Salvatore kisses his teeth, taking in my purge. Should I keep declaring my love for Evan Zaccaro? The Boss’s face is a clear slate. Maybe I’ve dissuaded Sal from setting in motion Evan’s execution, but he hasn’t extended the offer to allow Evan to leave or stay, either. I’m perched at the edge of my seat, and his solider is awaiting an order.
“So, you love Valentino?”
I nod.
“And you’ve never told him so?”
Tears spill down my cheeks as I shake my head ‘no.’ “Evan is a good guy, he’s done nothing wrong. If you refuse to leave me alone, leave him alone, I beg of you.”
“I’d prefer Zaccaro as family. Valentino is a strong enough name, Tino, if he gets in my good graces. I still don’t like this Evan crap. But I believe you,” Salvatore says pointing the cigar toward me.
He finally gives an order to the guy at the door. “Bring Zaccaro to me.”
Then Salvatore nods his head in another direction, “Escort my granddaughter to her room.”
“No,” I glance over my shoulder and there is another man, a man I hadn’t even noticed. He was posted in the shadows, and hadn’t made a single sound. The guy in a suit that molds to muscles comes alive from attending to the wall. Rolling my shoulder away from one of the soldiers, I try to side step him but he grabs my arm firmly. If he wanted, he could squeeze all the way down to the bone.
“Please, Signora Dunham.” His eyes are unwavering.
I expect to pass the front door on our way upstairs, but the man escorts me down a long hallway, studded with candle scones and candid canvas paintings of a confident, happy family. The Giuglianos. At the flight of stairs, my heart sinks.
“Is Sal gonna hurt Evan?” I ask.
The man nods his head toward the stairs. Taking a deep breath, I walk on shaking legs.
In the bedroom, I flee toward the window, and see Evan stepping through the courtyard, there are two men behind him.
“The windows are bulletproof.”
I begin to unlatch it, but the stranger tells me that it’s time to get dressed. Evan is no longer in the window frame.
“I’ll be waiting outside, Reese,” the man says ominously, “It is for your own good that you wash and prepare for dinner, por favore.”
44
Evan
“So, Zaccaro, they tell me you came empty handed?” Giugliano says.
I had chosen at the last moment to leave Vincenzo’s gun beneath the front passenger seat. “Yes.”
“I take that is as a sign of respect.” Holding a cigar, he waves his hand for me to sit.
“Where is Reese?”
“She’s dressing for dinner.” Giugliano glances around the room at one of his soldiers against the wall. “Arrange for a seat for Zaccaro—”
“I’m not staying; Reese and I are not staying.”
“A day ago,” the old man begins, tapping his index finger into the air, “I would have taken your decision to come by my home, this is my home Zaccaro, unannounced as a sign of disrespect. Moreover, I’d suspect your intentions with my granddaughter aren’t— “
“Your granddaughter?” My eyebrows rise, mouth sneered as if that doesn’t sound right.
Salvatore swivels ever so slowly in his seat, though I have the high-factor of standing, he clings to confidence
“As I said, this is not a day ago, Zaccaro, and despite your inability to guard your tongue around me, me the motherfucking Boss of all Bosses, I will take your misgivings as a sign of lack in judgement. Lemme tell you exactly why I thought about our blossoming relationship.” He smiles, “You iced McGregor in cold blood on my granddaughter’s accord.”
My eyelid twitches. He knows about McGregor. Milo’s partner didn’t just happen to be at Reese’s old apartment. The gleam in Giovanni Giugliano’s gander tells me that he personally sent McGregor to suss out my intentions…
“Fuck,” I shouted, on the floor in Reese’s old living room. The karambat knife McGregor had used to dice my intestines has done a number on me. The skin at my side, split even more as I moved into a seated position.
Pure testosterone had begun to siphon through my veins as I gripped the walls and leaped into a standing position. The back of McGregor just slipped out of the front door. As he scurries down the steps in the dark outside, I rounded the corner to the upstairs landing, he was halfway down the stairs as I took my first step.
Dead head of us, and down the long alleyway, a few cars straggled by. At the last handful of steps, I lunged myself at McGregor, he’d just passed the door to the closed for business Flour Shoppe. My hands pressed into his trapezius upper-back muscles, and gravity propels him forward
A clicking sound told me that he had hit his teeth on the ground.
“Get the fuck off of me, Zaccaro,” he shouted, blood flying from his lips.
“Shhh,” I pressed my knees into his back, and gripped the squaring of his jaw with one hand, as my other braced itself at his neck. With a quick swivel of my hands came an eerie cracking sound as his spine dislocated from his brain.
I sat there for a moment and took a deep breath. This was by no far au stretch of the word: self-defense. Even a rookie detective who ran
