Love And War - Mallory Monroe Page 0,17

a very foolish man who forgot what level of ruthless man he was dealing for.

With no other options, Horse decided to play up their long-term relationship. He still didn’t understand why he had to be called out. He just didn’t get it. “Sal Luca, how you doing? Long time, no see.”

But Sal didn’t even look at Horse. His entire focus was on the Bonaduces. They sat on the sofa. Three young men in a row. All tall, all skinny, all filled with that kind of street hustle arrogance that made them certain they would beat this rap too. Sal’s aim, as he saw it, was to disabuse them of their certainty.

Robby nodded to one of the guards, and the one next to Horse hurriedly placed a chair in front of the Bonaduces. Sal sat down. Robby stood beside him. Sal became a different man when he was in this role. He became the kind of man even Robby, who’d seen it all, wouldn’t want to fuck with.

Sal leaned forward in his chair. It wasn’t lost on the Bonaduces that he was a man of good taste. His double-breasted Canali suit and Mantellassi shoes proved that. They stared at his Rolex and diamond ring. They had all that shit too. But for some reason he wore it better than they could have ever attempted to. He came off as a completely different dude face to face than they had expected. Who the fuck were they dealing with?

Sal rested his elbows on his thighs, and clasped his hands beneath his chin. He was more than happy to show them who. “Do you boys know who I am?” he asked them.

The youngest Bonaduce on the sofa was also, Sal had observed, the most arrogant. And, as Sal suspected, the first one to speak. “We know you. You’re Sal Gabrini. So what?”

Everybody in the room was astonished by the young man’s bravado. Especially Horseface Hines. He saw the opening and took it. “So what?” He began walking toward the young Bonaduce. “You don’t say Sal Gabrini and so what in the same fucking sentence, you moron! Now apologize to Boss!” Horse hit the young man upside his head. “Apologize!”

“Sorry,” the young man said rapidly and irritably. He said it more out of spite and fear than any remorse of any kind.

“That’s better,” Horse said.

But Sal didn’t give a damn. “Since you know who I am, or at least you claim you do,” he said, “I want you to tell it to me straight. Who gave the order to come after me and my family last night?”

“My brudder,” the young man said, and the others in the room, all except Sal, laughed at his thick Jersey accent.

“Which brother?” Sal asked.

The older Bonaduce, who couldn’t be more than twenty-five himself, looked bitterly at Sal. “The one you clipped last night,” he said.

Sal nodded. He’d been given similar intel from Robby. He looked at Horse. “Is this all of them?” he asked.

Horse nodded. “Yes, sir. You took out the four oldest. They were the true leaders of the family. These three here are the also-rans, but they’re all that’s left.”

To Horse’s anguish, Sal looked at Robby for confirmation. Robby nodded. “I double-checked,” he said. “One of the men you and Cab iced last night was the uncle, their true leader. There were seven brothers in all. The baby brother was already gone. You took out three more and the uncle. These three are all that’s left.”

But Sal wasn’t so easily convinced. It was too convenient for his liking that their ringleader would have been on the kill run too. Usually the leader of a ragtag gang like the Bonaduces would be a coward in the long run, and would let his underlings handle every tough run.

Sal rose to his feet and looked at the youngest brother, the one with the biggest mouth and swag. “Stand up,” he said to him.

When the youngster hesitated, Horseface grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to his feet.

Sal stared him in the eyes. “Who gave the order to come after me and my family last night?” he asked again.

“I told you my brudder,” the young Bonaduce said.

Sal grabbed his left arm and then twisted it backwards and then up so hard and so fast that it broke. The young man screamed out in agony as the sound of the tear reverberated throughout the safe house. The young Bonaduce nearly fell to his knees. But Sal kept pulling on his arm.

His