“No, Gino, this is
“Do you think you can handle this alone? We don’t need you fucking up our new deal.” Gino pulled over and looked at the dashboard clock. The green numbers read 1:48, and something wasn’t right. Rodolfo’s men weren’t the middle-of-the-night, clandestine type.
“I’m not the fuckup in the family, so shut up. Just forget I called and forget our deal in Biloxi. I’ll handle this myself.”
“Stephano!” Screaming his brother’s name did no good. The connection was dead. Gino immediately dialed Stephano’s number to find out where he was, but didn’t get an answer. “You stupid bastard.” Gino called his two other brothers. If he was right, they didn’t have much time before Stephano was lost to them forever.
Francis was in for the night and couldn’t leave without raising their father’s suspicions, so Gino tried Michael next.
“Just get out and look for him, Michael,” he said as he drove to Stephano’s favorite club.
“I told you two I don’t want any part of this business until you come clean to Papa.”
“Fine, but if something happens I’ll be sure and let the old man know how helpful you were.”
Gino slammed on his brakes in front of the club and asked the bouncer if he’d seen Stephano, getting a head shake no.
“Where are you, little brother?” Out of ideas about where to look, Gino drove to his mistress’s house, intending to leave his phone next to the nightstand in case Stephano needed him.
His instincts told him Stephano needed him more than ever, but he was out of his reach now.
*
The silence closed in on Stephano as soon as he shut off his engine in front of the abandoned-looking place. As he checked the address he’d scribbled on his bar napkin, all he could hear were the ringing phone and some slight clicking noises coming from the engine as it started to cool.
Stephano stood outside his car ignoring the phone and dismissed any fear at meeting at such a peculiar location and time, not wanting to jeopardize the connections driving his lucrative business dealing on the Mississippi coast. Family loyalty was one thing, but this was business, and that, his father had always taught him, came before anything else.
The closest structures were abandoned tenement buildings Stephano figured were used as crack houses. Adjusting the semiautomatic in the small of his back, he summoned up the swagger in his gait and strode to the door, which had opened when his car alarm chirped.
“Let’s get this over with. It’s damn late,” he told the guy at the door. In the faint light coming from the street, he could see his earlier guess was right. Homemade pipes littered the floor, evidence that the local dopeheads visited frequently after making a score. “Where’s Manuel?” Stephano asked without giving the first guy he passed another look. Manuel Cusso was the guy Rodolfo had entrusted the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida territory to. He was always straightforward during their dealings, and they’d formed a friendship along the way. That was why this meeting seemed so strange.
“In his condo in Miami, if I had to guess, but then again I don’t give a fuck about the people you keep company with, little man.”
The familiar voice chilled Stephano more than the hands pressing him roughly to the wall in front of him. After a few pats along his body, he was relieved of his only weapon, then pushed roughly into a chair almost in the center of the room. Another, much cleaner-looking one, sat a few feet in front of his, and its occupant looked like someone waiting for a cup of coffee. He’d always envied the cool demeanor.
“Comfortable? This won’t take long, but I don’t want you to be miserable during our talk.” Cain uncrossed one of her long legs and kicked a crack pipe in Stephano’s direction with the tip of an expensive shoe. “Do you ever stop to wonder what drives someone to get hooked on something that’ll ruin their life? What prompts them to sit in rat holes like this and spend their days sucking on crap like that?” She pointed to the pipe at Stephano’s feet.
“You dragged me here to ask me that?”
He winced involuntarily when someone jerked his arms back and tied his hands together. He tried not to show either pain or fear, because he was in the deep end of the pool and a shark was swimming lazily toward him. Stephano’s dreams about dying at home in his bed after a long life were rapidly dimming.
“It’s a rhetorical question, so no, that’s not why you’re here.”
“Cain, you have to know if you hurt me, my father’s going to bury you. I never figured you for stupid.” Stephano shifted to find a more comfortable spot, and a few creaks escaped from his chair.
The laugh that bubbled up from Cain’s chest chilled him. “Thank you for the compliment. At least I think it was a compliment. Stupid is something I try to avoid at all costs. Stupid gets you dead. Stupid gets you caged in some penitentiary. Stupid gets you tied to a chair someplace where no one of consequence will ever find you.” She crossed her legs again and cocked her head slightly to the side as if studying him. “The question is, do you know why you’re here? Is it because of greed or stupidity? Or perhaps a little of both?”
“Come on, Cain. I know you. What do you have against me? You wouldn’t kill someone because of their last name, would you?”
“Please.” Cain cocked her head to the other side, only this time she frowned. “You’re not going to sit there and act innocent, are you?”
“You’re the head of your family. You know what that’s like. My father’s no different from you. The grudges between you two have nothing to do with me. Just like all these goons standing around here, I was following orders.”
“So you were following orders, or did you feel some overwhelming compulsion to hang out with Blue? I didn’t realize your charity of choice was to give large cash donations to gamblers with shitty luck.” The laugh came again, and again it gave him no comfort. “But enough about that. Blue’s a
“Why are we here?”
