Page 134 of Secrets of the Brother
I stormed over to Longo.
Grabbing his jaw, I forced his mouth open and shoved the barrel of the Beretta I took off of one of Agnello’s men into his mouth. “Where are they taking her?”
Longo’s eyes widened as snot spilled from his nose. He cried as he shook his head and tried to speak around the barrel.
Matteo looked at Benito. “You should probably make yourself scarce for this part. We’ll call you when it’s over.”
Benito squared his shoulders. “Fuck that. I’m tired of looking the other way. Cavalieri village is my village, my responsibility. I’m staying.”
He looked at his men, who nodded in agreement. “We’re staying.”
He told one of his men to go secure the front entrance to make sure none of the villagers got curious about the loud noises.
Fortunately, Italians were historically prosaic about minding their own business when hearing gunfire, especially when it came from a property owned by the Cavalieri family.
I pulled the gun out of Longo’s mouth. “Speak and you better make it good or I’m going to blow your miserable head off.”
Longo raised his arms, palms up. “Nevio Zettici paid me to make trouble for you. He wanted me to buy off witnesses and fake some evidence. That’s all I know.”
I pressed the gun against his kneecap and fired. The man pitched forward and back, screaming as he grabbed his leg. Cesare and Matteo snatched his shoulders and forced him to sit back in the chair.
Papà crossed his arms over his chest as he squared off in front of Longo. He cocked his head in my direction. “Listen, Longo. That was your one and only warning.”
Longo blubbered. “That wasn’t a warning! A warning is words! You shot me! You shot me!”
Cesare shrugged. “He’s not wrong.”
Papà nodded. “Fair enough.”
I tapped the barrel of my gun against Longo’s forehead. “You’re right, Longo. Words matter. So I’ll be very clear. That was the last time I am going to give you a survivable wound. The next time I put a bullet in your flesh, it will definitely cause your extremely painful death.”
Matteo stepped forward. “If it helps, Longo, he’ll probably shoot you in the stomach.”
I straightened. “I was thinking more of the bowel. That way he’ll die covered in his own blood and shit.”
Benito groaned. “Dammit.”
Cesare looked at him as he was knotting off a rag around his shoulder wound. “What’s your problem?”
He took off his cap and fished out the pack of smokes he had tucked inside. “I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with the cleanup. There is nothing more putrid than a bloody, shit-stained corpse.” He pulled a cigarette out of the pack with his mouth and lit it.
Papà grinned. “You think we’re giving you his body to bury? His family doesn’t deserve closure like that. I’m going to feed him to the pigs.” He then placed his hands on the armrests of Longo’s chair and leaned in. “They’ll crunch on your worthless bones and shit out your crushed skull.”
Longo’s head bobbed from one person to the next like a bobblehead as he took in our macabre conversation. Finally he cracked. “Stop! Stop! You people are fucked up! I’ll tell you what I know.”
I tapped his forehead again with my gun. “Start talking.”
Cesare nudged Benito who took out his phone. We all backed up and allowed Benito to frame the shot to avoid Longo’s bullet wound or anything that identified us or the location.
Longo whined, “The Morettis fucked up. They got greedy. Started demanding a bigger cut to launder money for the Agnellos. So Nevio… you know… sent them a message with Renata.”
We didn’t want any of our voices on the recording, so I raised my gun and pointed it at Longo. He got the point.
He grimaced as he placed a hand on his thigh but continued talking. “But it backfired. Nevio wasn’t expecting the Morettis to be so dense or greedy. They wouldn’t shut up about losing the Cavalieri money connection. They started complaining about money again to the wrong people. Started talking about how they were going to set up Bianca to marry some Cavalieri cousin. Nevio wanted to kill them all, but Dante Agnello didn’t want any more attention, so he ordered Nevio to step in and marry the chick instead, to quiet them.”
Papà frowned. Lowering his voice to disguise it, he said, “I didn’t take Dante Agnello as the romantic type.”
Longo shifted his gaze away. “He’s not. It’s a stall. He wanted the Morettis to think they were trading off a Cavalieri connection for a closer Agnello one. Marrying a top lieutenant in the Agnello crime family would be no small change. Their daughter would be a mafia princess. That meant plenty of money and new connections. Once they shut up and started laundering money again and a few crucial land permit deals went through, Nevio was going to take care of things…like he does.”
