front of them. And if that doesn’t convince you—there’s no such thing as loyalty in this life anymore, unless you’re a Fausti. And even they have weak links now. Your men will turn. They’ve already started to. Be loyal to those who are loyal to you.”

  I stared at the wall after the door shut.

  A hundred years.

  My entire life.

  I�
�d die behind bars.

  The door to the office opened, and Alcina came in, holding Eleonora’s hand. She was due any day with our second child.

  “Someone die?” my wife whispered. “The men—”

  I pulled her to me, making her lose her breath. It wasn’t hard these days, but it was from the strength of my embrace.

  Eleonora hopped on a chair across from us, her little legs dangling. She lifted her brow at me, still refusing to smile.

  “Corrado,” Alcina said, touching my face. “Tell me, or I will think it is worse than it is.”

  “I’m looking at a hundred years,” I said.

  She stared into my eyes, not understanding, until she did. She shook her head. “We will fight.”

  “We will,” I said. “But I’ve seen it before. Even if I get parole, I’ll probably serve no less than sixty. It just depends on how many years I get. That’s what I’m preparing for.”

  She tried to push away from me, but I held her close. She stared at me before she looked at Eleonora and then at her stomach.

  “What can we do?” she whispered. “I refuse to accept this.”

  “This is my life,” I said. “I go down with this family.”

  “Your suit still on,” she hissed at me. “To the very end.”

  I nodded.

  This time she pushed away from me. “Not a gentleman’s suit, an orange jumpsuit,” she said, crossing her arms over her stomach.

  One hard knuckle knock came at the door. Rocco Fausti stuck his head in. “Tito forgot his hat.”

  He must have come with Mac. They were as close as two thieves.

  He strode into the room, picking the hat up. He stuck it on Eleonora’s head, making her laugh when she knocked it off. He touched her chin after, and she smiled and giggled at him. He nodded at my wife.

  She turned her face toward mine, narrowing her eyes when she noticed how I was looking at her. I’d been watching her eyes to see if she’d blink at him.

  He shut the door, but his expensive fucking cologne lingered in the room.

  Alcina took my chin in her hand. “He does not matter. Nothing else matters. But us. This moment.”