Machiavellian: Gangsters of New York, Book 1

by Di Corte, Bella

  He lifted his pointer finger. “Quillon Zamboni. Strangled.” He lifted his middle finger, which was suitable for the next name. “Merv Johnson. Beat beyond recognition.” He lifted his ring finger. “Armino Scarpone. Still missing.”

  “Let me refresh your memory, Detective Stone. I met Armino maybe three times. He knew I was home the day he killed Sierra. He’s a Scarpone. He might not be dead, if he’s just missing—after all, he killed a girl and all signs point to him. So what does he have to do with me?”

  “Forget Armino. What about the other two?”

  “I don’t associate with Quillon Zamboni.”

  “Wrong. He fostered you.”

  “And that means what, exactly? I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “Where did you go after you ran from his house, Mari? What made you run?”

  “Do I need my lawyer, Detective?”

  He smiled. “This is a private visit.”

  “Then let’s get on with it.” I really started to tremble. And it wasn’t only from the cold.

  “Arturo Scarpone has one son now, but he had two.”

  “We’ve already went over—”

  “You seem to know who Achille is, but do you know his oldest son?”

  I shook my head, holding my arms closer to my chest. “I haven’t had the pleasure.”

  “No.” His voice was low. “You wouldn’t. He’s presumed dead. Vittorio Lupo Scarpone. The case was never truly solved. Rumor has it that he was dumped into the Hudson, on a night like this one, cement blocks around his legs. But he was already dead. Someone cut his throat.

  “It’s been rumored that the King of New York—that’s Arturo—had his own son killed. And Achille, the next in line to the infamous Scarpone throne, was only too eager to see his older brother—they called him the Pretty Boy Prince—dead. They call Achille the Joker. You ever hear of a joker passing up the opportunity to be king?” He paused for a second. “Nah, I didn’t think so.

  “Arturo, they say, killed his son because he didn’t kill the child of a mortal enemy. Last name Palermo. First name Corrado. Apparently, the Prince found some scruples. He was against killing kids, even the kid of his father’s enemy. Little Marietta hasn’t been found either. That’s Palermo’s kid.”

  “W-w-what does t-t-his h-h-have to do with m-m-me?” My teeth started to clack and my bones trembled. Suddenly, so many pieces clicked into place, and I was terrified that Stone would see the truth on my face. I was thankful that the temperature had dropped, the wind sharper, and the dress was thin.

  He shrugged. “Thought you should know the kind of people your husband entertains in his place of business.”

  “He a-a-also entertains t-t-the F-F-Faustis.”

  “Even worse. Luca Fausti killed my aunt and her unborn child. Drunk driving. They, unlike the Prince, have no scruples.”

  “How about a-a-actors and a-a-actresses? M-m-musicians? World f-f-famous artists? Are those b-b-better?”

  “Not by much.”

  “T-t-there is n-n-no p-p-p-pleasing you.” I took a step closer to him. With the same clacking, I asked, “Who is Cashel Kelly, and why do you care if he’s with Keely or not?”

  At first I thought he hadn’t understood my question. My teeth chattered so hard my speech was almost unintelligible. But after a second, I felt it, too. Another presence. Wearing all black, he seemed like a detached part of the night taking shape, appearing behind us. My husband’s blue eyes seemed to emerge from the darkness, making the resemblance to the wolf on his hand identical.

  Capo slipped my coat over my shoulders and then pulled me closer, tight into his side. “Detective.” His voice came out gruff. The cold played havoc with his voice. It gave me chills. “The next time you request to speak to my wife, you will call our lawyer first and make an appointment. I believe you’ve met him before. Rocco Fausti.”

  At Stone’s nod, he continued. “My wife was accommodating enough to agree to speak to you in the kitchen, where it was warm, but you led her out into the cold. Do you make it a habit, Detective, to make pregnant women step outside in negative temperatures without a jacket?”

  “I didn’t realize she was pregnant.” Stone’s voice couldn’t hide his shock—not at the pregnancy comment, but at seeing the man standing in front of him. Stone’s eyes traveled to Capo’s throat before they went to his hands. His coat’s collar came above his throat, and the hand with the tattoo was stuck in his pocket.

