Stolen Heir - Sophie Lark Page 0,50

leader. Disciplined. Responsible.

He’s also wary as a cat. He seems to sense when anything is out of place, when anybody has eyes on him. Must be his military training. They say he served six years in Iraq—unusual for a mafioso. They’re not patriots. Their loyalty is to their family, not their country.

Maybe Enzo wanted him to become the perfect soldier. Or maybe it was a youthful rebellion on Dante’s part. All I know is that it makes it damn hard to find his weak points.

He follows no set schedule. He rarely goes anywhere alone. And as far as I can tell, he’s completely lacking in vices.

Of course, that can’t actually be true. Nobody is that regimented.

He certainly has a soft spot for his siblings. If he’s not working, he’s catering to them. He does the lion’s share of the labor running his father’s businesses. He manages to keep Nero Gallo out of serious trouble—a Sisyphean task that seems as varied as it is unending, since Nero seems equal parts creative and deranged. In one week, Nero gets in a knife fight outside Prysm, crashes his vintage Bel Air on Grand Avenue, and seduces the wife of an extremely nasty Vietnamese gangster. Dante smooths over every one of these indiscretions, while visiting his youngest brother at school and his sister Aida at the Alderman’s office.

What a busy boy, our Dante.

He barely has time to drink a pint at a pub. He doesn’t seem to have a girlfriend, a boyfriend, or a favorite whore.

His only hobby is the shooting range. He goes there three times a week to practice the marksmanship that apparently accounted for sixty-seven kills from Fallujah to Mosul.

I suppose that’s how he hit Tymon with three shots to the chest. Practice makes perfect.

Now that I’ve killed two birds with one stone, extorting money from the Griffins and paying it to the Russians, I’d like to do the same with Dante. I’d like to fuck him up royally, while ridding myself of another enemy at the same time.

So the next time Dante makes his visit to the shooting range, I have Andrei steal Dante’s Beretta right out of his bag. It’s his old service weapon, one of the few that I can be certain was legally purchased and registered to his name.

The next part is a bit tricky. Dante is too clever to lure into an ambush. So I have to bring the ambush to him.

I may not be chummy with the police commissioner like Fergus Griffin, but I have two beat cops on my payroll: Officers Hernandez and O’Malley. One never covers the spread on the Cubs, the other owes child support to three different women.

I tell them to park their patrol car a block away from the Gallo house, right in the center of Old Town. They wait there every night, all week long. Until finally there’s an evening where Enzo and Nero are out, and Dante is home all alone.

Now here’s where we bring in the other bird.

Walton Miller is the head of the BACP in Chicago—which means he’s the fellow who hands out liquor licenses. Or rescinds them, when his chubby little palm isn’t crossed with a bribe that suits his fancy.

He’s been getting greedier and greedier by the year, extorting me for five separate payments for my bars and strip clubs.

Miller has a beef with the Gallos. The Gallos own two Italian restaurants, and Dante hasn’t paid up for either, despite selling enough wine to fill Lake Michigan.

I give Miller a nice, hefty payment for my liquor licenses. Then I give him a briefcase full of evidence against Dante Gallo—a bunch of photoshopped shit that looks like illegal tax returns from the restaurant.

Like the fool he is, Miller goes scurrying over to the Gallo house, thinking he’s going to twist Dante’s arm.

Under the normal course of events, Dante would literally twist Miller’s arm in return—twist it until it fucking breaks, set his evidence on fire, and send Miller slinking back home with his tail between his legs and a better appreciation for why nobody else in the city of Chicago would be stupid enough to try to blackmail Dante Gallo.

That’s what would usually happen.

But at 10:04 p.m., Miller knocks on the door.

At 10:05, Dante lets him inside.

At 10:06, an anonymous caller dials 911, reporting shots fired at 1540 North Wieland Street.

At 10:08, officers Hernandez and O’Malley are sent to investigate, as the closest squad car to the scene.

At 10:09, they stand where Miller stood, hammering