He never once tried using the gun on himself. Never even contemplated it. One of Donato’s men stood guard at the door, and not one click had gone off. If it had, he would’ve been given a bullet to try again.
A sick fucking joke. If he made his mind up to end it all before the torture really began, he had to go again because the gun didn’t have one bullet. It was my way of fucking with him a little more.
It took a moment, but when he realized what I’d called him, he stood up, swaying like he was on a boat during a storm. “You called me Quillo.” His head tilted to the side.
“What? You too good for Quillo, Quillon? You were always a prick, but you never showed off how much of a pompous prick you were until you ran for office. Quillon sounded more proper than Quillo, I’m sure. You political fucks who start in the trenches are all the same. Trying to prove you’re something you’ll never be.” I picked the gun up from the floor before I took a seat at the table, across from him. I sat the weapon down and relaxed in my seat. “Honest. Sincero.”
He swallowed hard, taking a step closer to the table. “Show your face,” he said. “I know you.”
“Ah.” I took the top of the ski mask in my hand. “You thought you did. No more.” Then I removed the mask completely.
He gasped, his feet automatically bringing him back, right into the cot. It slammed against his knees and he went down, then popped back up.
“No!” He shook his head, his hands waving frantically in front of him. “No. You’re a ghost! I’m dead. They must have killed me. I’m in hell. With you. I need forgiveness. Dear God, deliver me.” He fell to his knees and started praying the Holy Rosary. His fear scented the air with bitterness. It had the same tang as fresh blood.
“Stop being dramatic.” I used my leg to shove the other chair closer to him. “Sit. Let’s have a chat. It’s time we catch up.”
“Vittorio.” He shook his head, like he was trying to wake up. “You’re a ghost. What do you want with me?”
I called him a fool in Italian. “You’re afraid of a ghost. You should be more afraid of me. I still bleed. I can be killed. Again. So you know what that means? I’m dangerous. I’m the living ghost you should fear.”
He stood, still swaying some, and pushed the chair closer to the table. Even though he wasn’t at ease, he had relaxed some, thinking he could talk me out of this. Thinking he could try and play on our history to squash whatever this issue was. He assumed it had to do with business.
“May I?” He put a hand close to mine.
I nodded, and he used his pointer finger to touch the pulse in my wrist. He pulled back when he felt it.
“You’re not dead.”
“Apparently.”
Then he smiled, and it lit up his face. A wave of relief washed over him. “Son of a bitch! You’re alive.” He stood for a second and then, too excited to stand any longer, took the seat. “And when was that ever an issue? You not being dangerous? Tell me something I don’t know, like why I’m here.”
“In time,” I said, watching him ease into being this close to me again. Being next to him felt like old times, but this time, I was going to rip his throat out and watch as he bled out at my feet. Or maybe I’d get more creative. “You need to tell me things. First.”
“Wait.” He held a hand up. “You’re the one starting the wars between all of the families. Did your father order you to? My Pops is in real hot water. I thought maybe this had something to do with him, but then I thought on it some more. He’s been in hot water since Angelina—” He stopped there, not going further.
Yeah, his old man had split town after what happened. Quillo didn’t have time to react, so Arturo started using him for whatever he needed. Quillo was the equivalent of an indentured servant. He had to pay for the sins of his father and the sins of a sister who screwed two brothers. The fact that she screwed us both didn’t matter. It was that she’d been passing secrets—secrets no one asked for—and then set one of us up. Her loyalty had been tested and proved to be as thin as water. You want to stay in this game, you need blood.
“I have no father,” I said. “I have nothing but enemies.”
“Shit.” He ran his hands through his hair, making the blonde strands stand up in thin spikes. “So you’re orchestrating a massive war. You killed the heads of those families. Their sons. You’re fucking insane! What you’re doing. It’s insane. A suicide mission. After your death, well, not death but—”
“My death,” I said.
“Arturo has gotten even stronger with Achille at his side. He doesn’t care who he kills. He’s a savage. He takes the lives of innocents without even blinking. He’s a fucking rabid wolf. The only family the Scarpones ever backed down from is the Faustis, but no one takes them on.”
I opened and closed my arms. “It seems my life has always had a short expiration date on it. Achille made sure of it. Arturo went through with it.”
“He had to. You can’t give orders and have your men disobey you.”
“Disobey.” I tested the word. “Is that what you’d call saving a little girl from a fate she didn’t deserve?”
He seemed to sense something from me then, but he had no idea what, unless he knew who she was, and I doubted he did. If he did, he would’ve handed her over to the Scarpones when he had the chance.
His gaze landed on my scar, and then he met my eyes again. “Why did you save her? Palermo’s kid? He’d never done you any favors. He tried to kill Arturo right in front of you. The only man to ever wound Lupo.” Wolf. “Palermo worked for your old—Arturo for years. Arturo trusted him, like a son. And he double-crossed him in the worst way. So why?”
“I had my reasons,” I said.
“Reasons. And where the fuck did those get you? Living like a ghost in your own town? Silenced?” We watched each other for a few minutes; the only sound was the toilet running in the bathroom. Then he spoke up again. “I get it now. You’ve come back to take them all out. You’re starting a war so they have no idea who to trust anymore. One family trying to destroy another. Even the Irish have gotten involved. What did they ever do to you?”
I smiled. “It’s mayhem, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He nodded once. “You can say that.”
“I said that. Now you tell me something I don’t know.”
“You seem to know everything. The only thing you never knew was that Achille would seize on the opportunity to run back to Arturo and rat you out for not killing Palermo’s kid in front of him. That wife of his, too.”
“Ah.” I smiled again. “I knew.”
“Then I really don’t understand why you did it. Some say they’d rather face hell than face Arturo Scarpone.”
“I faced hell and I survived.” I sat forward a little, getting closer. “Tell me about the girl you fostered five years ago.”
He bit the inside of his lip and looked up at the wall. It was his fucking political thinking face. He looked like he was taking a shit.
I stood so abruptly that the chair fell over behind me and he didn’t have a chance to react. I grabbed him by his throat and squeezed until his eyes started to water. When I let him go, he fell back into his seat, gasping for breath. I picked my chair up and set it down, sitting again. “You know me, Quillo. I’ll snap your neck for fucking less than playing stupid.”