  Had he evaded the police all of this time?

  “Even if she wasn’t,” Capo said, his tone sharp, “I don’t appreciate my wife being out in the cold and you harassing her for no reason.”

  “Harassing?” Stone’s face screwed up. “We were just talking. This visit was personal.”

  “In that case.” Capo raked his teeth over his bottom lip. “No fucking more. You have a problem with my wife’s friend, you take it up with her. You have a problem with my wife’s friend being connected to Cash Kelly, you take it up with her. Or him. None of this nonsense comes close to my wife again. Are we clear?”

  A low whistle sounded in the air. At first, I thought it was the wind. Then I realized it was a person. I turned to look, but Capo kept me firmly in place.

  “Deeee-tect-ive Stone! Is that you? We should have a chat outside of the precinct for once. Hell, I’ll even buy you a drink. You gotta be human under that cheap suit, right?” His throaty laughter echoed.

  The familiar voice made the cold feel even colder. Achille. Capo squeezed me tighter to him. He glanced at me once, and then he met Stone’s eyes. Stone didn’t seem like he knew where to look the longest. At Capo or at Achille, who moved closer to us.

  “It seems our business is done here.” Stone nodded at me once and then headed in the direction of Achille.

  Capo directed me back toward the kitchen, almost shoving me through the door to get me back inside, before his brother saw us both.

  * * *

  Capo hadn’t said a word to me on the ride back to the firehouse. I thought that was for the best. We both had too many thoughts to offer normal conversation. If he were to ask me if I were hungry, I’d probably blurt, “You’re a Scarpone? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  I knew he had run with them, was maybe one of their men at one time, but he was one of them. The King of New York’s son!

  Then there were other issues. The first being—you killed my parents. The second—if his father was the King of New York, his brother the Joker, and my husband the Prince, what did that mean for our future? For this baby? The third, and probably not the last—in the eyes of the world, my husband was dead, a fucking ghost wearing expensive men’s clothing.

  No wonder Capo had refused to give me the heart of the matter and the veins, as he had called them, at the meeting. The heart he was going to offer me had no beats, no blood flow, because, again, it was dead.

  The man walking beside me into our house was not supposed to be using his legs. He was supposed to be submerged underneath the Hudson River, cement weights attached to his ankles, drowned long ago. When I was five years old. After he had saved my life. His fucking bloodthirsty family had slit his throat because he hadn’t killed me.

  Who told on him?

  Was it his brother?

  That bastard looked like the Joker. He looked nothing like my husband, the man Stone called Vittorio, the Pretty Boy Prince.

  And Arturo? What a fucking king he was. To kill your own son? And that savagely? Someone needed to take his head off.

  Hold up, Mari. I stopped the thoughts before they got carried away. Why was I getting so upset about what they’d done to him when I should’ve been upset about what he’d done to me? The least he could’ve done was told me who he was from the start. He had told me who I was, what he had done, but he had left out a vital part of the conversation.

  He killed my parents before he saved me.

  He hadn’t swooped in while someone else from that vicious family took care of my parents— he had done it,
and then changed my name, my address, and gave me new people to take care of me. He basically wiped me clean.

  Why didn’t he tell me?

  If it had something to do with me accepting his offer…why did it matter if he married me or not? Sierra or me, another one of those faces at The Club or me, he just wanted a starved woman, a woman who wouldn’t bite the hand that fed her. For a Gucci purse, Sierra would’ve spit in Stone’s face.

  Why didn’t he just let me go after he realized it was me?

  Why is he playing these games with me?

  “I’m going to take a shower,” I said, leaving him in our room. “I’m still cold.”

  He stood at the entrance of the bathroom, leaning against the frame. “You disobeyed me, Mariposa.”

  I stopped, my back turned to him, but I could see him through the mirrors. “How?”

  “You left the private room at the restaurant when I told you to stay there.”

  “I didn’t tell Stone anything!”

  “You didn’t.” He raked his teeth over his bottom lip. “Still. Not the fucking point.”

