by Harley Stone
“Unless it’s the name of your supplier, I don’t give a flying fuck what you’re trying to tell me.”
Angel pulled to a stop. We were secluded on the side of a hill. I couldn’t see nor hear the traffic of the road. The few bunched trees Angel had parked under, hid us from any overhead traffic. I opened my door and got out, dragging Matt with me.
He swore as the movement jostled his leg, but his discomfort was just one more thing I didn’t care about. “How painful do you want me to make this?” I asked him.
Matt looked from me to Angel, searching for an ally or a compassionate ear. Angel laughed, throwing his hands in the air. “I know you don’t think I’m saving your sorry ass. Especially not after insinuating that Bones can’t trust me.”
I reached for the knife, prepared to turn it.
“Wait.” Matt leaped back, then swore again.
“The name of your supplier,” I growled. “Now.”
“I don’t know the guy’s name, but he’s Russian.”
“You better give me a hell of a lot more than that,” I said.
“I meet him at Wild Bill’s every Thursday at ten p.m. for the exchange.”
“Describe him.”
“About five-ten, maybe early forties, dark hair with a little silver on the sides, broad-chested. Calls himself something crazy… Xoak. Xaoc. Some shit like that. Always has two guards with him. That’s all I know, I swear.”
I looked to Angel to make sure he didn’t have any questions for Matt. Angel shook his head, so I pulled out my Glock, screwed on the silencer from my pocket (we were out in the middle of nowhere, but I didn’t take unnecessary risks), and delivered two shots to Matt’s head before he even knew it was coming. His body crumpled, and life left his eyes.
I stared at him, knowing I should feel some sort of regret for taking his life, but all I felt was relief. He was just one more box checked off my to-do list. Next task… bury the bastard. I went to the back of the Hummer and rifled through the camping gear until I pulled out our shovels, handing one to Angel.
We methodically went to work. After we dug Matt’s grave, we tossed his body in, then used bleach wipes to scrub the Hummer for prints, tossing them in with the body. We covered everything up, loaded up the shovels and headed back to town.
We drove for about ten minutes before Angel broke the silence. “Do you think any of that shit Matt said was true?” Angel asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. A sister? Seems a bit far-fetched.” Was it, though? Did I really know anything about Pops?
Angel nodded. “Still, I think it’s time we do some research on your old man and see what we can find.”
He knew what Matt had said was eating me up inside, and he’d help me fix it. People always claimed that blood was thicker than water, but I knew the truth. I’d known it from the day Angel and I had cut open our fingers and become blood brothers. Blood is thicker than milk. He was my blood now, and our bond was thicker than the two brothers I’d shared my mother’s milk with.
Angel was the brother I’d chosen.
“Thanks, man,” I said as we drove back into Vegas.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Bones
“BONES, WE’RE RELATED,” Angel said, staring at his computer screen. “Well, kind of. Distantly, through marriage.”
“What?” I asked, leaning over his shoulder to see what he’d found.
We were back in the condo, sitting at the kitchen table as we competed to see who could find information on Pops the fastest. Predictably, Angel had won. Not-so-predictable, were the results.
“Related how?” I asked.
“Your grandfather on your dad’s side married Nonna’s cousin, Elena. Elena isn’t your grandmother, though. Your grandmother died shortly after your father was born. Elena was his second wife.”
I shook my head, confused. “There must be some sort of a mistake. Pops told me he was an orphan.”
“I’m sorry, Bones, but he wasn’t. He grew up with his parents. Your grandfather didn’t die until two-thousand-three, and your dad is listed as ‘surviving family’ in his eulogy. Look.”
I scanned the article, and sure enough, Gino Leone was listed. “You’re sure that’s him?” I asked.
Angel gave me a flat stare. Of course, he was sure. He was a technical genius, so little things like internet identity searches were nothing to him. Still, this new information made it feel like my identity was crumbling.
