Fear crept into Bela’s heart.
“What the hell are you doing, man?” Vincent demanded as he struggled to get free.
“Dad might’ve let you go if you hadn’t taken the oath,” he said to Vincent. “But you did. You swore in and then a month later you run off with his daughter. He wants you dead, Vince.”
“No! No, you can’t.” Bela rushed forward, trying to pry Vincent free.
“Hold her back,” Trey said to Gio.
As Gio headed toward her, her eyes met his in a plea. “Gio, no, please. You have to help him.”
Ignoring her, Gio took her arm and pulled her away from Vincent. She struggled to get free, but he pulled her against him, grabbing her wrists and pressing them into her chest, his arms wound tight around her in a vice-grip. His chest pressed into her back and his arms held tight as she fought to get free. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into her ear, and he sounded genuine, but still held her firm and helpless to watch as her brother approached the love of her life with a gun.
“Trey,” she screamed in desperation, trying to break through to him. “Trey, you can’t do this. Please!”
“Do you think I want to?” he shouted as he spun to face her. “I have to. Don’t you get that? Dad gave the order.”
“You don’t have to listen to him,” she said, a tear running down her cheek. “You could tell him you couldn’t find us. Just let us go.”
“I know I told you to run,” Trey said, locking gazes with her. “I know I said you should but it wasn’t my place.”
“That’s dad talking,” she said. “I can practically hear his voice. He got to you somehow. That’s what’s happening here, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He turned back to Vincent. “Your family already knows about this. If we don’t punish you, it’ll offend them even more. You know that.”
Bela silently pleaded for Vincent to say something, anything. He should be begging for his life right now, trying to bargain. Hell, he could pull the cop card and at least try to arrest them all right now. But he said nothing. Stubborn and stoic, he remained still and looked Trey right in the eyes. She didn’t see the first hint of fear—there was nothing in his eyes but pure bravery and it infuriated her. Even now, he wouldn’t do anything to save his own life and this time, he could very well end up dead.
“Trey, please,” Bela begged him. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You can’t trust dad.”
“He’s the only one I can trust,” he said.
Bela stared at her brother as if he was a stranger. “How can you even think that?” she asked. “This ‘peace treaty’ is just a front! It’s not even real. Dad’s planning on using it to get revenge on Dante.”
“Revenge?” Trey repeated, like it was ridiculous. “For what?”
“You don’t know, do you?” she asked, gazing at him with pity and disbelief. “You have no idea. You never even suspected?”
He stepped away from Vincent and walked up to her. “Bela, you better tell me what you’re talking about. Right now.”
“Mom had an affair with Dante,” she blurted out. Then, before she could chicken out, she spilled the other half of the secret. “And Dad killed her for it.”
Trey just stared at her, his eyes moving back and forth as if he was piecing something together. “No,” he whispered, a sound of utter disbelief. “No way.”
Gio’s hands released Bela, allowing her to face her brother unrestrained. “It’s true,” she said. “I confronted him about it. He said she asked for it.”
He lifted his gaze to look at her; to really look at her. Using those people-analyzing skills that made him such a good gangster, he knew she was telling him the truth. She could see the realization dawn in his eyes.
“He’s not who you think he is,” she whispered. A part of her hated to do this; to shatter her brother’s reality this way, but the other half knew it needed to be done. If Trey was going to kill for her father, he deserved to know what kind of man Sal DeLuca was. “He betrayed you years ago. Why are you still loyal to him?”
Trey fell back a step. With his newly awakened eyes, he looked around the room—at his sister in the cheap motel with the rumpled bed, at his thugs holding Vincent to his death. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. Trey holstered his gun and gave a nod to his crew. Upon command, the men released Vincent.
Filled with relief, Bela rushed to take Vincent into her arms. She’d thought he was a goner for sure this time.
“You don’t have much time,” Trey said. “I’m sure Rafe’s men are on their way. Go catch a plane. Once you land, find an ATM and draw out all the cash you can, then take a bus. Cash only. Got it?”
She nodded gratefully. “Yes,” she stammered, helping Vincent to his feet.
“Go,” he said.
They didn’t make him ask twice and she didn’t linger long enough to say goodbye. They grabbed the bags—already packed and waiting on the bed—and fled for their lives.
~~~
As Vincent pulled onto the highway doing 70, Bela turned to him, enraged. She gave him a hard, solid punch in the arm. He jumped in surprise and glanced at her. “What?”
“What the hell was that?” she demanded. “You were going to let him kill you. You didn’t try to fight or talk your way out of it or anything!”
“What’d you expect me to do? Beg for my life?”
“It would’ve been a start.”
“It wouldn’t have done any good.”
“Really? Because I talked him out of it.”
He glanced away from the road for a moment to look at her. “You were pretty amazing back there,” he said, reaching one arm out to cup her cheek with his hand. His eyes glimmered with pride. “You saved me.”
She felt her anger melt with his touch. As much as she wanted to hold onto it, she couldn’t. Sliding over to him, she curled up under his arm as he drove. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
The nearest airport was thirty miles away. They made it before the sun reached its peak in the sky. They bought tickets for the first flight out—to Chicago. There would be plenty of busses they could choose from there.
