He wheels on me. “Ovviamente. Don’t you?”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure.”
Levi throws his hands up, scattering ash. “Angelo, what has gotten into—”
His words are cut short by the knock at the door.
“Come in,” I order, glad for the distraction. I have no interest in trying to explain how the strange girl taking up residence in my mind has made it impossible for me to enjoy the pleasures of the club.
It’s Felice, a tall man with a jet-black ponytail who always wears a leather jacket and faded jeans. It makes him look rough and violent, which is not inaccurate.
“Excuse me, Mr. De Maggio, Mr. Mancini, but there is a problem. We caught an Albanian dealing drugs without permission. In the bathrooms.”
I stand up, laying my knuckles against the desk. My whole body feels taut, ready for violence. I grit my teeth so hard they hurt. “First they sell us shit and call it gold,” I snarl. “And now this? This is a blatant show of disrespect. Felice, bring the man up.”
“We should be careful here, Angelo,” Levi cautions when Felice has left. “We do not want to do anything rash.”
“We can’t let this go.”
“Perhaps we should call—”
I shake my head. “We are not calling my dad,” I say. If I called Father, he would probably come and shake the man’s hand, bake him a fucking cake, and sign over half the club to him. Whatever it takes to ‘keep the peace.’
Fuck the peace. I will handle this alone.
“If you’re feeling squeamish,” I tell Levi, “you are welcome to leave.”
He grunts and lights another cigarette. That settles it.
Felice brings the man up a few minutes later. He has that sweaty look that tells me he’s getting high on his own shit, his eyes like saucers, hopping from foot to foot. Felice hefts a gun, giving me a look that lets me know he took it from the man. I stand from the desk and slowly walk over to him.
“Hello, friend,” I say softly.
The Albanian forces himself to stand up straighter. He looks me in the eye. I respect that.
“Do what you are going to do, Italian dog,” he says. “I will not cower. Paç fat! I am a man. Good luck making me back down.”
“‘Italian dog,’” I repeat thoughtfully. Then, quick as a panther, I punch him across the jaw. He falls back, reeling. Felice grabs his arm and pulls him upright at once.
My next punch takes him in the belly, a digging shot to the kidney. He gasps and keels over. Again, Felice hefts him up.
“Who told you to deal drugs in this club? Huh?” I slap softly at his face. “Speak.”
“I am Albanian,” he says. Blood has begun to trickle from his swollen lip. “I can deal wherever I want.”
I laugh in amazement. “That’s not how it works, friend.” I grab him by the collar of his shirt in one hand and lift him clean off his feet. His eyes get even wider like he can’t believe what’s happening. I hold him off the ground, his legs kicking. “Did Dujar give you permission? Speak.”
With my free hand, I slap him across the mouth. He grunts in pain, and a fresh line of blood drips down his chin.
“Y-yes,” he bleats. “Dujar said that we have free rein on the Italian clubs.”
I place him on the floor and turn toward my desk, my whole body thrumming with a white-hot rage I am not in control of.
I think of Dujar’s sneering face, of the way he reveled in tricking us, disrespecting our family, disrespecting my father, disrespecting me.
The Albanian makes more bleating noises when I take the pistol and the silencer from the drawer and start screwing it on.
“Angelo!” Levi yells, running over to the desk. “What are you doing?”
I grin savagely. “What does it look like, mio fratello? I am dealing with our Albanian problem.” Even talking is difficult. My words tremble with anger.
“This will start a war,” Levi warns. “Do not do this. Angelo, think. You can’t let your anger get the better of you. Shit, shit, fucking shit.”
I attach the silencer and return to the Albanian, pressing the gun against his forehead.
“Move your feet,” I tell him.
“My f-feet?” he blubbers.
I nod at the rug. “That rug costs more than your life. I don’t want to get it dirty.”
He shuffles his feet. Wordlessly, Felice picks the carpet up and carries it to the other end of the room. He returns to the Albanian, gripping his arm so that his body does not fall backwards into the glass when I am ready to pull the trigger. It’s not the first time he has helped me execute a man.
“Angelo,” Levi is practically begging now. “We can’t do this. We can’t start a war because of an—an infraction like this. I understand you’re angry. The man deserves punishment. But we can’t just kill him.”
I prod the Albanian in the head with the gun. “Do you think the De Maggio name is a joke?” I rasp quietly. “Do you think Carlo De Maggio is a fucking court jester? Is that it? Eh? Speak.”
“N-no,” he whines. “Please. I have a child. A son. His name is Driton.”
“Angelo,” Levi says. “Please.”
I stroke the trigger lightly, not pulling yet. Maybe three pounds of pressure out of the five required to end this miserable worm’s life. I feel like my brain is going to burst out of my skull. Thinking is difficult.
Then I snap.
I crack the gun across his jaw and fall on him, hitting him two, three, four times more in the face.
Only then can I relax enough to stand up and wipe my bloody hands on my shirtfront.
“Felice, get this fucking rat out of my sight. If he’s seen in this club again, he’s a dead man.”
I return to my desk and start unscrewing the silencer as Felice drags the mostly unconscious Albanian out of the room.
“That was the right decision,” Levi says. “But even beating him is risky.”
“Enough,” I tell him. “Shut up and give me a fucking cigarette.”
He lights it and hands it over. I take a drag, but it brings me no pleasure. I drop it into my glass of water where it extinguishes with a hiss.
10
Dani
When I have returned home from an endless shift—when I’ve seen kids OD and mothers holding their babies by the side of traffic collisions; when, in short, I’m so tired I think I could cry—I sleep like I’m dead.
But that also means I wake up like I’m coming back from the dead, complete with gasping and yelling. Especially when someone decides that calling me at midnight is a good idea.
I roll over and see that it’s Ricky, which immediately makes a pit open up in my belly. Ricky never calls me. It just isn’t something we do. Which means that, if he is calling, something is very, very wrong. Or maybe I’m just letting my imagination get the better of me.
“Yes?” I answer in a daze.
“Dani?” he blubbers. Oh God, he’s wasted. Music thumps in the background. My imagination was completely justified, I sense. The pit in my belly grows teeth. “Dani, something’s wrong. We need a ride. Wyatt’s freaking out on me. I’ll lose my job. Man, I’ll lose my job. Fuck! Can you get here?”