"He didn't know we had company," Gabriella said as she appeared in front of Dante, grabbing him and forcing him past Alfie, shoving him into the bedroom. She slammed the sliding room door closed once they were inside and looked at him, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry, he kind of just… showed up."
"He's your father," Dante said, dropping the towel. "He can visit you whenever he wants."
"Yeah, well, he's not here for me."
Dante cut his eyes at her, brow furrowing, as Alfie shouted from the living room, "Put on your best suit, kid. We've got somewhere we need to be."
Chapter Twenty-One
Decades earlier, eight hundred miles away, a man named Al Capone believed the key to coexisting was distribution. The pie was big enough for everybody to have a slice of it. The bosses in New York at the time bought into that theory, divvying up their territory.
Five boroughs. Five families.
They believed it was fate.
And just as it all came to a screeching halt for Capone, the harmony in the boroughs didn't last long, either. Greed set in. Sharing was no longer caring. Everyone, it seemed, wanted Manhattan, staking a claim and nitpicking neighborhoods. The Amaro family had it all first, it had been rightfully given to them, but then the Barsantis and the Galantes swooped in.
As they say, the rest was history.
Some booms, a couple bangs, and a bunch of spilled blood later, Dante found himself again crossing the state line into New Jersey, sitting in the passenger seat of a black Crown Vic, with Alfie Russo steering them toward Victor Brazzi's property. A family meeting, he'd said, one that had been in the works for weeks. He'd called it a last-ditch effort to establish peace within the network, but Dante knew what they truly were heading into: an intervention.
They were going to try to stop Primo's reign of terror.
"When you say all of the families," Dante asked, his voice hesitant, "do you mean all of them?"
"All of them," Alfie confirmed. "Chicago, New York, and New Jersey."
"I don't think I belong at this thing."
"Why?"
"Because I don't represent the Galante family."
"I know," Alfie said. "You're coming as a Brazzi."
"A Brazzi?"
"Yeah, you got a problem with being a Brazzi?"
"No problem."
Dante wasn't sure how the hell that was going to work, but he figured he ought not ask, opting to remain silent. Tension bunched his muscles when they approached the gate in front of the house, two men dressed all in black standing guard yet again, barely detectable, blending into the darkness. It was late, or maybe really early, well past three o'clock in the morning.
The gate shifted open and Alfie drove through, subtly nodding to the guys as they saluted him. Cars lined the driveway, a chain of black sedans. Alfie pulled up near the door, parking.
As soon as they stepped in the foyer, Alfie raised his hands, letting himself be patted down by another guard, hands barely touching him before the guy moved on to Dante. His touch was rougher, the search more thorough. Dante gritted his teeth, standing still, enduring the prodding until Alfie laughed. "At ease. He's okay. He's with us."
Right away, the man backed off, and Dante fixed his disheveled shirt, tucking it back in.
He followed Alfie up the staircase to the same ballroom they had been in months ago. It had been altered, the small tables replaced by larger interconnected ones. Men filled chairs surrounding the tables, sitting around, food spread out in front of them. They chatted and ate, drinking Bloody Mary's as they laughed at each other's jokes. The atmosphere was easygoing, like they were nothing more than old friends catching up, enjoying pleasant company over buttermilk waffles and chopped up fucking fruit, instead of guys who would gut each other in their sleep without an ounce of remorse.
Dante's eyes scanned the array of faces, recognizing most of them, but not finding the one he sought. Primo was noticeably absent, as was everyone else from the Galante family. Barsanti, too, was nowhere to be found.
"Would've been here sooner," Alfie said, waltzing into the dimly-lit room, a smile on his face, "but someone took forever to get ready, like he's some broad that needed to put on his fucking face or something."
Alfie motioned to Dante, who lingered near the entrance, all eyes in the room shifting to him.
"Ah, young Mr. Galante," Victor greeted him, waving to an empty chair to his left. "Join us. Have some breakfast."