Page 97 of Disgrace

“Were you working last night?” Lucian asked.

John kept his back turned to his father as he finished dumping in bubble mailers and other shit into the garbage can. “Another attack.”

Lucian sucked air though his teeth so hard, it whistled. “Shit.”

“No one was hurt this time around.”

“Small blessings.”

If you wanted to call it that.

John turned to face his father, and found Lucian standing in the kitchen entryway. “I called Dante last night to let him know what happened before someone else did, and he directed me to Andino before I could even finish speaking.”

“His right to do, I suppose.”

“Andino told me not to counterattack.”

Lucian didn’t blink at that statement. “His right too, I guess.”

And that was the whole fucking problem.

“Who is really the one running this family?”

“Pardon?” Lucian asked.

“Who is running the family? Andino, or Dante? Which one is it? Nobody seems to know right now, and that makes shit dangerous.”

“Officially, it’s Dante. Unofficially, it’s Andino.”

“Why doesn’t everyone else understand that—me, for example?”

“They’ve made the choice to do it this way for their own reasons. I suppose to take other organizations by surprise when the time comes, but also, you know how this business and family goes, Johnathan.”

Yeah.

“Don’t question a boss.”

“Exactly. There is method to their madness. You have to respect their right to make the final decision.”

“The Calabrese tried to burn out one of our warehouses from the back last night. The Capo had a whole crew of guys working in there to get rid of a boosted truck full of electronics. The Capo never could have handled that situation by himself, and the crew probably would have been lost had I not smelled the fucking gasoline in time. The time for games is over—we need to start acting more than we have.”

“We act when we need to,” Lucian replied calmly. “Not every action a Marcello answers with is violent, or straightforward. That’s where the Calabrese differ from us.”

John was getting nowhere with this conversation, but he wasn’t surprised. Everything his father was saying had been repeated to John for three decades—his entire life. He knew all of this was the truth, and yet, he was antsy and edgy.

Something needed to be done.

Soon.

“Shit, maybe …”

“What?” Lucian asked quietly.

“Maybe a large part of my problem is that I’m just … impatient,” John muttered. “Tired of waiting for this to end. Tired of being fucked with all the time.”

Lucian lifted a single brow. “Tired of being made to wait for her?”

That hit a nerve.