Page 92 of Mafia Queen
“Looks like seven cars.”
“Is Santino with them?”
“No way to tell. It’s night, and the windows are dark, so there could be six guys to a car or one. So you all need to just stay inside until we know. Come on.” He tries to wave me to the house, where he’ll lock us up safe.
That’s what Santino would want. I’m sure he’d rather die than find out I put myself in danger to save him. Too bad. He’s not here to tell me not to come for him.
“Does Lasertopia have a sub basement?” I ask Loretta.
“There’s a boiler room. The bouncers turned it into a hangout.”
I ignore Vito and pace to the gate. “Remo!” I call over my shoulder. “Get out the Alfa.”
Loretta and Celia follow me.
Vito runs past them to walk next to me. “Please, Mrs. DiLustro. You can’t just drive away. They won’t let you by.”
“I’m not going to pass them, Vito. I’m going through them.”
We leave him behind. Celia is to my right, and Loretta is to my left. In front of me, a line of soldiers stand between us and the gate.
“I’ll show you the sub basement,” Loretta says. “You won’t find it otherwise.”
To my right, the garage doors open, and the Alfa Romeo’s headlights flash when the engine starts. I stop a few feet from the gate and drop the box between my feet to address the men strapped here with me.
“We have about five minutes before they get here, and we start shooting at each other. If we wait, more than half of you are going to die. I don’t want that. Santino’s not here, but if he was, he wouldn’t find that acceptable either. You will not die to protect this crown.”
“If you give it to them,” Carmine shouts, “they’re gonna shoot us all anyway.”
Maybe. Probably. I don’t know the codes or traditions of this kind of confrontation, and I don’t care. They’re all changing if I survive this, and if I don’t, there’s nothing I can do about it.
“There won’t be a trade,” I agree with a voice that echoes from the mountains and over the sounds of the night. “Once Damiano has it, he has no reason to let Santino live to challenge him.”
The Alfa approaches from behind me, casting the line of men in unforgiving light. They’re scared. I don’t blame them because this plan puts them in front of a rain of bullets with nothing more than a woman with a piece of metal on her head to protect them.
“We cannot trade for what was always ours. Tonight, we’re not going to make any concessions. We will save our king.”
Then I explain to the soldiers of the Cavallo family exactly how I’m going to lead them.
* * *
Four carsquickly line up behind me. They’ll follow us to Lasertopia while anyone left in Torre Cavallo will take care of the Tabonas if—and onlyif—the first part of this plan works. If the first part bombs, we’re fucked.
Outside of their own mothers, I’ve never seen the men of Secondo Vasto do a woman’s bidding unless she made it sound like his idea. If the influence of theCorona Ferreais a mass hallucination, it’s more powerful than any documented case.
When I’m done, there are no questions. They line up as I explained. The plan must be so simple a child could understand it because all I can see are the list of things that can go wrong.
Remo gets out of the car, and Loretta gets behind the wheel.
“We’ll be right behind you,” Vito says, leaning down to speak to me through the open back door. “And the guns above.” He flashes a look toward the ridge overhead.
“Just hold until we know if Santino’s with them. There’s no point to this if we end up killing him. For me, at least.”
“For any of us.” Vito taps his phone. There’s rarely any signal up here, but he doesn’t need it.
“Good.” The gate creaks open.
“I’ll be on the speakers.” He shows me his phone. Bluetooth connected to the Alfa.