As Bela was leaving the bathroom, a cold hand covered her mouth. Bela’s body went stiff with fear and dread as Rafe’s smooth, threatening voice said into her ear, “If you try to scream or signal for help, Vincent dies. Understand?”
She nodded.
Slowly, Rafe removed his hand from her mouth and grabbed her arm instead. “Sorry, princess,” he said as he began to lead her way. “Everyone wants happily ever after, but we had a deal. No one breaks a deal with me.”
15
Untouchable?
Trey was standing in front of the yellow rose bush when his father stepped out onto the patio.
“Is it done?” Sal asked.
“Do you remember when we got these?” Trey asked, ignoring his father’s question.
It was a quiet night, especially a New York summer night. Only the sounds of a few cars, some distant traffic. A frog croaked somewhere in the garden, a low throaty sound.
“The roses?” Sal asked. “No.”
“Mom did it,” he said. “With her own two hands. It was the summer I was…thirteen, I think. She had me help—I didn’t want to, it was too girly, but she made me. The thorns cut my hands all to hell.”
“Sounds like her.”
“She loved yellow roses. Said they could brighten up any room, no matter how dark it was.”
“That’s right,” Sal said. “She did love them.”
“And I loved her,” he said, turning to his father. “So why’d you have her killed?”
Something in Sal’s dark eyes flickered—the smallest signs of admission. His lips tried to spin a different story. “How can you even ask me that? You know I would never—”
“Don’t lie to me, Dad,” he said, shaking his head. “Not anymore.”
“Did Bela fill your head with this?” he asked. “You know that Marcano kid’s poisone
d her against us. You can’t trust a word that comes out of her mouth anymore.”
“I think you’re the one I can’t trust.” Trey took a step closer to his dad, holding his arms out to gesture around them. “It’s just you and me out here, Dad. No one to impress, no one to fool. You can tell me the truth. Why’d you do it?”
It seemed like Sal waited an eternity before he said, “She made a fool out of me.”
Trey felt a knot drop into the pit of his stomach. He’d suspected Bela’s accusation was true, he’d even assumed it was, but for most of this conversation he’d been bluffing. Hearing his father admit to it—admit to why—sealed his rage. Now he knew there was no going back. No chance of recapturing that blissfully ignorant period where he idolized his father and obeyed every command. “You son of a bitch,” he whispered.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked me to do,” he said, his tone full of hatred. “Everything! And you were lying to me the entire time.”
“Trey—”
“Save your breath,” he said. “I’m not listening.”
“You will listen,” Sal said. “Like it or not, you’re my son. You can’t change that. As long as I live, you’ll answer to me. It’d serve you well to just get past this now.”
As his dad spoke, Trey felt something inside him snap. Whatever moral compass he used to possess was now gone. Vanished. Leaving only the cold-blooded mobster so many people feared. Reaching behind his back, he pulled his gun out of his holster. “Maybe you shouldn’t live any longer.”
“You’re not going to shoot me,” Sal said without even flinching. “You don’t have it in you.”
“Are you sure?” Trey looked down at the gun in his hands. A shiny, deadly weapon he’d wielded many times before. “You’ve taught me well. I can do what needs to be done.”
“Maybe you can, but you shouldn’t,” he said. “The men will turn on you. They’ll retaliate.”
“They can try,” he said. “But, then again, most of them have been answering to me for years and you’re hardly ever around. I think you can rest assured knowing your legacy will be just fine after you’re gone.”
“You’re my son,” Sal said, a touch of panic to his voice now.
“And this is the way you taught me,” Trey said, lifting the gun. He took aim, right in the center of Sal’s chest. “A life for a life. Blood for blood.”
He shook his head in denial.
“You always said the Cosa Nostra is a way of life. You can’t pick and choose which laws you follow—you must obey the code.”
Sal grinned. “By the code, I’m untouchable.”
“You stopped being untouchable when you killed my mother.” Then he pulled the trigger.
He didn’t see Bela stepping out onto the patio until it was too late. The sound exploded in the silent night, a blast that made his ears ring. Bela and Sal jumped in unison. In seconds, the bullet pierced Sal’s chest and released gushes of blood.
Everything faded into slow motion. Sal’s body collapsed. Bela screamed, loud terrible cries that sounded so far away. The hot stench of gun smoke and the metallic smell of blood engraved themselves into his sense-memory, marking it with this moment. He was stunned—paralyzed for the first time in his life. He could do nothing but stare as the tragedy played out before him.
Bela dropped to her knees at Sal’s side, sobbing incoherent words as she tried to put her hands over his wound to stop the bleeding. He was coughing up blood, trying to speak but unable to form sounds.
Why was Bela trying to help him? Trey wondered in complete awe as he watched his sister try to save their father. After everything Sal had done to her? He’d stolen her childhood when he murdered their mom right in front of her, and then he’d stolen her freedom by forcing her into a marriage she didn’t want. He’d thought Bela hated their father, so why was she crying? And if she was crying…then why wasn’t he? What was wrong with him, that he could shoot his own father and then just stand there and watch him die?
