Mercenary (Gangsters of New York #3) - Bella Di Corte Page 0,3

straight hit—bing, bam, boom, done—but somehow he got the cars mixed up. He didn’t bother to check the car’s license plate. So instead of killing an associate, he killed someone important to another family.

Silvio had gone to my grandfather and asked a favor of him after: to hide No Nuts until things could get straightened out. While No Nuts was there, he fell for a Sicilian girl, who didn’t seem to feel the same about him. She castrated him and then ran and hid.

No Nuts lost his mind when he lost his balls, like they were directly connected, and no one could locate her or them since—the woman or his nuts.

We both shivered, cupping ours, protecting them from evil. That poor motherfucker was the poster boy for ball loss. I couldn’t be sure, but after he came home, it seemed like his eyes had crossed some as a side effect.

“Poor bastard.” Silvio shook his head. “That bitch is going to pay. You can’t run and hide forever. Your bad deeds always catch up to you.” He stared at No Nuts for a second before he shook his head. “Don Emilio sent me out to get you. He wants pictures done of the family.”

We watched No Nuts dancing around a bunch of cars, mouthing the words to “Mambo Italiano,” before we went to find my grandfather in the mix of the crowd.

There were more people than I thought. Most of them were crowded around my grandparents, watching as they danced to a slow song. Once the dance was over, and so were the pictures, my grandfather and I headed toward his office.

One foot inside of the house, and it was like taking a step back in time. Most of the furniture had been imported from Sicily. Some had been passed down through the generations. The only difference was that the entire house had been decorated with flowers for the wedding.

I followed my grandfather up the steps, eyeing the hand-carved cross and then a picture of my aunts and mother. It was an oil painting done years ago, when they were just kids. They were all pretty close in age.

My mother, Emilia, and the little girl sitting close to her in the painting, Luna, were the closest in age and in life. My grandmother told me that wherever Luna went, so did Emilia. Emilia treated her little sister like a baby doll. Luna died not long after I was born. From what Silvio had told me, my mother and grandfather were never the same after. Luna was the baby.

When I realized my grandfather had reached the top of the stairs, I started moving again, meeting him in his office. I wasn’t surprised that my uncle Carmine was already in the sitting area, Tito Sala next to him.

Uncle Carmine was my grandmother’s sister’s husband, and my grandfather’s consigliere. He counseled my grandfather on issues. Tito Sala had done the same for the Fausti family at one time.

The Faustis were the bosses of the bosses. Most people assumed men of such high ranking didn’t exist any longer, but the Fausti famiglia existed, and in the old country. Italy. When the worst of the worst couldn’t be controlled, or issues like the ones going on between the five families cropped up, their leaders stepped in.

Most of the time, though, it was their lower-ranking men who dealt with the petty shit. If their capo dei capi—bosses of all bosses—stepped in, it meant that the entire organization was close to the end. That’s why the family always stepped in before it could even get that close.

Marzio Fausti had been the capo dei capi for as long as I could remember. But he’d been killed, and his son, Lothario, was acting in his place until a new leader was announced officially. They were sniffing around more than usual lately because of the issues between the five families.

Tito Sala could be here for the wedding, or he could be here to judge the mood and report back to Rocco, who was in our area as of late. Then Rocco would pass that information on to whoever in his family.

I greeted Uncle Carmine and then Tito Sala. They both took a seat after we all shook hands. My grandfather took his seat at the head of the desk. I took the seat across from him, glancing down at my phone for a brief second.

My mother had tried to call me during the church service. The missed call was stuck on