Page 90 of Mafia King
“You could have started sooner.”
Explaining that I stalled because of Rosetta is pointless. My guilt and regret mean nothing to him. “I did what I had to do.”
“You did what youwanted.”
Arguing with a man who’s right will get me nowhere.
“How much longer is this lecture going to go?” I look at my watch even though he can’t see the cue over the phone. “I have things to do.”
“You do.” He wheezes. “You have to secure your position before you get what you were promised, or it’ll be taken away from you.”
“By who? I ran the Tabonas out already.”
“They’re trash. It’s the Orolios you have to worry about.”
“I have Damiano under control,” I say.
He sighs as if his point is a target a child could hit, and I’m missing it over and over.
“You have to play defense for a few more days. Don’t make any moves.” He coughs twice and swallows the rest behind a guttural groan. “Fortify your position.”
“Bene. I will.”
“You do not appreciate how precarious your situation is.”
“I do.”
“Cosimo’s looking for a reason to hit you.”
“Cristo, can you make your point more clear? Or would you like to come here and knock me over with a lead pipe?”
“I’m an old man. All I want is to see this thing put in safe hands. Then I can die.”
“It will be safe.”
“I know.”
He gives me a time to be at the lawyer’s office. I don’t write it down.
* * *
“Violetta?”I call up the stairs.
She’s supposed to be home, but she’s not in the kitchen or by the pool. I keep looking. She’s not in her room and she’s not answering when I call her name. I turn the corner around a blind hallway in my own fucking house, and I’m stopped by cold metal against my cheek.
It’s a gun.
Someone shorter than me is holding it. I look without moving, but I already know who it is.
“Violetta,” I say softly, with my hands up. “You’re not going to shoot me.”
“You’re a liar.”
She has my grandfather’s gun with the World War Two bullets still in it, and she knows I’m telling the truth. She’s not going to shoot me, but her eyes are red-rimmed and her mouth is twisted into a snarl. She thinks she might pull the trigger, and what she believes she’s capable of is more important than what I think she’s going to do.
“Put that down.”
“You said you’d call it off!”
