Princes of the Lower East Side: A 1920s Mafia Thriller (A Scalisi Family Novel)

by Meredith Allison

  “Mia,” Charlie snarled. “Time to go.”

  “Please,” the detective said. “Let’s make a deal. Just go, leave me here for the cops. I’ll get in touch with you first thing in the morning.”

  The sirens grew louder, echoing off the buildings lining the next street over.

  Mia looked down at the detective. She recalled the look in his eyes the first day she’d met him, when he’d tried to kill her in another alleyway. She thought about the way he’d hit Raquel with so much force, he’d knocked her out, then chuckled. The way he’d slapped Gloria bloody.

  The gun he’d held to her terrified, four-year-old niece.

  And now, he was begging her for help. Pledging his assistance. Pleading for his life.

  Pleading for her mercy.

  After years of feeling like everything breakable inside her had broken, something new shattered. It was almost a physical feeling, as though something in her brain had come loose and snapped in two.

  Perhaps it was her empathy.

  “Sorry,” Mia said. “I’m fresh out of deals tonight.”

  She raised his gun and leveled it at the center of his face. Then she fired all six rounds into him, stopping only when the dry click of the empty revolver filled her ears.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Before dawn the next morning, Raquel was out of surgery and in a heavily sedated sleep in her private hospital room.

  Mia sat in a chair beside her bed, leaning against it, her head resting on her palm as she kept watch over Raquel. Paolo waited down in the car, respecting the privacy she wished to have with her cousin, although by now he was never an imposition on her privacy, with his silent, vigilant presence.

  Raquel had been hit in the leg and a major artery had been nicked. Had the bullet pierced even a fraction of an inch inward, she likely would have bled out. As it was, due to some damage to the musculature and ligaments, she’d likely walk with a pronounced limp for the rest of her life.

  The surgeon, who had worked on wounded soldiers during the war, cautioned Mia that although the operation to remove the bullet and repair the artery had gone well, the chance of infection was still high. Raquel would need to remain in the hospital so they could monitor her dressings and change them frequently. Infection could still kill her, even if Jake’s bullet hadn’t.

  The surgeon had asked several curious questions about what had happened to Raquel and stared quite pointedly at the sides of both their faces where they’d been struck. Mia had offered him a hundred dollars to stop asking questions.

  A nurse came in to check on Raquel and looked at Mia disapprovingly. “You really shouldn’t be here. Visiting hours were over a long time ago.”

  Mia didn’t spare her a glance. “Like I told the doctor, you want me to leave, you can come and pull me out of this chair. But I’m not leaving her side.”

  The nurse hesitated, as though considering that, but in the end made the smart choice and let Mia be.

  She slipped in and out of sleep, resting her head on Raquel’s bed. Every so often she would jerk awake, panicked that something terrible had happened while she’d been unconscious. Each time she closed her eyes, she saw the horrified gaze of the detective staring up at her, his lips moving in silent pleas to spare his life. In the blink of an eye, his face was a mess of blood and bone.

  Mercy.

  Mercy.

  Mercy.

  A gunshot exploded next to her ear, and she nearly leaped out of her chair.

  But instead of her own brains splattered on the wall, she felt only weak, gentle fingers tugging at her hair. No one was shooting at her.

  Raquel was awake, her brown eyes heavy-lidded but alert.

  “Raquel,” Mia said softly, reaching for her hand. “How do you feel?”

  “Have you…been here…the whole time?” Raquel asked, her voice faint.

  “Nowhere else for me to be,” she replied, reaching up to touch her cousin’s cheek. It was cool.

  “Glo? Emmy?”

  “Paolo took them home,” Mia said. “I haven’t been there yet.”

  “Em is probably…so scared.” Raquel closed her eyes. “My head hurts. My face hurts. Yours looks like it hurts, too.”

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. You just worry about getting well, dear.”

  “What…will happen now?”

  There were as many answers to that question as there were interpretations of the question itself. “What do you mean?”

