Machiavellian: Gangsters of New York, Book 1

by Di Corte, Bella

  Vito’s cheeks heated, before his eyes turned even meaner—on me. I was wrong. He had one feeling going for him. Resentment.

  The mishap with the gun gave Arturo the chance to read the note I’d slipped him. The look on his face fed my revenge.

  Arturo lifted the paper. “You were plotting with Palermo.”

  “What?” Achille’s face scrunched up. He went to take the paper, but Arturo held it away from him. “Let me see it, Pop.”

  Arturo stared at him a second longer before he handed it over. Achille’s eyes scanned the page. “This is bullshit!”

  “Is it?” My tone was so light and carefree. “Palermo was a hoarder. He made a habit to write everything down. He kept journal after journal. You see, he thought he was going to make it out of this life alive. Rumor had it that he was trying to become the new King of New York, but the truth was that he wasn’t trying to become king, but the new king’s most trusted advisor.”

  “Bullshit!” Achille roared, the gun starting to shake.

  “Palermo had no reason to lie. It’s all there.” I nodded to the paper in his hand. “He had inside information, which you blamed Carlo, the rat playing two sides, for giving him. It was you all along. You gave Palermo the knife and ordered the hit on him.” I nodded to Arturo, whose mind was click, click, clicking, all of the pieces falling in place.

  Arturo had been so busy being blinded by my pretty-boy looks and my sharp mind that he never saw the true snake in his house.

  Achille was the reason Palermo put his family in danger. He wanted to rule next to Achille, and he based his decisions on promises built from lies. Then when it all went bad for Palermo, Maria knew that she was the only living link who could shed light on the situation—and once Palermo was gone, Achille would make sure she followed behind. Her daughter, too, for good measure.

  After I’d gone back to the house Palermo owned when he worked for Arturo, I started to dig. My main goal was to find a picture or two of Maria to give to Mariposa. If something were to happen to me, I wanted to make sure she had those memories.

  I uncovered so much more.

  It seemed like Mariposa got something from her father after all—the need to keep a journal.

  Essentially, Achille had convinced Arturo that I needed to disappear after letting Marietta live. He had hammered it into Arturo that since I had saved Palermo’s daughter, I’d lie to save my life. However, looking back, knowing what I did after reading Palermo’s recollections, I realized that not only did Achille want me dead so he could have the entire kingdom, he wanted me dead because he had no idea what Mariposa’s mother had told me before she died, or Palermo himself for that matter.

  Achille didn’t try another hit on Arturo because it would’ve been too suspicious. Arturo’s trusted group was small, and his locations were not known until he had already arrived. It would’ve been too blunt of a move. With me gone, things were simple. All he had to do was bide his time.

  We all stood with our guns drawn, waiting, Arturo’s gun pointing straight at my heart. Then Arturo’s hand moved, and his bullet hit Vito straight in his heart. The boy hit the wall, slid down, his glasses askew, his mouth hanging open.

  Arturo turned his gun toward Achille, but with the speed of youth, Achille whipped his gun up to Arturo’s head and pulled the trigger. Arturo’s knees gave out and he fell to the floor. I didn’t miss the look on his face before he lost the battle with death, though—anger. He was always so fucking hateful, and not even death could steal it from him.

  Achille and I circled each other, our weapons still drawn.

  “Even for a dead man, you lose, Vittorio.” He sniffed. “You always considered me the dumb one. I might not be as smart as you, but shit happens for a reason, and I’m good at piecing things together. I had a vision while I was at the hospital earlier today, digging through the morgue, looking for my missing son. Tito Sala. He saved you that night.”

  “One shot, Achille,” I said, sick of the game. But the mention of my uncle’s name had me hesitating to pull the trigger. If he had Tito, there was no telling what kind of sick game he had in play. “One of us is going to finish this. One shot. That’s all you have to kill me this time.”

