Page 5 of Mafia King
Damiano shrugs and looks away, and I know—finally—loosened by conversation and sambuca, he’s getting to his point. “I figured it’s an act of good will. Between you and me.”
“I have no ill will toward you.”
“Yeah. Sure. I know. It’s fine. But see, I gotta tell you. Man to man.” He puts his elbows on the table and clears his throat. “I miss it. Being inside, you know? With a… kinda… family, I guess. Not as payment so much, but so just saying… in good faith, I can get some of that back. Here. Me and you.”
“You want to work with me?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs a little as if he wasn’t ready to answer a direct question but might as well, since I asked. “And maybe I can climb the ladder, then… some time… we can be like it used to be, on the other side. On a personal level. You’re in charge and I can be… once I prove myself… like a right-hand guy.”
Back home, Damiano and I were partners and equals. That’s what he wants, and if I were the same man as I was then, I’d give it to him. I’d embrace the past and make it the future. But right now, I don’t trust him on either side of the ocean.
“If I say no?”
He throws himself back in his chair, arms out, palms up, as if my answer renders him innocent of any consequences. “Like you said. Marco’s got holes in his pockets. He’s a bad investment.”
“He is.”
“So that’s a no?”
“I’ll bless you cashing him out. Not the repayment schedule.”
“Bene.” He nods with a rueful press of his lips—like a parent who didn’t want to have to punish his child but now has no choice.
“Is there a problem, Dami?” I stand.
“No, no.”
“You sure?”
“I was just remembering that day.” He backs toward the door. “In the hospital with Emilio. Just us and that fucking consigliere. Nazario Coraggio. When he gave you Rosetta, and he gave me—”
“What about it?”
“Who knowswhyhe did it, besides us?”
“And Franco Tabona?”
“He knew shit.” He shakes his head andtsks. “I never told him. I never told anyone. Tabona went after your wife to get to you. Man, if he knew? Shit. It woulda changed the math real quick. But it was fun watching you wipe them out.”
I should have killed Damiano the first time he implied my wife was a target, but he’s still Cosimo Orolio’s son, and I rule a small, peaceful corner of the world. Cosimo would have sent a hundred men from Naples. The resulting war would have raged for a day—maybe two—before he crushed us.
When Emilio died, I was nineteen and officially, I was no more important than a loyal soldier. Cosimo filled the vacuum without shedding a drop of blood, but he couldn’t maintain the scope of Emilio’s territory, because no one believed he could. Within six months, his boundaries were as tight as a fist, but about as small—without America, and I was sidelined within his organization.
I was worried about the Tabonas. This was a misdirection of myself.
“Doesn’t matter the reason,” I say. “Franco Tabona sends men for my wife, Franco Tabona gets wiped out. That math never changes.”
Loretta watches us from the kitchen, arms crossed like a big sister letting her brothers fight it out.
“You think I told them,” Damiano says, “but I didn’t. If any of them knew? What would they do with her?”
We both know exactly what would be done with Violetta if everyone knew the nature of my promise to her father.
“After they take what you married her for? They gonna just kill her or take a day to give everyone a dip in her sauce?”
I’m standing before he’s even finished, hands on the table, leaning in his face. “Don’t talk about her ever again.”
Loretta comes outside with a bowl of fresh ice she knows we don’t need. She’s there to make sure whatever happens is witnessed.
