a word. I’ll get us out of here as quickly as I can.”
In a meeting room just outside the grand ballroom, Giovanni Coppola sits at the head of a long wooden table in a black leather seat. David and Wilder sit at the table directly to his left, and the men with guns sit at his right. Phillip Vogel is on his knees in the corner with his hands tied behind his back. The music from the party is nothing more than a low hum, and the air conditioner is too cold in here.
“Take a seat, Talent,” Giovanni says, motioning toward the chairs beside David and Wilder. Talent sits closest to his brother, putting me as far away from Giovanni and the guns as possible.
“Does she need to be here?” Talent asks. His voice is even, unafraid—like he too belongs.
Giovanni considers me, and for the first time tonight I get a good look at him. In an age of instant news, social media, and big brother type surveillance, crime families no longer flaunt their wealth with fancy cars, fur coats, and stacks of cash. They don’t plant bombs in the cars of their enemies, kidnap for ransom, or brandish their power publicly like they once did. The mob has integrated themselves into the community to keep a low profile and conduct business under the radar.
Everyone in the Bay Area knows the Coppola family. They shop at the same grocery stores as the elite do, eat at the same restaurants, and their kids are enrolled in the same private schools.
This doesn’t make their families less dangerous.
Which is why I don’t fuck with them.
“She should stay,” he answers like an afterthought. “Something tells me your girl doesn’t realize the role she plays in this.”
Talent’s jaw clenches, and he sits up in his chair. Anger and frustration radiate off him in waves, showing me a side of Talent I’ve never seen. He’s treacherous. “Did you know he was going to show up tonight?”
Giovanni smiles and says, “We expected him.”
Talent scoffs and shakes his head. “Have you known where he was this entire time?”
Wilder rests his hand on top of Talent’s as if to say, watch your mouth.
Giovanni pivots to confront Talent. In the blink of an eye, the man who’s dripped charisma cuts it off like a faucet, embodying the very description of a deadly Mafioso. “You know the answer to that as well as I do, Talent. He managed to outrun us, until today when an acquaintance spotted him. If he didn’t show up on his own tonight, we planned to bring him in ourselves.”
“The cops don’t know anything. I’ve been stringing them along,” Phillip cries out. “Let me explain.”
With a curt nod, the man sitting closest to Giovanni stands to his feet and pulls a gun from his waistband and aims it directly at Phillip’s head. I suck in a sharp breath, but no one else in the room bats an eye at the nightmare unfolding before us. Talent places his hand on my thigh and squeezes my knee, but I find little comfort in his attempt to ground me.
“Don’t waste our time with your futile lies, Phillip. There’s a long list of offenses to answer for.” Giovanni rocks back and forth in his seat with his hands in front of him like a prayer.
“Nothing comes in or out of my territory without my knowledge—not a dime bag of dirt weed, and certainly not the heroin you were running for the competition on daddy’s fleet. Was the inventory I hired you to transport not enough to pay the bills? Or is the problem that you used it as a personal stash and got yourself in a bind?” Giovanni asks cynically. He waves Phillip away before he can answer for himself. “The day you got picked up by the FBI was the luckiest day of your life, but it only extended the inevitable. And it gave you more time to fuck shit up.”
The gunman whips Phillip across the face with his weapon.
I take Talent’s hand, and he pulls my chair closer to his.
“Your second offense was making a deal with the feds,” Giovanni continues nonchalantly, like this is the lesser of the evils. “And your third and final offense was turning your back on Talent Ridge.”
“I’m sorry,” Phillip cries. His face is bloody and bruised. “Talent, please.”
“I never liked this guy. I tried to tell you over and over, Talent. He has no character,” Giovanni says, turning his attention to Talent. “But