  If he wanted a fight, he was barking up the wrong tree. He wanted a wolf—he was about to get a she one. “What is the point?” I said through clenched teeth.

  “I need to keep you safe. You’re my wife. The mother of my son.”

  That shocked me. His tone. It was softer, but still raspy. My anger simmered some, which would give me time to find out what I needed before I confronted him. I wanted all of the facts before I went to war. I knew after talking to Stone, I wasn’t dealing with an average man. This man had lived half of his life as a ghost. In honor of what? Vengeance?

  “I’ll be in the office.”

  When I turned around, he was gone.

  I must’ve taken the quickest shower in my history at the secret fire station. I tried to act nonchalant as I dried my hair and then prepared for bed. I put on the thickest pajamas in my closet, still feeling the cold from earlier, and even thicker socks. I slid into bed, propped my pillows against the headboard, and then took out my laptop from the side table.

  The last page I’d been on was a site for saving ideas. I was thinking about the baby’s room. Nothing compared to those little French figurines I’d seen in the window that night, though. I wanted to go back and get them, but I was hesitant. Dolce seemed like a main hangout for the Scarpones. Maybe I’d ask Keely to swing by and get the store’s name. I could call them, buy the figurines over the phone, and have them delivered.

  Lowering the page, I opened an entirely new search. I typed in four words: Scarpones of New York.

  Thousands of results appeared on the page.

  “Too many.” I sighed. I read the first couple of articles, though. Ruthless. Pack of Wolves. Cunning. Social climbers. Those were the most prominent adjectives used. I found a few pictures of Arturo and Achille. Ritzy functions. Political dinners. Shaking hands. All smiles. There was a picture with Arturo and his current wife, Bambi, who was Achille’s mother. Achille was the perfect mixture of them both. My husband looked more like his mother’s side of the family.

  It clicked then. That was why they called him the Pretty Boy Prince.

  In a house full of savages, he stood out.

  I scrolled some more, but only “suspected” criminal dealings came up. Things the Scarpones had been questioned for but never indicted on. This time, I narrowed my search down.

  Vittorio Lupo Scarpone

  “Can’t be,” I muttered, narrowing my eyes against the glare of the screen. There were only three articles that mentioned him. The first had a picture of a beautiful woman smiling as she walked down the street. I could tell it was someplace in New York. I could tell she was going somewhere, trying to get away from the cameras, but still smiling, showing her best side. If the other side was as perfect as the one she shared; she had no flaws.

  Two Kingdoms Come Together to Form One Powerful Family

  The “Prince” of New York set to marry into one of New York’s finest political dynasties.

  Vittorio Lupo Scarpone, son of Arturo Scarpone and the late Noemi Scarpone, and Angelina Zamboni, daughter of Angelo and Carmella Zamboni, will be wed at the Cathedral of St. Patrick, followed by a winter-wonderland themed reception at the bride’s parents’ estate in Upstate New York.

  “Son of a bitch,” I whispered. Was Quillon related to Angelina? They had the same last name, and when I looked at her a bit harder, there was something there. Not immediate, but something about the way they smiled. Nothing else, though, connected them. She had a slim face. Tan skin. Long, dark blonde hair. Dark eyes. Tall. She seemed very tall. And her nose was…perfection, along with her lips. She was the Italian Princess to the wildly gorgeous Italian Prince.

  I pulled up a separate page, typing in her name. Very few results showed for her, too. Quillon was her brother. The rest of the articles focused on her murder.

  Her murder.

  Men, more than one, had attacked her in the alley beside Dolce, the restaurant that gave me the creeps. It was speculated that Vittorio went down fighting for Angelina before the men raped her and then put a bullet in her brain. She had suffered a gruesome death, the article stated. She was also pregnant at the time of her demise.

  I had to close the computer for a second, take a deep, deep breath. Then I opened it again when I felt I could breathe normally.

  Vittorio’s blood had been all over the scene, enough of it that they had suspected he was brutally stabbed and then his body dumped in the water somewhere. They hadn’t found him.

  “Of course not,” I said to the screen. “He’s sitting in the next room. I found him.”