  “What happens to…Jake? He got…away…didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Mia said. “He got away. But I’ll see him again. We have business now…for a little while, at least.” She told Raquel about his terms, since the young woman had little memory of what had occurred in the warehouse.

  Raquel was silent for a long time. “You gave up…everything.”

  “No, not everything. I still have you. Gloria. Emilia. You’re the most important things.”

  “The people in the neighborhood,” Raquel said. “They won’t…understand. They’ll think you…abandoned them.”

  Mia had the same thought, and it hurt. She’d fought so hard for them, and now she was leaving them to the wolves. No, worse. To the vultures.

  “I didn’t have a choice,” she said softly. “He would have killed you. No one is more important to me than you all are.”

  “You can’t let him get away with it,” Raquel insisted, grasping Mia’s hand. “I’ve seen how much the people…rely on you. How much they need you. He’ll…destroy them.”

  Mia shook her head. “I won’t risk my fam—”

  “You need to…kill him,” her cousin rasped.

  She blinked. Raquel had, in the time she’d known her, always been a sweet young lady, if a bit naive. To hear her say this now filled Mia with shame. It wasn’t that she hadn’t entertained similar thoughts. But what bothered her most was that she had, perhaps, failed Raquel. Perhaps she had been a terrible influence on the young woman, when she’d only wanted to provide a better life than what she might have had in Sicily.

  Mia wondered if this was what Nick might have thought of her destiny, had he been alive to see it.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” she said in a quiet voice.

  Raquel opened wide her burning, dark eyes. “Yes, I do!”

  “This has to stop,” Mia murmured. “This…violence. It has to end.”

  “He is a violent man,” Raquel said, her voice quivering. “He takes pleasure in the suffering of others. If you don’t stop him, no one will.”

  Mia’s heart clenched. “You just worry about getting well. After all, I’ll need my assistant back soon.” She offered a small smile, hoping to see one in return.

  But Raquel swallowed and looked away. “When I am well,” she said, “I…want to go home. To Catania.”

  Mia stared at her. “What? You do?” It was on the tip of her tongue to ask why, but she knew better. That would only be insulting to Raquel.

  “I love you, Cousin,” Raquel said. “And I love Gloria and especially Emilia. It will make me very sad to leave you. But…I don’t belong here. Not with you. Not with your…lifestyle. I am—I am afraid. I miss the slowness of home. The quiet. The simplicity. It has been very exciting here, but…it has been terrifying. And I do not wish to live in fear.”

  “What about Will?” Mia said lamely. “Won’t you miss him? He’ll miss you. He’s planning to return to New York next month, and I’m quite sure it’s not to see me.”

  Raquel’s jaw tightened and a single tear leaked from one eye. “He was…a kind man,” she said. “Maybe in a different time or place, we might have become something together. But I cannot stay here.” She swallowed and forced a trembling smile. “If he’d ever like to see Sicily, tell him to write me.” The smile disappeared. “Please, Mia. Send me back when I am well.”

  A hot fissure burst along the seam of her heart. But she would honor her cousin. She had promised to do whatever she could to keep Raquel safe. She could no
t deny her this.

  “Yes,” she whispered, her throat tight. “Yes, anything you want.”

  “Thank you,” Raquel breathed, closing her eyes.

  The next time the nurse came to shoo her out, Mia went.

  She and Paolo reached the hotel as dawn blossomed over the horizon. He escorted her into the elevator and down the hall toward their suites, his head on a nonstop swivel to make sure no one got the drop on them.

  She was happy to let him steer her around. The exhaustion of feeling so many things all at once—rage, heartbreak, despair, hopelessness, fear—was taking its toll. It was easier to find a warm, dark corner in her numbness and hide instead of continuing to feel the emotional agony that tore at her.

  There were now three guards outside Gloria’s door. They all greeted her, asking how she was. She gave them vague answers and knocked on Gloria’s door.

  A moment later, it opened. Gloria’s gaunt, hollow-eyed face peered out. A dark bruise bloomed on the left side of her face. A look of relief washed over her weary face, and she pulled Mia inside. Paolo followed her in and shut the door.