  Achille took a step back, going for the kitchen. I moved with him, move for move. He stopped right outside of the room, where there was a closet for hanging up coats. Arturo had it put in because he didn’t like anyone touching his things. After Palermo, he thought twice about what, or who, could bring him down. “Unforeseen circumstances are a bitch, Vittorio.”

  He opened the closet and Tito fell out. He was bound and gagged. Achille held him up with one hand, sticking the gun to his temple. Tito’s glasses were gone, and his eyes blinked at me before they fully opened. Once the situation made it to his mind, he shook his head, trying to speak. I knew what he wanted without him having to use words. He was trying to tell me not to sacrifice my life for his.

  I couldn’t make the shot.

  Unforeseen circumstances.

  There was no way I’d sacrifice Tito’s life for mine. The man was the angel who stood between death and me. If anyone deserved to live life, even if it was to save them, it was this man.

  “Put the gun down, Vittorio,” Achille ordered, pressing the gun to Tito’s temple even harder. “Now. Or your good uncle is as good as dead.”

  Raising my hands in surrender, I let the gun fall to the floor. Tito started to fight, but it was no use. I had already surrendered.

  My wife was safe. My son would be safe.

  Achille would kill me, but he would never touch them. Rocco would see to it. Especially after I sacrificed my life for Tito’s.

  “On your knees, Vittorio,” Achille ordered. “On your knees!” he roared when I refused to move.

  I kept my hands up, putting them behind my head, but I refused to kneel. He was going to kill me anyway. I’d be damned if I went down on my knees for any mere man. I only bent, broke, went down for one person on this earth—a woman, my wife.

  Slowly, I took my hands down, reaching for the rosary around my neck. I pulled it out and kept it close to my heart.

  The gun pressed against the back of my head, and once more, I found peace in my darkest hour.

  28

  Mariposa

  Before Capo left, he had given me a blue box tied with a blue bow. He told me to open it after he left. As soon as he was out of the door, I wasted no time opening it.

  The first thing I found was a note on top of blue tissue paper.

  Mariposa,

  That night, the night I took you to old man Gianelli and Jocelyn, you told me your favorite color was blue. Except you said boo instead of blue. It was the first time since my mother left me that I remembered smiling and feeling it. The last time will be the moment I walk out of the door to our home and think of you—you don’t say boo anymore, but you still do something to me that has no word to define it.

  For that, I owe you my life. It wasn’t me that saved you that night, but you that saved me.

  What lies beyond the surface of this box cannot bring back what you lost at my hands, but maybe that lost part of you can start to find its way back.

  Capo

  Under the tissue was an album full of pictures. Photographs that I never thought I’d see. My mom. My mom holding me as a newborn. Numerous pictures of me until I was five. It seemed like she only kept her favorite ones. Photos that were important enough to bury and keep hidden.

  I had texted Capo after, spilling my guts. I had been too afraid to tell him in person all of the things I needed him to know, afraid that maybe my words would jinx something, and he’d never come back to me.

  He didn’t tell me what he was going to do, but I knew. There was something different about him the entire day.

  The way he looked at me.

  Like it was the last time.

  The way he kissed me.

  Like it was the last time.

  The way he touched me, like it was the last ti
me.

  More than words.

  Rocco had been over, and the two of them had a meeting in Capo’s office. I didn’t like the way Rocco looked at me before he left. Like he might be looking at a widow he’d soon be responsible for.

  Again, more than words.

  Before Rocco left, I slipped a note into his palm. It was a natural gesture, a goodbye handshake, and that was the end of it. I had no problem using all of my words.

  I couldn’t keep still, though. I had given Capo my rosary to take with him, and I missed being able to rub the beads between my fingers to ease my anxiety. For the first time since I married Capo, the devil felt close on my heels again.

  Slipping on a pair of tennis shoes, I crossed over to the other building, finding Giovanni in the kitchen.

  “Any word from my husband?”

  He shook his head. “Not since he left.”

  I bit my lip and nodded. “I want ice cream.”

  He pointed to the freezer. “It is stocked.”