  I couldn’t stand to read more details about Angelina’s murder, or continue to see pictures of her, so I went back to my other search about Vittorio.

  The second article went on about the wedding, the A-list guests that were expected to attend, how much the wedding of the year was going to cost. I clicked that off, too. I couldn’t read an article about their wedding after I’d just imagined their horrendous deaths.

  The third and final article gave details about Vittorio’s death. It was all speculation, though. No one really knew what had happened to him, but I could tell the article hinted at his father and brother, but the writer was too afraid to come out and directly say it.

  Vittorio Lupo Scarpone had become an urban legend, in a sense. Some people, the article claimed, didn’t think he was dead. They thought that after his attempted murder, he took hidden money and lived on a private island somewhere, to escape the evil clutches of his family.

  Like 2Pac. Or better yet, Niccolò Machiavelli. The root of the 2Pac theory. Even Elvis. All of those “is he or isn’t he dead?” magazine headlines.

  “Fucka me,” I said.

  I sat there for a minute, biting my lip, until I took my rosary out. I settled some after rubbing the pearls, but not entirely. My anxiety rose even higher after I searched for Noemi Ranieri Scarpone. She was even more beautiful than Angelina. Black hair. Blue Eyes. Tan skin. Thin. Big smile. The very first article spoke about her killing herself. It was rumored that she had a long history with a mental disorder.

  I scrolled down a bit, familiar with the story, but what I hadn’t known was that she had left a note behind for Vittorio.

  The article claimed that no one had ever seen the note, but it was rumored to have said: Marry for loyalty, not for love. Love kills the soul quicker than a sharp dagger to the heart.

  Even though it didn’t make me feel any better, if Noemi had left that behind, it explained so much about my husband’s aversion to love.

  “Looking for something?”

  I made an ahh! noise, jumped, and the computer flew through the air, my knees liftoff point. We both scrambled to get to the computer at the same time, but he was quicker. It didn’t matter anyway; we had to have this conversation sooner or later.

  I thought he was going to look at what I’d been looking at, but instead, he handed me the computer.
Then he took a seat on the bed, his back to me. Instead of the computer, I grabbed the rosary, worrying it between my fingers.

  Time. So much time went by—ten minutes? Which felt like a lifetime to me. Finally, I couldn’t stand the tension any longer. “Why didn’t you tell me who you are, Vittorio?”

  “I gave you permission to call me any name you’d like. You even named me. Capo. But that name…that one is off limits. It belongs to someone else.”

  “A ghost,” I said.

  “A ghost.”

  “You killed my parents,” I whispered.

  “There was no other choice.” He sighed. “I didn’t mind killing your father, but I didn’t want to take your mother away from you. She was a good woman, but she married the wrong kind of man. She knew I had to. She begged me to. If I didn’t kill her, give her an easy death, Achille would’ve been sent in my place.

  “He’s stupid in some ways, but when it comes to locating someone, he’s relentless. He would’ve sniffed her out eventually. Too many people knew her face. Even in Italy they would’ve found her. They have connections there, too. At that point, your parents had little money. They’d been hiding from Arturo for a while. What I did to her was a mercy compared to what Achille would’ve done. The only thing better for Achille would’ve been making your father watch as he did it.”

  “He never found me.” I squeezed the rosary, hoping it wouldn’t pop from the strain.

  “There’s one person who’s better at tracking than him. Better at hiding, too.”

  “You.”

  “I was certain they wouldn’t find you. They didn’t. I even went as far as renaming you in the blood database.”

  “How did—how did they know you let me go?”

  “A man playing two sides of the game was hiding in your parents’ place that night. He was getting information from your father and then delivering it to Arturo. If Arturo seemed like he was worried about something, or growing weaker, the rat would tell your father. He didn’t know who to place his bets on. You were an unforeseen circumstance that I didn’t bargain for. I should’ve checked the place twice but didn’t. I wanted to get you out. The rat came to me the next day, telling me what he’d done—he told Arturo that I didn’t kill you, that I hid you. I killed him after, but it was too late. He’d already ratted to Arturo and Achille.”