“How would you feel about meeting if you can’t talk?”
She wrote again. Nick noticed that neither Angie nor Bruno tried to fill the silence while she did. She was an impressive woman, who could command the respect she wanted even without her voice.
He wasn’t surprised when her answer was My voice might be gone forever, so it’s not a factor. When I’m out of here, I’ll be ready to meet.
“I’m sorry to know that.”
She wrote more and showed the tablet. What do you want to talk about?
He respected her lack of patience for sympathy.
“I know how to win this war—stabilize the American and Sicilian families, repair the financial damage done, and kill Il Padrino. Take his entire family out of the equation and break it down for parts. If it goes to plan, we should have peace among us all. I’ve got all the pieces. But it will take all of us who are allied to make it happen.”
Angie chuckled with wry familiarity. Bruno only gaped. Giada chuckled silently and turned up her hand, as if yielding the floor to Nick.
Donnie and Trey knew the plan now, and Nick wanted the Saccos—fuck, Angie was a Sacco; he would never get used to that—to understand that he was no Cuccia, building castles all on his own and expecting the world to call him king. He also wanted Trey to show his potential to those who might doubt him. So Nick began to lay out the plan and threw the explanation to Donnie or Trey as appropriate.
When Angie began to pick up and ask questions that were really insights, Nick felt an easing of a loss. As long as Pagano and Sacco were allies, Angie was still at his side.
~oOo~
Nick returned to the Cove that evening feeling more energized than he had since Christmas. He had a plan, and allies, and he would win. Ettore Cuccia would pay for what he’d done. And the Americans would dominate their world.
He’d never had an ambition to be the most powerful; he’d despised that ‘King of New England’ bullshit since Atticus Calhoun had burdened him with it in a New Yorker article years ago. Calhoun had meant it contemptuously, spitting on a man he considered a thug and whose influence he resented, but since it had caught, people had begun to use it without the irony. But Nick had never wanted to be king—not of New England, or anything else, except, perhaps, Quiet Cove.
He’d only wanted enough power to shape his own slice of the world. His reach had extended over the years only as he’d striven to shape that slice and keep it whole. He’d taken the head of the Council because other families had lost power, through greed or incompetence or both, as he’d gained it. But he’d never intended to exert controlling influence beyond the edges of the Council table. And he’d certainly had no wish to reach across the ocean.
If Sicily had left America—specifically New England—alone to grow in the ways they wished, he would never have sought a confrontation with Il Padrino. He was, at his heart, a traditional man and respected the ways of their world. The changes he wanted, and the changes Giada Sacco wanted, were about preserving legacy, and legacy was the beating heart of La Cosa Nostra.
Cuccia couldn’t see that—or, more likely, shut his eyes to it because he wanted his way. Well, Nick wanted his way, too. So this civil war was truly a battle of wills.
Nick was sure he would have won in any case—progress always beat the status quo in the end—but at first he’d been hoping to effect a negotiation for peace. Even in the face of Cuccia’s continued rejections of invitations to sit down and talk, Nick had held out a hope that Cuccia could be made to see that change was inevitable.
Now, Cuccia had breached his family and taken one of his children. Nick had no more interest in peace, not until Il Padrino’s dead body lay at his feet. He would negotiate with those still standing afterward.
He had a plan, and allies, and he would win.
~oOo~
The evening was still early when Mel pulled onto the driveway, but the winter dark was nearly full. Nick’s body man hefted himself from behind the wheel and pulled his gun—a precaution he’d taken habitually since Christmas Eve. Though there was a guard on the house already, and a sophisticated security system now on the lighthouse, as well as a regular physical check there