  “No. I want vanilla. We have all other flavors but vanilla.”

  He watched me for a moment and then called Stefano, his second in charge, into the kitchen. “Mrs. Macchiavello would like you to run to the store for vanilla ice cream.”

  “I’m driving,” I said, going for the keys on the hook in a room that housed most of the car keys. A password was needed to get in. The rest of the keys were on our side, in the secret firehouse. Capo thought of everything.

  Capo had told Giovanni he had no problem with me going out tonight, as long as one of the men went with me. Which threw up another red flag. Why was he so sure the Scarpones wouldn’t be on the hunt for me?

  Giovanni nodded, and Stefano and I went into the garage. The alarm chirped on the red Ferrari and we both slid in. Before I opened the garage, I sent Capo a text.

  Me: I’m going with Stefano to get ice cream. We can watch an old movie and drink root beer floats tonight. You’re coming home to me, Capo.

  Again, he didn’t text me back. He hadn’t, not since earlier. After I had poured my feelings out to him over an electronic device. All of a sudden it felt…so necessary to tell him all the things.

  Truth be told, I didn’t give a damn about ice cream. I was going to Dolce to see where my husband was. To make sure that my nightmare wasn’t coming true—my husband bleeding out on the cement, clutching the rosary in his hands while he left me.

  Stefano noticed that we were not going toward the store.

  “Mrs. Macchiavello, we are going the wrong way.” He pointed the other way with his finger. “The store is that way.”

  I ignored him. He tried again. I still ignored him. I started to go faster, a pressure inside of me that I couldn’t even explain pressing my foot harder on the gas pedal. The pressure was panic.

  “Mrs. Macchiavello—!”

  Before I could even comprehend what was happening, the rest of the words flew out of Stefano’s mouth in a sort of suspended slow motion: “—a truck!”

  Those were the last words out of his mouth before a massive truck came out of nowhere and slammed into the passenger side door of the Ferrari.

  It happened so fast that, while the car rolled, my mind hadn’t even had time to catch up. Once it did, we were righted, but everything around me seemed distorted. Blurry. I reached up a hand and touched my head. I hissed. Blood ran along my forehead, stinging my eyes.

  “Stefano,” I croaked.

  No answer.

  I said his name again, groping for him, but there was still no answer. Then I laid a hand on my stomach, wondering if the impact had hurt the baby.

  My baby.

  Even though tears didn’t come—maybe I was in shock—something came from a part of me that I’d never met before. That something was worry straight from the deepest depths of my heart and soul.

  The thought of something happening to my baby sent me into a hollow, silent panic. Then I felt a flutter, a slight movement, and I relaxed, but didn’t feel totally at ease.

  The breath hissed out of me when I went to move, to try and open the door. Was my rib broken? I coughed, and it hurt even more.

  Where did the truck even come from? Even though I was going fast, I was paying attention. No lights. It had no lights on. It was a demon slamming into a bright light.

  The next second, my door opened and a man reached in and cut me out of the seatbelt. After he did, he yanked me out onto the street by my hair. I cried out without meaning to. My chest was on fire.

  Sense finally made it to my brain. The man wasn’t there to help me. He was there to kill me. The man started to fight me for the watch on my wrist. I knew it was a man because of his hairy arms.

  Was he robbing me?

  “Give it to me, you bitch!” He slapped me hard across the face. “You keep fighting me, I’ll chop your wrist off for it!”

  I froze at the sound of his voice. I focused on him, truly focused on him, and the breath left me completely. He ripped the watch off, flung it on the driver’s seat of the Ferrari, and then emptied a can of gasoline all around the car. Maybe even inside of it. He walked closer to me after, his boot in my face.

  He knew about the watch.

  He knew that was my direct line to safety, to someone coming for me.

  Capo finding me.

  Saving me.

  Capo…was he? I couldn’t even stand the thought.

