Page 28 of Mafia Queen
Gia’s brother came to Torre Cavallo yesterday and swore allegiance, but when push comes to shove, he’s unlikely to act against his family.
There’s a knock at the office door before it opens a crack. It’s Tavie himself, who looks more awake than anyone else in the room.
“Speak of the fucking devil,” Gennaro says.
“Who?” he asks. “Me?”
“Are you the devil?” I ask, then wave off the answer. “What is it?”
“Yeah, uh…” Tavie runs his fingers through his dark hair. “You told me to tell you if anyone came to the gate?
“I did.”
“There’s this guy, Dario Lucari?”
That is not a name I expected to hear.
“Send him up.”
He runs off, and Gennaro shakes his head at the boy.
“He’s so disgusted with his old man, makes me feel sorry.” Gennaro tries to act flippant about it, but he does feel sorry, and that’s disappointing. Bad enough I have to deal with Marco—the man who rescued and raised me because he loved my aunt. “All he cares about is Gia.”
I should have listened to Violetta while it was possible to stop the‘mbasciata, then taken out Damiano. He was the poison in the well.
“Tavie can stay on small tasks for now,” I say. “Like Remo. Running messages between the gate and the house. Getting coffee.”
I remember Tavie running around in diapers while I played hide-and-seek with Gia. I fought off school bullies on their behalf. Now everyone I grew up calling family is motivated to betray me.
Tavie isn’t guarded enough to lie with his mouth and his face at the same time, and both tell the same story. He has no idea where his sister is. But a boy who cannot hide his emotions is a boy who could break when we drag his father up the mountain and beat his sister’s whereabouts out of him. That’s going to have to be dealt with, because I need Marco—right now—before everything gets rearranged.
Maybe Dario Lucari can help with that.
A moment later, the man himself comes through the door wearing a pressed shirt and smelling as fresh as a virgin’s underpants. He opens his arms so I can see inside his jacket.
“I got nothing on me,” he says. “I come in peace.”
“We frisked him,” Tavie says.
I stand and shake the man’s hand. “If Dario Lucari wanted to get in here with a loaded gun, you wouldn’t even know it.” I indicate a chair across my desk. “Sit.”
He sits, crossing an ankle over his knee. Gennaro shakes Carmine awake.
“Nice place,” Dario says. “New?”
“It came with the job.” I wave. “Andatevia. All of you.”
Gennaro, Tavie, and Carmine leave.
“They seem like good kids.” Dario jerks his thumb toward the door behind him after it clicks shut. When he turns, I can see the tops of his ear ends in a straight line.
I rub my eyes, suddenly as tired as I should be. “They’re so good”—I stand and go to the side bar—“they should all be priests.”
Dario laughs. “The men on this side don’t have hair on their stomachs.”
He should know. He runs a huge chunk of the Cavallo operation in New York, and the city is big enough for three families to wet their beaks without stepping on toes. Unless they want to. And someone always wants to. No one man can be king, and no man can rest.
“Drink?” I ask, opening a bottle of Strega. He nods, and I pour us both a short glass. “They’re good with people. Everyone likes them.” I hand him his cup. “They’re the men you want in peacetime.” We tap our glasses and I bring the bottle back to my seat. “So, you came all the way from New York to sit in my office and shoot the shit?”