“Pops lied,” I acknowledged. “He told me he never knew his parents. Said he grew up in the system. Why would he lie?”
“No clue.” Angel’s gaze returned to his screen. “Your grandfather lived in Claycomo, Missouri of all places. I don’t think he and Nonna’s cousin had anything to do with the family business.”
When I was first brought into the family, and became familiar with the way things worked, I used to wonder if Pops had been a mobster. He wore suits, worked strange hours, and his bizarre disappearance all shouted mafia. Somewhere along the line, I’d convinced myself that I was just projecting—searching for some sort of connection to him—so I pretended we were alike. That he was a bodyguard like me and had gotten killed protecting his charge.
But what if I hadn’t been projecting? What if Pops really was a mobster? Surely Carlo would have told me if Pops had worked for the Mariani family.
Could Pops have worked for another family?
While I was still trying to puzzle it out, my phone rang. Carlo was calling.
“Hello?” I answered.
“What are you doing?” Carlo asked, his tone clipped.
I glanced at my laptop, confused. Carlo was a hard man, but he wasn’t a micro-manager. At least, not with me. He trusted me to get my shit done, and I always came through. He’d never called and asked what I was doing before. “Research,” I replied.
“I gave you a task and told you it takes priority, and you’re sitting at home fuckin’ around. Get your ass to my office. Now.”
Startled, I stumbled over my response, “Yessir.”
Carlo hung up.
I stared at my phone, wondering what the hell had just happened. Everyone knew the underboss had one hell of a temper, but since I kept my head down and did my job, it had never been directed at me before.
“Was that Uncle Carlo?” Angel asked, sounding as confused as I felt as he stared at the phone in my hand. No doubt he’d heard the conversation, or at least the tone.
I nodded.
“He sounds pissed. What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure.” I pocketed my phone and pushed my chair back to stand. “He accused me of fuckin’ around instead of working. Told me to get to his office.”
Angel’s forehead scrunched up. “Something must be going on.” He plucked his phone from the table and turned it on. “I don’t have any messages.”
“They know you have your hands full with Markie.”
Angel didn’t look convinced, and I couldn’t blame him. As the family heir, they should be keeping him in the loop no matter what. “Yeah, that’s probably it,” he lied.
A feeling of unease crept under my skin. I rubbed the back of my neck and voiced the question that had been running through my mind since the phone call. “Do you think Carlo knows we were searching for information on Pops?”
“It’s possible.” Angel’s unsettled look told me he’d been thinking the same thing. He glanced at his screen. “Tech could have enabled a digital tripwire to notify him whenever someone looks up your father. But it doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why Carlo would care about that.”
“I don’t know, but I better hurry up and get over there.”
Angel nodded, his expression tight with worry. “Be careful.”
We both knew what happened to people who pissed off Carlo. The underboss wasn’t exactly known for his leniency. I reequipped my holster and slipped on my jacket. “I’m always careful.”
Again, Angel didn’t look convinced. Maybe because I was still rocking s
titches in my cheek and at least one cracked rib.
“If shit goes sideways…” Angel didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to, because we both knew what would happen.
If shit went too far sideways, I’d be feeding the worms out in the desert with Matt Deter. I needed to get my story straight and tread carefully.
***
Carlo’s house was a modest, split-level Southwestern stucco in a gated community. Carlo’s personal guard, a thirty-something ex-marine who everyone called Wolf, greeted me and took me into the garage to relieve me of my weapons.
Carlo was a mustache Pete (an old school wiseguy), whose paranoia had enabled him to outlive most of his peers. He should have retired years ago, but he wasn’t the type of man who could hand over the reins. Most likely, they’d have to be plucked from his cold, dead hands. Carlo’s old school ways extended past his modest home and his human security to his car. The same old Jaguar he’d been driving when I met him.
Carlo was loaded—he had to be—but nobody knew what he did with his money. The son-of-a-bitch was as frugal as they came, and like me, he didn’t place bets that weren’t a guaranteed win. Since he didn’t trust banks or pay taxes, he probably had his money buried in glass jars in his back yard. No doubt he planned to take it with him when he met his maker.
