But I know where I’m not. Maybe that has value.
I’m not where Dario is, and if I am—if we are together in the same place, and that place isn’t in a Colonia stronghold—new possibilities open up.
“Yes,” I say. “But I’m not meeting you at Precious Blood.”
“Did you know…” Sergio starts by falling short of a direct answer. “You guys are up in half of Manhattan’s business? The Colonia owns an Irish fucking sports bar. For real. On Avenue B and 7th. Gallagher’s of all things.”
I don’t know where that is, but unless I want Sergio to meet me here and drive the car to the meeting place, I’ll have to figure it out.
“Fine. When?”
“Not tonight. Your dad’s having a wake tonight. Do you know why they call it a wake when the guy’s in the big sleep?”
“You bring Dario.”
“Because the family was giving them one last chance to wake up, but—”
“Shut up!”
“You don’t gotta yell. Jeeze. They’re putting your pop in the ground tomorrow morning. You should come.”
Neither of my father’s children will be there, and I’m sick of asking questions. I need to set the terms.
“After that. Two o’clock. At that bar,” I say.
“Sure. Bring the loser if you haven’t put a bunch of holes in him by then. We can check the place out together.”
There’s no together. I’m alone here. How many hours do I have before Massimo dies in the back seat? Should I go to the hospital? I didn’t plan for this.
“We’ll be there.”
“You got it all, babypop? B and 7th. You need to write it down?”
Cradling the phone at waist level, I tap the red dot, cutting the call before I agree to anything else.
That’s done, and I don’t know what I just did.
A crack like a gunshot shocks me out of my paralysis. It’s Junior, and behind him, his father, Tommy, aims a gun at my head.
CHAPTER 3
DARIO
Stay away.
Don’t come. Stay away.
When I say these words to her, they mean something different to me.
I will never see you again.
Dr. Palmeri sits on a wheeled stool, prodding at the gunshot wound in my side. There’s blood everywhere. He’s not acting like a doctor. He’s acting like a guy who’d hollow a woman and still sleep at night.
It takes so much energy to tell Sarah to stay away from this nightmare that after I say it, I slump on the wooden rack they’ve tied me to. It’s a bed when it’s one way, and on its side, it’s a way to keep a body exposed. Clever bastards.
When they unstrapped me from the hospital bed, I gave one guy a concussion and another one sore balls, but there were four of them and one of me. Eventually, they paralyzed me again and put me to sleep. I woke up here, in this new place, with free hands, no beeping, and no IV, wearing some kind of scrubs. The shirt got shredded when they wrestled me down again. The pocket ripped off. I don’t know what they think I’d keep in there anyway.
I have a white toilet, a dirty sink, and a sheetless cot with a shitty mattress. The floor has a drain in the center. The door has a tiny window and a thumb pad to open it, like the ones in that happy house in Yonkers.
“Why’d you tell her to stay away?” Sergio asks.
“Because fuck you.”
The four guys who wrestled me in here stand in the corners. They’re all thinking about killing me.
“You’re too old for spite, bro. You should have said, ‘Hey, baby, come home,’ like you meant it.”
The doctor’s been threading a needle so he can sew me up for the second time. No numbing, of course. Just for spite.
“This may hurt a little,” Dr. Palmeri mutters.
“Why do you care?” I can barely finish. Every time I speak, the doctor increases the pain with a hm.
The explosion at my side, where the bullet went through, is much bigger than the size of a needle puncturing raw skin.
“I bring her back, I’m a hero. Duh. Even if loserboy’s with her.” He shrugs. “Let me ask you. Did you ever want to run this joint? I mean, do you have any idea what these people got going on?”
“I know exactly what they have going on.”
“I’m going to disinfect.” The doctor drones as if he’s talking to a man who isn’t even here. “Going to sting a bit.”
Sergio holds his answer until I’m done writhing around like a slug in a saltshaker.
“The money…” Sergio flaps his hand at the wrist to show how impressed he is. “I mean, they run some high cost, high risk operations, but the money is all foreign. All prelaundered. I got, like, a half of a half of a tiny glimpse of their liquid assets. They have more in rubles than a fucking bank.”
“Good luck spending it.”
He scoffs. “So you wanted to get up in their face, but you never wanted to take it over? Come on. Give me a break. What’s the point?”
I have to answer. I don’t care how much it hurts.
“Homes burned. Women widowed and freed. Wipe their history. Their stories about themselves. Scatter them so thin they disappear.”
“And here you are in a bunker. Shocked, man.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The doctor interjects. “You’re going to feel some pressure.”
He’s right. I feel it. Lots of pressure.
“Did you ever ask yourself if… maybe… that’s a little genocidal?”
“Not the same.”
“Sure, sure.”
“… just tie this knot…” the doctor chirps. “… and we’re done.”
“You think you’re some kinda change agent, fishbait? No one wants what you’re selling. They want a hero who does big shit to keep it all the same. Protect the good old status quo. He takes my jaw in his hand. I turn my face, but he holds tight. I hate it, but my arms are tied. “My dad—the great Giovanni Agosti—he wasn’t passing the keys over to me. I was never getting the big succession announcement Massimo got.” He taps my cheek and lets me go. “He always says, ‘My son, Sergio. He’s a little too open to change.’ Like it’s a bad thing. And I’m starting to think he’s been right this whole time.”
Three of the walls are cinderblock. The last has a metal door with a tiny, square, meshed window and a flap on the bottom. The fourth wall is tempered glass with a one-inch slit across the middle—probably for air flow. The hallway beyond is empty.
He puts his foot on the glass, leaning on it. “Don’t know what I did to piss him off, but he and Mom were like yeah, go to college. So I went. Most guys in my position do law or business so they can learn how to keep guys outta jail or run two sets of books. Not me. Fuck that. I studied history. Kinda to dig at them, you know? Because it’s a fucking waste of time. But I learned how shit really works. What people are gonna get behind and what they’re gonna fight. And nothing’s as tight as a common enemy. That’s you. You’re famous around here.”
“Done.” The doctor wheels himself away and snaps off his gloves. “For now.”