  I tried to crawl away, but it was no use. The madman dragged me by the hair to his waiting truck, flinging me inside. My head spun, my eyes kept going in and out of focus, and I couldn’t even call him by his name. It was on the tip of my tongue, but my mind refused to feed the words to my mouth.

  He kept mumbling things, what he was going to do to me, where he was taking me, how much I’d suffer, but his voice kept going in and out of boiling water.

  The last thing I remembered was seeing the Ferrari go up in flames as we drove away. The devil had finally caught me, and he was bringing me to hell with him.

  29

  Capo

  A single shot rang through the air. It wasn’t loud, but loud enough that I heard it. My grip on the rosary became tighter, but after a second, all I heard was a body hit the floor.

  My eyes shifted to the left, then to the right.

  It wasn’t my body.

  I was still upright, the rosary cutting into my palm.

  “Amadeo,” Rocco said, “help me untie this damsel in distress before he gets the vapors.”

  It took me a moment to comprehend what had happened. Rocco was untying Tito. Achille lay on the floor behind me, blood pooling around his head. He was dead.

  Death was all around me. And even though their deaths satisfied me because they wouldn’t be bothering mine anymore, that was all it was, relief that they couldn’t hurt my family.

  “You!” Tito roared after Rocco tore the tape off his mouth. “I am going to hurt you when Rocco unbinds these hands.” He wiggled them, like he couldn’t wait to put them around my neck.

  Rocco grinned at me. “Should we put the tape back on?”

  “Do not dare!” Tito growled. “I will castrate you both!”

  “Uncle,” Rocco said. “Shouldn’t you have done that to—” he nodded toward Achille “—before you allowed him to abduct you?”

  “I was tired! I had a very unstable patient at the hospital. Achille came out of nowhere in the parking garage. When I wouldn’t tell him anything, he hit me on the head and then tied me up! It just so happened that he abducted me on the evening you sought your revenge!”

  “Rocco.” My voice came out tight, urging him to explain the reason why he was here.

  Under no circumstances did I want the Faustis getting involved in my affairs. When this night happened, it was on my terms. If one of the Scarpones had come out on top, that was the way the dice would’ve rolled.

  Games. So many fucking games. All of them ended.

  I’d had this conversation with Rocco on many occasions. I had brought it up again after he�
�d given me his word that the Faustis would take my wife in if something were to happen to me. Mariposa didn’t know this, but even before she had agreed to marry me, I had asked him to take care of her. She was the sole heir to anything that belonged to me.

  Rocco stopped struggling with Tito and focused on me. He dug in his pocket, pulling out a sheet of paper. It had been torn out of a journal. He handed it to me.

  Dolce. Tonight. Don’t do it as a favor to me, do it as favor to love. I won’t owe you one, but love will.

  Mariposa. My wife. I could recognize her handwriting anywhere, especially after reading her journal from front to back. I lifted the paper.

  Rocco nodded. “Your wife. She slipped it in my palm before I left your place earlier.” He shrugged. “She spoke to the romantic in me.”

  “Release me, nephew!”

  We both looked at Tito, who struggled to free himself the rest of the way. We had no time, though. Sirens wailed in the distance. We each took an arm and lifted him up, carrying him out with his feet lifted off the floor. He cursed the entire way but became quiet when we set him in the car. Then he just hmphed and looked out the window, like he refused to speak to either of us.

  I took out my computer, making sure all of the precautions I’d put in place were still there. The camera had recorded only a few snippets from the night.

  What it did show from inside was the masked men running in and killing the kitchen staff, the Scarpone men running after them, Arturo killing Vito, and then Achille killing Arturo. The note from Corrado Palermo was still with Arturo.

  The police would never see footage, so they would have to take a wild guess when it came to Achille. The list of his enemies couldn’t be contained to one page. I doubted the law would put much effort into finding Achille’s killer. Rocco had done them a favor.

  “Old man,” I said, still looking over my computer, speaking to Tito. “You saved my life once. You gave me a second chance. My life for yours was the least I could do.”