The split-level home held many memories. Growing up, any time I wasn’t guarding Angel, I was here, learning how to fight, talk, and think like a wiseguy. Although Carlo’s men usually trained my body, he insisted on training my mind, saying that brains would protect me when brawn failed.
As I passed his living room, memories of my first day of his training assaulted me.
Carlo gave me a cell phone. Most kids in my school didn’t have cell phones, and I felt like a goddamn celebrity as he showed me how to answer and disconnect calls, how to text, and schooled me on all the shit I wasn’t allowed to say or type into it.
“We’re private,” he explained. “Our information is sensitive, and there’s technology out there that allows nosy-ass people to listen in on our conversations and read our texts. Everyone in the family uses codes, and those codes change frequently. You’ll be expected to memorize them. When I send out an order, it will disappear shortly after you see it, so look quickly.”
“What kind of codes?” I asked.
“Well… the last one I sent out was a five-thirty-two for Nick Jones, one of the enforcers. Currently a five-thirty-two means to bring him in.”
Confused, I asked, “Why would the team need to bring in an enforcer?”
“Nick fucked up and was hiding from the family. He was being a chickenshit and refused to come in on his own. He knew I’d have to set him straight.”
I’d only been with the family for a few days, but had seen and heard enough to figure out that being set straight meant getting your ass kicked. Or worse. Swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat, I asked, “Did you? Set him straight, I mean?”
Carlo leveled a hard stare at me. “I always do, Bones. I protect this family, and nothing, and no one, gets by me. Remember that, kid, and you’ll go far in life.”
I couldn’t imagine hiding from the family. The Marianis had padded my wallet, paid for my mom to get the brakes on her car fixed, and were keeping my family fed and protected. Sure, Carlo was a tough teacher, and my body had gotten a little roughed up, but I was learning shit I needed to know. He was teaching me how to fight, and how to tell when someone was lying. How to stay alive. Lessons I should have learned from Pops, but even when my old man was alive, he was rarely home.
Carlo had done more for me in the few days that I’d known him than Pops ever had. Carlo leaned forward on the sofa, elbows on knees, steepling his hands. “You remember what I told you about enforcers?”
“They enforce the rules of the borgata, the family.”
“How?” he asked.
They were big, scary motherfuckers, and only an idiot would screw with them. I’d met a couple of enforcers, and they wouldn’t have to lift a finger to keep me in line. “I’m not sure.”
He lit a cigarette and sucked in a long drag. Then he asked, “What’s the one thing I keep telling you, kid?”
I only had to think about it for a second before answering, “Don’t trust anyone.”
“Good, you’re learning. Don’t trust anyone. In our line of work, ninety-nine percent of the people you deal with are gonna be honorless motherfuckers who’ll just as soon stick a knife in your back as look at you. The remaining one percent are idiots. That’s the world we live in, so the Boss makes rules to keep all these greedy, blood-thirsty bastards in check and to keep the cops off our asses. When someone gets out of line, the Boss calls in an enforcer to set ’em straight. You understand?”
The Boss was Angel’s father, Dominico Mariani, who was another big, scary motherfucker. He thanked me for helping Angel, and then told me—in great detail—what would happen to me if I broke trust with the family.
“So, enforcers are like hitmen?” I asked.
Carlo smiled and ruffled my hair. “You’re a smart kid.”
Still, something still didn’t make sense. “But the enforcer screwed up?”
“It takes a certain type of guy to be a hitman. Has to be completely devoted to the family and willing to take out anyone the Boss orders him to hit. Anyone. Sometimes he’ll take too many jobs… do too many hits… and something inside him snaps. Some go numb, some get off on it. The ones who get off on it… those are the men you really gotta watch. Sick bastards. Before you know it, they’re making unauthorized hits, whackin’ people in broad daylight, wiping out entire families, getting cops involved.”
