Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Why the fuck would someone do a drive-by shooting in the middle of the day in the goddamn Upper West Side? That spot’s going to be crawling with cops in the next ten seconds, and if I didn’t have full faith in every single person working at that restaurant and all my guys, I’d worry that some bad shit was about to happen. The heat will he heavy, and it will be intense—the cops don’t like people getting murdered in the really fancy parts of the city.
The goddamn Russians. I know it was them. Nobody else makes sense, unless the Greeks thought they could lure me out with a meeting before sending in their hitters. But even that’s a stretch—Yiannis had real plans, not some cooked-up distracting bullshit, but real ideas about how we can connect with the crime lords and get their good Greek weed flowing into our territories. It makes no sense for them to be behind the attack.
Which leaves the Russians. Those bastards tried to kill me twice now, and it cannot stand.
Especially not since they put Kacia in danger.
I understand trying to kill me. I’m part of the game. My life is on the line and that’s a hazard everyone in the Famiglia accepts. But to do something so brazen, so goddamn stupid, and to put my wife’s life in danger—that makes me so angry I can barely think.
My place is the top floor of an old hospital. The building was renovated years back and I bought my place from a mafia-connected contractor and got a damn good price. There’s a doorman out front who nods as we breeze through and we take the elevator up to my floor. I have to swipe my card and use a key to get the elevator to stop at my place, but the doors open on my apartment: big white walls, lots of airy space, hardwood floors, a sleek modernist couch, black and white photographs, designer end tables, coffee tables that are worth more than most people make in a lifetime.
She says, “Holy shit.”
I toss my keys on a side table and pace into the main room. My head’s spinning and I’m too amped up to give her the tour. I pour a whiskey while she wanders around, pokes her head into the bedroom, the office, the bathroom. She whistles and leans against the doorway between the back hall and the main living area.
“You’re staying here from now on,” I say, not looking at her, hands shaking as I lift the glass to my lips. I never react like this after a fight, but having her so close to getting hurt—I can’t handle that. It’s breaking me in half, knowing those Russian fucks nearly gunned her down, and all I want to do is rip the city to pieces trying to find them.
She walks over and takes the whiskey from me. She sips it and gently touches my face, running her fingers along the cuts, and picks glass from the wounds. “Come on, you need this cleaned out,” she says and leads me into the bathroom. “Sit down.”
I sit on the toilet seat. She goes through my cabinets until she finds a first aid kit and proceeds to wash my cuts with alcohol, not being particularly gentle. It hurts like hell, but I sit there and take it. When she’s done, half a roll of gauze is pink with blood, but my face doesn’t look like ground meat anymore at least.
“We’re doing the right thing,” I say, looking at her in the mirror. She shrugs and stares down at the floor without replying. “You know this is the right thing.”
“Do I?” She wads up the dirty gauze and throws it away. “My whole family’s dead. I’m married to the man that murdered my father figure. Yeah, maybe you didn’t plant the bomb that blew up the yacht, but who did? And don’t sit there and tell me you wouldn’t have done it if you had the chance.”
“I would’ve pulled the trigger myself if it meant killing your father and ending the fighting. Do you know how many lives that explosion saved?”
“Stop it.”
“No,” I say, turning on her, rage flowing through my veins. She’s so small, delicate, beautiful, and I want to break her into little pieces. “Your father knew what he was doing. The fucker wanted more power than he had which is why he waged his little war in my fucking city. Your father and your brothers were scumbags, and that old psychopath I killed deserved way worse than what he got. You have no clue how bad your precious little Perico was, but I had every right to shoot the bastard.”
“And you’re better than they are?” She shoves me back and I stumble into the vanity. “You’re so much better, huh, Luca? You didn’t kill me, big deal. You did one halfway decent thing in your whole fucking life and you think you’re better than they are. Good for you, you ended the war, all you had to do was murder people I love. I know you have a trail of dead bodies in your wake just as long as the trail behind my father and my brothers and even Perico. You and your little crew have been killing people for the Famiglia for years, so don’t tell me they deserved it and you don’t.”