Nico was humping as fast as he could. If he could only get that second wind he believed he could cut through just in time. But Nico was no match for that car, and by the time he made it on the other side, the car easily got away.
By the time Carmine caught up with Nico, the getaway car was swerving around a second corner, and then was clean out of sight.
“Who were they? Sal Gabrini’s people?” Carmine was almost out of breath from the run.
“Not Gabrini,” said Nico, who was still trying to figure it out himself. “Sal would have called me first.”
“Then who the hell would have the balls to take out three more of our guys? Matty Mapp? You think he’d go behind Gabrini’s back?”
“We have to work from that proposition,” said Nico. Then Nico exhaled. “How many members in Peltrone’s family?”
“I would say thirty guys tops. Small.”
“They took out six of my men,” Nico said.
“You’re ordering a hit back?”
“What the fuck you think? They already took out three of our guys. Now three more? And all we got is one of theirs? You’d better believe I’m ordering a hit back. This shit is too lopsided. It’ll be open season if we don’t hit back.”
Carmine nodded. “I agree with that! How many?”
“They took out six of ours. We take out sixteen of theirs.”
Carmine was surprised. “Damn, Boss. That’s more than half their guys.”
Nico looked at Carmine. “Does it look like I give a fuck? Did they give a fuck? Do it!”
“And if Sal Gabrini puts his muscle in afterwards?” Carmine asked.
“Then I’ll put mine in. And we’ll have ourselves a motherfucking war that we didn’t start, and that Sal knows me well enough to know that I’ll fight his ass until it ends. And may the best fucker win.” And Nico headed back to his downed men.
Carmine knew it was pure testosterone talking, which sometimes happened with guys like Nico. But he also knew Nico was always right. They couldn’t let Matty or anybody else get away with knocking off six of their guys. Three were bad enough. Now a second hit? They had to strike back.
And Carmine fully understood the rationale why they were hit again. Nico’s crew knocked off Peltrone, their boss. But the Peltrone family compared to the Bacard syndicate was small potatoes in mob land. Knocking off their boss was like knocking off one of Nico’s lieutenants. Still bad. But not worth going to war over.
Unless Sal Gabrini wasn’t seeing it that way, and the war was already joined.
CHAPTER FOUR
I have to leave the country.
Those were the words he said to her that doomed their relationship, even though she didn’t realize it at the time. She just knew they would find a way to make it work. She thought they would not allow thousands of miles and two continents to put an end to a love affair that they both believed was going somewhere. But because of his background, and because of her political ambitions that were completely counter to the only lifestyle he’d ever known, it was a dream unfulfilled. Because he left and never called. Because he never tried to reach out to her in any way. He let her know, by his complete and utter silence, that it was over.
But he never told her so. That was the infuriating part for Kay. He never allowed her to have any closure. He never gave her a chance to throw a shoe at him or to scream at him or to do the things you do to move on from him. And the inability to have that moment, to let him know how much he hurt her, devastated her. For years.
Now it was ten years later and ten days before the presidential election, and her Driver, a Secret Service agent, was opening the back passenger door to let her out. And Rog had the nerve to tell her the very man that had broken her so completely was the only man that could help her now? What did she ever do, she wondered as she stepped out with a cup of warm coffee in her hand, to deserve such karma?
She walked across the sidewalk, waving but ignoring the questions yelled to her from the roped-off press corps, and entered her massive campaign headquarters in downtown Chicago. Roger “Rog” Pettway, her tall, handsome, African-American campaign manager, met her at the door. But not just Rog. Her press secretary, Tammy Morgan, a small white woman, was there as well. Which only made it all the more clearer in Kay’s mind that they had a major league problem on their hands.
As she picked up her mail from the reception desk and spoke to her campaign volunteers who were manning the phones, Rog and Tammy hovered around her as if, by their will alone, they were going to force her to go into her office as quickly as possible. They were just that intense. And although Kay did her greetings to her faithful volunteers, she didn’t delay either. And Rog and Tammy followed her into her office.
And when Kay walked behind her desk, she got to the point. “How bad is it?”
Tammy exhaled. “It may be unrecoverable, I’m afraid,” Tammy said.
Kay didn’t expect that gloomy an assessment. She expected them to say something on the order that it was bad, but here was what they had to do. But to say it was unrecoverable? Kay tossed the mail on her desk. “What in the world is it?”
Tammy looked at Roger. Rog went over to the door and closed it, and then walked back up to the desk. “There’s a video, Kay.”
“Of what?”
“Of you. And a man.”
Kay knew better than that. “Are you telling me there’s some video out there of my college days with some guy I don’t even remember being with? That’s it? That’s their October Surprise?”
“No,” Rog said. Then an anguished look appeared in his eyes. “We wish.”
Kay hesitated. “Then what is it?” she asked.
“It’s a video of you and Michael,” Rog said. “Michael’s the guy.”
Michael was a man Kay met on the rebound that was problem-prone too. “Are you saying there’s a sex video out there of Michael and I?”
“No, Kay,” Tammy said. And Kay realized in that moment just how anguished Tammy looked as well.
“Then what is it?” Kay asked her two top campaign officials. She was anguished because she had no clue what was on that video.
“It’s a video of you,” Rog said. “It’s a video of you . . . killing Michael.”
Kay couldn’t believe it. “What? Of me what?”
“It’s a video of you, with a gun, going over to Michael and putting a bullet through his head, Kay.”
Kay was shocked. “You’re joking. You’ve got to be joking!”
Neither Rog nor Tammy cracked a smile.
“But that’s not true,” Kay said. “That’s not what happened! Everybody knows that’s not what happened!”
“I know that,” Rog said. “And you know that. Even the police, who investigated Michael’s death, knows it too.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Kay asked.
Rog and Tammy looked at each other. And Kay realized it too. “Oh my Lord,” she said.
“We have ten days before election day,” Rog said out loud what all of them were thinking. “Only ten days. There’s no way we can convince the American people that you didn’t murder your abusive ex-boyfriend in ten days. There’s no way.”