“There’s one problem with the Scarpones,” he said. “They’re in a feud with the other families right now. Things are tense. Shipments keep getting stolen. Grady is getting wary of them. And they’re getting wary of him.”
“Yeah,” I said, sitting back, putting my hands behind my head, grinning. “He thinks they’re lying about the shipments being stolen. That they’re holding out on him. Same goes for the Scarpones. They’re not sure who to trust, since they can’t even trust themselves.”
“That’s how it seems.” Raff paused for a second. “What the fuck is going on with the families? It’s mayhem.”
“I have an idea,” I said.
I thought back to Mari, Keely’s friend, and her fiancé, Macchiavello. They were due to marry shortly, and with him in Italy, I wondered if there was going to be a break for the Scarpones and their goods.
Someone had been stealing their shit from right underneath their noses.
I couldn’t have done a better job myself. I was able to steal petty shipments lately, but nothing that would really cripple them. If Mac was the person I suspected him to be, he had every right to destroy them. Here was the problem, though—he was a ghost.
Vittorio Scarpone, known back in the day as the Pretty Boy Prince of New York, had been killed. Throat slashed and body dumped in the Hudson for the fish to feast on. The hit ordered by his very own father.
I’d never met Vittorio, only heard stories about how ruthless he was, and when I tried to do some research, it seemed the only thing left of him was speculation. Not even a photograph. I reached out to the older men in the neighborhood who were connected at one time, to get a clear picture of the man, not the ghost.
“Not a man to be fucked with” was the general consensus.
It made sense if he was the one who’d killed Lee Grady’s old man, Cormick. Lee would become suspicious of who’d done it. He wouldn’t expect the Scarpones at first, but if the shipments kept disappearing, he’d start to wonder why.
His father gone.
His shipments gone.
Who had he been working closely with?
The Scarpones.
If the Scarpones eliminated Lee Grady next, that would give them one hundred percent of the profit, and a shot at claiming Hell’s Kitchen as part of their territory.
Relationships were under a massive amount of strain because of the current unrest, which was why Lee Grady got a little testy with my wife at the political event.
I held a finger up to Raff. I got Susan on the line. “My wife,” I said to her when she answered. She huffed but connected me.
A few seconds later, the archer picked up. She sounded out of breath.
“Darlin’,” I said.
“Hold on.” I heard things clanking in the background. “What?”
Raff laughed at her tone. I opened my drawer, stuck my hand in, then a second later, pulled it out, giving him the bird.
“Lunch,” I said. “You and me. Sullivan’s.”
“Can’t,” she said. “I’m busy. And besides, you just got to work. On a Sunday.”
“We eat together,” I said, reminding her.
“Not every meal. Dinner.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Too late. Gotta go.”
“Keely,” I said, catching her a second before she hung up. “What are you doing, darlin’?”
“Wouldn’t you love to know.” Then she hung up on me.
Raff snorted. “Jessica Rabbit is a fucking spitfire. I like the fox’s moxie.”
“Jessica Rabbit,” I said, looking up at him.
“Your girl. She has red hair and a body that could kill, so…”
The paperweight that used to sit on my old man’s desk sat on mine. Too quick for him to dodge, I threw it at Raff’s head. His head went back with the impact and it fell to the floor with a clang. It hit him in the spot right above his eyes.
“Next time my wife’s body comes to your mind, remember that to fucking knock it out.” What the fuck was wrong with this guy? Better yet, what the fuck was wrong with me? I’d just hit my cousin with a metal weight because he’d been thinking about mine.
“You’re a fucking asshole, Cash,” he said, rubbing the spot. It was already swelling. “Back to business. Our community is growing by the second.”
Fucking grand. The hit had knocked some sense into him. He was back on track. When he said “our community,” he meant the men who’d decided to join us.
“John Gerald’s son in?” I said. “Martin?”
“Clean now.” Raff nodded. “And working for you.”
“Grady’s going to start hitting us even harder since we’re