used the word ‘sins’ for the second time, Cuccia had sat up straight.
Donnie looked straight at Tony and nodded subtly. That was the signal.
The men in this room weren’t supposed to be armed, and they’d made a show of proving that before they’d sat down. But there were guns concealed in the table. Tony had shown Alex how it worked that afternoon.
Now, both Tony and Alex released concealed guns, aimed and fired, all within about five seconds.
Tony hit true, one shot to Cuccia’s underboss. Alex’s shot went wide, and in the extra second or two he needed to get another shot off, he almost missed his chance, as his target, Gian-Paolo Ermacora, a man three times his age who looked a little like his grandfather—dived under the table. But his second shot caught Ermacora’s shoulder and threw him backward.
“Finish it!” Tony shouted at him, and Alex, his mind nothing but mud, lurched forward and shot the crawling old man again. But his hands shook badly, and the bullet caught him in the ass. Ermacora yelped but started crawling toward the stairs again. Alex put two more bullets in him, both hitting him in the back, and at last Ermacora stayed down.
Alex thought it was finally over, but then, just as Alex was ready to drop the gun from his hand, the old guy lifted his head and tried to move again.
“Pull yourself together, kid,” Angie said, quietly. “Get it done.”
Alex knew how to use a gun. Several different types. He’d done hours of training and could hit a clean bullseye on a target eight times of ten. But hitting a piece of paper at a shooting range was not the same at all.
Holding the gun in both hands and making them as steady as he could, Alex put a bullet in Gian-Paolo Ermacora’s head.
When it was over and the room was shockingly quiet, Alex turned and considered the table. Except for the empty spaces where the dead men and their killers had sat, and the blood on the walls and carpet around it, the room looked much the same as it had before. All the other people at that table had kept their seats. Those seated closest to the Cuccias had shifted out of the range of danger a bit, but no more than that.
One Cuccia man remained at the table: Marco Leone, the consigliere.
Il Padrino was on the floor, hunched under the table with his hands over his head.
Angie went to the end of the table, grabbed Cuccia by the back of his suitcoat, yanked him roughly to his feet, put the chair upright, and shoved him into it. With Cuccia in the chair, Angie heaved the whole thing off the carpet and set it back at the end of the table, facing Don Pagano.
At that point, Cuccia tried to reclaim his will and his calm, if not his strength. “We broke bread together. It is a sacred compact.” His voice didn’t shake.
Neither did Nick’s. “No more sacred than a holy truce. You attacked my home on Christmas Eve. You killed my daughter. You thought I would let that go unanswered? You thought I would be cowed?”
“Your daughter—God rest her soul—was never a target, Nicolo.”
“No. I was. You meant to kill two dons and my heir on my front lawn that night. Instead you failed, and killed my child.”
“I meant to remove the rot from our blood. This woman, and that boy”—he indicated Donna Sacco and Trey—”have no place with us. They are a corruption. And your insistence that they belong makes you a corruptor. I acted to save our world. Your daughter was an unfortunate mistake.”
“My daughter was no one’s mistake.” His voice shook—just once, just an extra syllable in the word daughter—and Alex, still standing over the man he’d killed, still holding the gun he’d used to do it—saw Nick swallow once and breathe deep. There was a hitch in the breath. “You have lost, Ettore. This war is over, and you have lost.”
“I have not. You might kill me, but the other Italian Families will not forget it. They stand with me.”
“They do not,” Giada said. Her voice was soft and had an odd tremor, but it was clear.
Cuccia sneered at her and waved dismissively. Angie, standing close to him, hit Il Padrino up the back of his head. “Show respect, asshole,” he growled.
“Donna Sacco is right,” Leone said before Cuccia could respond to Angie’s attack. “You stand alone, Ettore.”