How the Hitman Stole Christmas - Sam Mariano Page 0,70

but I tell myself to suck it up.

“Anyway, so that was no problem. It was a clean job, everything went to plan—it was over, right? Wrong. His sister turned out to be an even bigger pain in the ass than he was. She went around telling everyone who would listen that she believed the mob killed her brother. Now, my boss… he does not tolerate things like this. He has worked pretty hard to get to a place where the public doesn’t explicitly acknowledge that he’s anything more than a successful businessman, except in hushed whispers and urban legends. But this lady… she wouldn’t quit. She was writing opinion pieces on the internet, trying to get media attention. She would not shut up. We tried sending someone to talk to her—a woman, not an aggressive intimidation, just someone pointing out to her under the guise of friendliness that if the mob did kill her brother, they probably wouldn’t appreciate her yapping about it, so maybe she should stop before someone got hurt. She couldn’t be reasoned with. I don’t even really think it was about her brother at that point, I think she just liked fighting about something, but regardless of her reason, she became a thorn in my boss’ side. Once all attempts at managing her had been exhausted, there was only one recourse left.”

“You killed her.”

He nods, his gaze locked on mine, watching me for a reaction. “I had to. I made it look like a heart attack and we had our guys handle the logistics so there was no way for it to come back on us, but she couldn’t be muzzled, so she had to be silenced. That’s just the way of it. Now, it should end here, right?”

I nod because it seems like I should, but I don’t know where a line of murders is supposed to end.

“But it doesn’t, because she had entrenched herself so deeply in this crusade, she started getting a little dirty herself. Since she was doing all this very publicly, certain kinds of people had started approaching her, preying on her grief or anger or whatever it was, looking for an excuse to pick a fight with us. Turned out, before she died, she hired some half-cocked pack of gang members to ‘get revenge’ on the Morelli family. She wanted them to take out someone close to Mateo, one of his brothers—you know, an eye for an eye.”

My eyes widen.

“Now, we have a lot of threats on our radar, but there are some that are beneath our notice, and this just happens to be one of them. We gather as much intel as we can from as many places as possible, but we can’t catch everything. We can’t know that somewhere in our city, some beer-bellied hillbillies from Tennessee are in their hotel room drinking beers and talking about the glory and celebrity they’ll experience when they take out a prominent member of the Morelli family. There’s just no way to get that information.”

I have no idea what to say to that, but I feel like I should say something, so I offer up, “No, I would imagine not.”

“So, when one night Adrian decides to take his wife and kids out for dinner, of course he has a usual amount of caution about being out in public. Of all the family members, he and Mateo are the most recognizable. Adrian has a scarred face, makes him easy to pick out, and Mateo… well, don’t worry about why people notice him,” he mutters.

Despite the darkness of his story, a faint smile tugs at my lips, remembering how he reacted back at the bar when I said I found his boss interesting. “Is he handsome?”

He slides me a look to let me know he’s not entertained by my question.

I grin, totally entertained by his jealousy.

“Anyway,” he says firmly. “There’s nothing on Adrian’s radar to make him think anything would go wrong tonight. The guy’s just trying to have a nice time with his wife and kids in a public place. So, when the bullets start flying, it’s quite a surprise. Those guys we didn’t know about, they shot Adrian—only grazed his arm, and only because he had his back turned. They shot at his wife, his son, at his little girl. They shot a hole through the fabric of Candace’s dress, that’s how close they got to hitting her. And of course, Adrian handled it. Had a little help from his wife,