I knew the Marianis sometimes killed people, but I hadn’t been prepared for Carlo to talk about it so candidly. I gaped at him, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“But sometimes it’s nothing that big. It’s a simple matter of an enforcer not following orders. I do a lot for my men, and when I issue an order, I expect it to be followed to the letter, without question. You hear me?”
I nodded.
“Good. That makes you wiser than most grown men I know.”
His compliment straightened my shoulders and made me want to please him. Made me want to deserve his praise.
“I take a lot of pride in my men. I work hard to get them trained and make sure they’re protected. But, when the problem solver becomes the problem, we gotta put ’em down. But you don’t worry about any of that. You stick close to me, and I’ll take care of you. I think you have what it takes to be the best of them.
“Bones?” Wolf asked, watching me.
I realized I’d stopped walking. Shaking my head to clear away the memory, I marveled at the way Carlo had motivated me over the years, using the perfect combination of fear and compliments to keep me close. The old man knew what he was doing. He valued me, made me feel like part of the team, but also made it clear that he’d get rid of me if he had to.
He’d kill me, but he was the closest thing to a dad I’d ever known.
Somehow that seemed both normal, and really fucked up. Still, Carlo had taught me loyalty, and I didn’t want to let him down. Not now, not ever. Resolve steeled, I nodded to Wolf and hurried into Carlo’s office, ready to face whatever mistake I’d made and do whatever needed done.
Carlo was pacing in front of his desk. As I entered, he stopped to stare at me. A storm brewed behind his dark eyes, his gray hair was disheveled, and his collared shirt was unbuttoned. Heavy lines beneath his eyes made him look older and more tired than usual.
I waited for the command to sit, but it never came. Instead, he glowered at me and asked, “What the fuck have you been doing since I gave you the order to find Joey Durante? Account for your time, Bones.”
I told him everything. Or, at least, I started to, but something kept me from mentioning the rumor about my sister’s existence. I told myself that I needed more information before I dropped that little bomb—after all, Matt could have made that whole thing up—but
my real motivation for the omission came from the knowledge that Pops wasn’t an orphan. My entire family tree was a giant question mark, and I wanted answers.
Answers Natalia might be able to give me.
Skipping the part where Matt begged me to go get his phone and call Natalia, I went right to the name of Matt’s distributor. Carlo stopped me. “Xaoc. It’s Russian for ‘chaos’.”
“You’ve heard of him?” I asked.
Carlo nodded. “That motherfucker thinks he’s hot shit. Been stirring up trouble for the past few months. Did you get a description?”
I repeated the limited information Matt had given me.
Carlo leaned against his desk, lighting up another smoke. “That fits what we’ve heard. I don’t know what that son-of-a-bitch’s game plan is, but he’s like a goddamn ghost. We can’t find him anywhere.”
“Think he’s connected to Joey Durante?” I asked.
“I sure as hell hope not,” Carlo replied. “Only one way to know for sure. Get your ass out there and find Joey, Bones. I’m trusting you to handle this. Don’t let me down.”
“Yessir,” I said, heading toward the door.
It wasn’t until I started up my Jeep that I realized I still had no idea what had pissed Carlo off before he called me in.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ariana
IT HAD BEEN three days since I slept with Bones, and apparently I’d put it on him so well that he died, because I hadn’t heard from the asshole since. He told me he couldn’t promise me anything, and I understood what he was saying, I just hadn’t expected him to disappear from my life completely.
After all, he lived next door.
Still, no sign of him. I fiddled with my phone, wondering if I should text him. Maybe he was hurt or something? Angel would know if Bones was okay. I could go next door and ask, but no matter how I tried to spin it in my mind, I couldn’t come up with a valid excuse for asking about him. Not without sounding desperate or stalkerish.
I had already used the ‘need help moving my bedroom furniture’ excuse, and that was way more pathetic than I wanted to sound ever again.