  She and Gloria embraced tightly for a long moment. Mia longed to fall apart and sob in her sister-in-law’s arms, but Gloria beat her to it. Hot wetness streaked down her neck, and Mia knew she could not go to pieces now. Not when her strength—what little of it was left—was needed.

  “Come,” Mia said softly, leading Gloria to the sofa. “Sit.”

  “How is she?” Gloria asked, wiping away her tears.

  “Doing as well as we could hope for,” Mia replied. “She’ll make a recovery, though she’ll probably have a limp for the rest of her life. She awoke when I was with her. We talked for a while. She…she wants to go home when they release her.”

  Gloria gestured toward Raquel’s room. “Where else would she go?”

  “No.” Mia shook her head. “She wants to go home. To Sicily.”

  “What?” Gloria looked as gutted as Mia felt. “Why?”

  “Why not?” she demanded. “Look at what’s happened to her. She was kidnapped, beaten, and nearly killed. Why would she want to stay here? She’s terrified!”

  She hadn’t meant to practically shout at Gloria, but her own guilt burst through the dam of her self-control.

  Mia jumped to her feet. “It’s my fault,” she blurted. “I promised Carlo I’d look out for her. I’d protect her. I promised Nick I’d do the same for you and Em. And look what happened. Because of me you three were nearly killed.”

  “Mia, calm down. None of that was your fault.”

  Something in Gloria’s voice, something hollow and almost mechanic, made Mia whirl around. Gloria wouldn’t look at her.

  “You agree with me,” Mia said. “You feel the same. You hold me responsible.” She uttered a bitter, ugly laugh. Her feelings were hurt, but that was absurd. Gloria was agreeing with her own assessment of herself, and the way she’d mishandled everything since they’d come home. “Just say it. I need to hear it.”

  “Fine,” Gloria said quietly, looking up at her. “Yes, I think this is your fault. You wanted so much to be involved in the business as soon as we got home. You didn’t think that perhaps the men who’d been running it the entire past year were capable of continuing to do so. You thought that because you’re a Scalisi, that entitles you to ownership. You thought you were your brother!”

  Mia had braced herself, but the onslaught nearly took her off her feet. She released a pained breath, but forced herself not to look away.

  You deserve this, she reminded herself. You brought this on yourself.

  “You became so obsessed with having the people of the old neighborhood love you, you didn’t stop to consider the repercussions of your actions,” Gloria went on, rising as she gathered steam. “Your pride convinced you you’re something you’re not. You’re not Mia Scalisi, the gangster. You’re a showgirl who convinced herself a stage role was real life, and you nearly got us killed. You nearly got my daughter killed!”

  Mia clenched her jaw, breathing hard through her nose.

  Gloria’s warm, olive skin went white as milk. “She’s four years old, and a man had a goddamn gun pointed at her head!” Her voice rose to a scream and broke on the last word. “And that is your fault.”

  Mia’s chin trembled and she held onto the back of the easy chair for support, but she did not look away. If she were being whipped, it would not hurt as much as this did now, to hear that she had so thoroughly let her family down when all she had ever wanted was to keep them safe. Because they were all she had.

  From Gloria’s bedroom, the faint sound of Emilia crying floated out to the living room.

  “You know, maybe Raquel has the right idea,” Gloria went on, practically hissing out the words. “To leave this city. To leave you behind. Perhaps she won’t be sailing back to Sicily alone. At least my daughter will be with normal people, not violent, crazed criminals who just want to kill each other. And in case you were wondering, Mia, I am talking about you, too.”

  A tear, white-hot, cut down Mia’s cheek.

  Before she could say anything, another sound carried out to the living room. A low, deep, sonorous noise. A voice, humming a nameless, Southern Italian folk song.

  As though sharing the same thought, both Mia and Gloria hurried toward her bedroom and froze on each side of the doorway.

  Paolo crouched beside Emilia’s small bed. She lay on her side, watching him with huge, wet dark eyes, holding onto his hand with one of her tiny ones. The thumb of her other hand was firmly in her mouth.