Sal’s body went limp. Bela cried out in denial and tried to shake him, pressed her ear against his chest and listened, smearing blood on her face as she did. Her tear-filled eyes lifted to his in a look of hatred and confusion.
“He’s dead,” she said as she stood on wobbling legs. “He’s…he’s dead and you…”
He stumbled on his words. He wanted to apologize, to justify this, to try to convince her this was the right thing for both of them, but none of those thoughts would mold into a coherent sentence.
Her face still distraught with horror, she turned on her heel and walked away from him. He wanted to go after her, to talk to her, but he let her go instead.
Looking down at his father’s still bleeding corpse sent him into autopilot. The body needed to be dealt with. More importantly, the people needed to be notified.
After taking some time to debate on if he should cover this murder up or just cop to it, he decided to make the exact opposite decision his father would’ve done. First, he called his most trusted soldiers. Geo, Tony, Victor and anyone else he knew would stand behind him without question. After confirming they were on his side, he called for an emergency meeting—this time, he requested the presence of all of the capos and the underboss. The higher ranking Cosa Nostra members started to show up in fifteen minutes, most of them arriving at the same time.
As the men filed out onto the patio, they looked down on their fallen leader with saddened and angered expressions. “What happened?” Nik asked.
With twenty already-informed soldiers standing behind him, he turned to explain. “You deserve to know the truth,” he began. “And the truth is Sal DeLuca wasn’t the man we thought he was.”
A crowd of confused faces looked back at him.
“Not only did he murder my mother—igniting the feud between us and the Marcanos intentionally, but he was never sincere with his plans to enter the truce,” he said. “It was all just a ploy to get closer to them so he could kill Dante, just like he killed my mom. And he would’ve let any one of us die if we’d gotten in his way.”
“Trey, what happened here?” Nik repeated, his voice louder this time.
“He killed my mom, so I retaliated.” He shot Nik a threatening gaze. “I’m his son, it was within my rights to challenge him and I won. Now my question to all of you is this.” Turning back to the crowd, he continued his speech, “Will you fall in line and follow me to a peaceful future, one without the weight of past grudges and without the threat of war? Or will you fall with your boss?”
The crowd went utterly silent, everyone looking to the other for guidance. He saw fear in the eyes of most of the men. Then, one by one, they began to kneel. Bowing down before him, announcing him as their new leader.
Nik was the only one still standing. He looked at Trey with a look of disbelief. “You’re voting yourself in as boss?”
“Do you want to challenge me for it?” he offered.
Nik thought about this a moment. Looking to the sea of kneeling men, to the bloody body of his boss on the ground. Then he bowed with the rest of them.
After he dismissed the men, he took care of his father’s body himself. He dug the hole beside his mother’s grave in the furthest corner of the grounds. He carried the body out there himself and then dropped it in. As he shoveled dirt back into the hole, his heart pounded harder and harder. Only after his father’s body was covered did the reality of what had just happened sink in. He fell back against the ground, sweating, hyperventilating.
An hour later, he walked into his bedroom. Mandi was propped up in bed, reading a book. She looked up from the page when she saw him.
She took one look at him—covered in blood and dirt, and she knew. He could see the horror in her eyes. Without a word, he stumbled through the room to the bathroom and closed himself inside.
16
Deal with the Devil
The next day, Trey knocked on Bela’s door. He wasn’t even sure she was in there,
but according to the security footage he’d viewed, she hadn’t come out all day. Finally, he went inside and found the room dark.
The drapes were drawn shut, blocking out all of the sunlight. The dim glow from a lamp in the corner lit the room enough for him to see Bela sitting on the bed. With her back against the headboard and her knees drawn in to her chest, she looked so small and fragile. Her head was lowered to her knees, with the cascade of her long dark hair blocking any view of her face.
“What do you want?” she asked without looking up.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, studying her. Shocked by this expression of grief, he wasn’t sure how to begin. “Bela,” he managed to whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
She made a sound—something like a sniffle or a small sob.
“I never meant for you to see that,” he said.
“But you did mean to kill him?” Finally, she lifted her head to look at him. Her hazelnut colored eyes filled with tears and anger. “Just admit it. You let Vincent and me go, intending to come back here and kill dad. Didn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But he’s a bad guy and he’s gone. Isn’t that what matters?”
She shook her head in disbelief. “This isn’t the way he was supposed to go down,” she whispered. “This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.”
He wondered what she meant by that, but a more pressing question came first. “What are you even doing back here? You’re supposed to be on a bus by now.”
She laughed bitterly and shook her head. “Rafe caught us before we could even get on a bus. He threatened to kill Vincent if I didn’t come home.” A worried look lingered in her eyes. “Have you seen him? Is he okay?”
“Vincent’s fine,” he said. “He asked to see you but I wouldn’t let him up.”
“Why not?” she demanded, once again sounding angry.
Code of Silence: Cosa Nostra #2 Page 7
