The Venetian and the Rum Runner - L.A. Witt Page 0,50

into thinking there was any affection between them. The ongoing wars in this city—Italians and Irish, gangs and other gangs, citizens and immigrants, men who thought they were more American than men who’d arrived only a few years later—had bad blood running in the streets as regularly as the elevated trains running overhead. He doubted there was a man in this city who hadn’t buried someone who’d died from another man’s violence.

The truce between Danny and Carmine wasn’t friendship. It was the concession of a man desperate to survive—both by earning enough money to stay fed and by accepting the protection of someone powerful enough to ward off people who wanted him dead.

So Carmine was deluding himself if he imagined that whatever happened inside his mind whenever he looked at Danny was mutual. Even if they ran into each other in one of those places where he sometimes met men, he doubted Danny would ever give him a second look. Not unless that second look was a wary one, anyhow.

And wouldn’t Carmine have felt the same if an il Sacchi ever eyed him suggestively? Rivals were what they were, and a rival who’d harmed or murdered someone he loved wouldn’t have been a man Carmine would view with any kind of affection.

It was strange to feel so drawn to someone who hated him like this. For that matter, someone he was supposed to hate too. And maybe he would have hated Danny the way his associates hated Irishmen, except Danny was the sole reason Giulia hadn’t been hurt or worse on New Year’s Eve. Without him, it was entirely possible Giulia could be dead now. Or she could have…

Carmine shuddered, pushing away that thought. Danny had been there the night Enrico il Sacchi had threatened Giulia. Giulia was safe, and Carmine’s thoughts would eventually untangle themselves from the Irishman who’d saved his sister.

In the meantime, he’d go about his life and congratulate himself on picking up an entire crew of golden geese.

The ringing telephone yanked Carmine out of a sound sleep. He fumbled in the dark, found the receiver, and clumsily pulled it toward the bed.

“Yeah?”

“Boss, it’s Mikey. We’ve got a situation at the bar.”

Carmine was instantly wide awake. He owned a number of bars, but Mikey worked at one in particular. “What kind of situation? Is Giulia all right?”

“Uh…” Mikey hesitated. “She’s holding her own, but you might want to come down here.”

Sitting up and reaching for the bedside lamp, Carmine asked, “What’s going on?”

Mikey lowered his voice. “Salvatore il Sacchi is here, and he’s ranting about finding out who killed his brother.”

Carmine suppressed a mouthful of blasphemy. “I’ll be right down. How many boys does he have with him?”

“He had some with him when he came, but now it’s just him. Him and his mouth.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

There was no time to ring Sal or Fedele. Carmine dressed, hurried downstairs, and took the car himself, and minutes later, he was parking on the street down the block from Giulia’s speakeasy.

The door was down an alley, safely out of sight from the main road, and several big men in suits hovered in the shadows. From their glares, he knew in an instant they were Salvatore’s boys. He figured they hadn’t gone far even if they’d left the speakeasy, whether because Salvatore had sent them out or because Giulia had.

Frosty looks made his neck prickle as he walked between the men and took the last couple of steps up to the door. They didn’t touch him—they knew better—but it was unnerving just the same.

At the door, without so much as a backwards glance at il Sacchi’s men, Carmine knocked. The bouncer pulled back the slide and was probably about to ask for the password, but froze when he saw Carmine. Then he unlatched the door and swung it open.

Immediately, shouting voices spilled out into the otherwise silent alley, and as Carmine walked into the nightclub, his gaze went right to Giulia and Salvatore, who were screaming at each other while nervous staff and a handful of remaining patrons watched with wide eyes from a safe distance. The shattered remains of a few teacups and a bottle scattered the floor beside a mess of overturned tables and broken chairs.

The bouncer shut the door with a bang that startled everyone, including Carmine.

Salvatore and Giulia both stopped mid-shout and turned.

Giulia’s eyes were ablaze with fury, but relief flickered across her face.

Salvatore’s expression darkened, and he shifted his ire toward