  He was humming to her.

  “She’s been having nightmares all night,” Gloria whispered.

  Paolo didn’t spare them a glance as he continued humming to Emilia, his gaze locked with the little girl’s. Gradually, her eyes grew heavy until they finally shut. When her breathing deepened and evened, and her little hand went slack on top of his, he tucked her blanket around her and rose noiselessly to his feet.

  He frowned deeply at both of them and shooed them from the room. They both backed up several feet as he pulled the door shut but not completely, leaving it an inch ajar to keep an ear tilted for sounds that Emilia had awoken again.

  He pointed at them both, then swiped the flat of his hand through the air. No more arguing. Then he placed his hands under his head like a pillow.

  Gloria tightened her jaw. “Yes. We should get some sleep. Perhaps…perhaps I was too harsh, Mia. I’m tired, to say the least.” She sighed, then reached out to touch Mia’s shoulder. “Get some sleep.”

  “But Mass…”

  “Don’t worry about that. Just rest.” Gloria hesitated. “Dear, I’m—I’m sorry.”

  Perhaps she was sorry, but that didn’t mean she didn’t believe what she’d said.

  It was the truth.

  Paolo escorted Mia back to her suite. He pushed past her with his pistol drawn and made sure every possible nook and cranny of the space was clear. When he returned to the door where she waited, she looked at him, her face crumpling, unable to hold back her tears any longer.

  Paolo tucked his gun in the waistband of his pants and drew her into his arms. His hands, kind and patting, made her think of her own father. She had not been embraced in such a tender, paternal fashion since he’d died so many years ago. It made her cry harder into his shoulder.

  Paolo hummed to her, too.

  “How are you?” Hyman asked Monday afternoon, sitting back in his seat with a cup of coffee. “Your face looks…like it hurts.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Mia replied.

  She’d let a day pass before she’d worked up the nerve to look in the mirror. Her left eye socket had been sliced open, though not deeply enough to require stitches. A bruise formed around the outer corner and lower part of her eye, promising to get darker before it would get better. A lump topped with a small cut sat atop her cheekbone, and the entire left side of her face ached horribly.

  She could deal with the physical discomfort. It
was everything else that had her so heartsore.

  After giving her Sunday to pull herself together, Hyman had called a meeting with her, Charlie, and Moritz at his Midtown penthouse to discuss the state of things and precisely what Morelli had demanded from her.

  She’d known the meeting would be a necessity, and had expected Hyman’s phone call when it came. Now, though, she wasn’t sure where to start. The four of them sat in the comfortable sitting area by the fireplace. Today, the windows were open to let in the gentle summer breeze.

  She kept her eyes on her teacup. They were waiting for her to speak, but she wasn’t sure what to say to any of them. Especially Charlie—she didn’t know how he’d receive the news that she’d been tasked with setting up his boss so that her family could live.

  “You take all the time you need to heal,” Hyman offered.

  She gave him a wry smirk. “Sure. Can’t very well have your headliner on stage with a busted face.”

  He gave her a reproving look. “No, I can’t. However—I’m sure to your utter shock—I am more concerned with your wellbeing than your ability to perform onstage at the present moment.”

  Perhaps she was being too hard on him. She offered a one-sided smile. “Thank you.”

  “Take us through what he said, Mia,” Moritz said. “What you agreed to.”

  “As he put it, the simple version is everything,” she replied. “The liquor operation goes under his control. I give up all of the percentages I held in his territories. He expects to control all of the protection business in the old neighborhood. And he’ll deal heroin wherever he pleases.”

  “And how the fuck does he expect to get around people like Masseria?” Charlie demanded. “Who still controls that business?”

  She released a breath and met his gaze. “Because he plans to kill Masseria. As a gift to Maranzano.”

  “What?”

  “He said I have to help him,” Mia went on woodenly. “I’m supposed to ask Masseria to mediate a meeting between me and Morelli, because we just can’t settle our differences. And at the meeting, Masseria will be assassinated. Probably me, too.”