Mercenary (Gangsters of New York #3) - Bella Di Corte Page 0,126
would be set on his terms, not mine.
Or maybe the fucker would ambush me in my sleep and not face me like a man.
I couldn’t see that about him. Not because he was too low to stoop to such a level, but because he wanted to see my face. He wanted to air out our grievances before one of us fatally wounded the other.
I wasn’t afraid of ghosts. They were already dead.
I cleared the table. Rolled up my sleeves and did the dishes. My grandmother had been spending more time with other family members lately, but still—her kitchen was always spotless. She detested any dirty dishes sitting in the sink overnight.
It was done out of respect for her. She didn’t get much of that over the years, in other ways, so I felt it was important to do it even if she couldn’t see it.
To be Machiavellian meant that one had to present him or herself to the world in one way, while behind closed doors, unscrupulous practices took place.
That was the way of our world. The root of it.
My main problem with Vittorio Scarpone was that he presented himself one way to the world, a ghost, but deep down, he was still a Scarpone at heart. And that heart had a beat.
He stole chances from me.
He kept my sister from me—make no mistake, he knew about me longer than Tito had.
His blood killed the woman I called mother.
The more I thought about it, the more I needed something to reach out and touch, to snatch, to strangle, to kill. The constant beat in my ear, the never-ending pulse in my mind—it needed to end.
I checked my watch and sighed. “Fuck it,” I said, standing from the table. I didn’t wait on him. He waited on me.
I turned the lights off in the dining room and went back into the kitchen. I sent Alcina a quick text.
A minute.
Five.
Ten.
She didn’t answer me.
I checked the clock on the wall. Maybe she was sleeping.
Doubtful.
Even though it was late, I knew she wouldn’t sleep until I was next to her. She was anxious before she left. Eager for me to meet her.
I considered calling her, but if she was sleeping, I didn’t want to wake her.
On my way to the second level, I noticed the lights turned on in the dining room.
It was empty.
I smiled a little, knowing he was fucking with me.
I left the lights on and went upstairs, double-checking that things were the same as I had left them.
All was normal.
The lights were turned out in the dining room again when I made it back to the first floor. A line of taper candles had been lit along the table. The bronze holders glinted gold in the soft light. The shapes of items in the room created shadows along the wall.
I took a seat at the head of the table, getting comfortable, my eyes adjusting.
If I had blinked, I would have missed the movement. A second later, he came forward out of the darkness, the candles bringing him to life. All I could see was the blue of his eyes at first, until his features took shape and created the man. He sat at the other head.
“Boo, motherfucker,” he said, setting his gun on the table. “You wanted to see me.”
I set mine across from his. “For a while.”
He nodded. “This would have happened sooner, but my wife asked me not to.”
“So she could meet me.”
It made sense then. Why he had helped stop the men ambushing me on the way out of his restaurant. My sister wanted the chance to meet me. Because of that, he could kill me when he was ready, but if he was around, no one else could touch me.
Famiglia.
Blood could talk about blood, do to blood, but let anyone else talk or do?
It was fucking on.
He had that going for him, but nothing else.
“I was sorry to hear about Emilia,” he said. “My condolences.”
I narrowed my eyes. “She knew that you knew about me.”
“She and I had a talk years ago. Emilia is the reason I never said anything to you or Mariposa about each other. She knew if you found out who your father was, you would go looking for trouble. You’d find it in the form of the Scarpones. Once they found out who you were, it would cause a war.” He shrugged. “Then there was the issue of who Corrado Palermo was. She didn’t want you trying to fill the shadow he left.”