“Luca — this isn’t helping.”
“She needs to remember.”
“And if she dies in the process? Loses her freaking mind because she wasn’t ever supposed to remember in the first place?” I shouted.
“Nixon.” Trace shook her head slowly. “I think it will help.”
“Mo?” I was grasping at straws, waiting for one of the girls to say something, waiting for one of them to say it would be too hard for a girl to talk about things that were better left buried in the ground.
“His voice sounded like gravel,” Mil whispered against Chase’s chest. “He was really big. And his mask…” She shuddered. “I saw his eyes.”
“What color?” Frank asked.
“Blue. Like ice.”
Sergio swore.
“Dead.” Luca lifted his glass into the air as if cheering our demise.
“Why does that make us dead?”
“Because it seems our Capo has decided that he doesn’t want the sins of his past to come out. Seems he’s hell-bent on destroying anyone close to the girl, including us. And believe me, he’s good at what he does.”
“He’s been in retirement,” Frank offered.
Luca snorted. “We retire when we’re dead and buried.”
“Something’s not adding up,” I said. “Why not kill her? Why keep her alive all this time?”
“Oh, Nixon.” Luca swore. “Sometimes I wonder about you, kid.”
“I’m not a kid.”
“You are a child.” He spat. “And the Capo knows you’d do anything to protect your love, as well as your family, including Chase and his new bride. By default, that means I must protect my family, which now includes all of you as well as Frank, the bastard, and Tex.” He swore again. “Perhaps he’ll bury us together.”
“That won’t happen,” Tex said in a quiet voice. “I won’t let him.”
“You won’t let him?” Mo all but shouted. “What are you going to do, Tex? Waltz into the airport, fly your way over to Sicily, and kill him?”
“I won’t have to.” Tex licked his lips. “My bet’s on him being here.”
“So you plan on doing what? Putting his number in your phone and tracking him with GPS?” Mo was all up in his face, her lips trembling as she waited for his response.
“I won’t have to.”
Luca raised his hands to his temples and massaged. “He has yet to find us. But he will. The best we can do is be ready.”
“Ready?” Trace repeated.
“For war.” Luca nodded. “Many lives will be lost. If we survive, and that’s a giant if, I plan on leaving you crazy Americans and going back to Sicily. I’ve had enough inter-family drama to last me a lifetime.”
I listened as everyone began talking at once. And then an idea hit me.
“How much money do we have altogether?”
Frank laughed. “You must be joking? We could buy the US outright, pay off the debts, and still be sitting nicely.”
Luca rolled his eyes. “While I wouldn’t go that far, we are quite nicely settled, why?”
“We order a hit.”
Luca began choking on his wine while Frank patted his back. “You’ve lost your damn mind!”
“No.” I grinned. “We offer twenty million.”
“Twenty million?” Trace sputtered. “Dollars?”
“No. Goats,” Tex interjected. “What else would we give them?”
I sucked on my lip ring and laughed. “Tell me his own right-hand man won’t be jumping at the chance to shoot that bastard in the face. Tell me his wife won’t try to kill him before the week’s up. Tell me we won’t have half the mafia after him.” I leaned in. “Hell. Tell me the half of Sicily won’t fly into New York by Friday and take care of it for us.”
“To order a hit of that magnitude is a death wish.” Luca swore.
“As you said.” I shrugged. “We’re already dead.”
“I can do it,” A small voice said. I looked over at Mil, just because I wasn’t sure it was her talking or if my imagination was running wild.
“Do what?” Chase pulled her away from his chest and tilted her chin toward him.
“I’ll spread the news.”
“And you think you can do a better job than us on ordering a hit?”
Mil grinned, probably for the first time in hours. “Oh, I know I can.”
“How’s that?”
She shrugged. “I am the De Lange boss.”
“And an hour ago we thought they wanted you dead. Your cousins had his branding.”
“They were probably given no choice. Either kill or be killed. The only reason he would brand them would be to mark them,” Mil said slowly. “My family is your only hope to get out of this alive. He won’t expect it to come from me.”
“The element of surprise,” I muttered with approval.
“That…” Her mouth tilted into a smile. “…and my family’s been dealing drugs to the Mexico cartel for the past ten years. This shit’s going to go worldwide. The connections go into the Irish and Russian mob — weapons dealers.” Mil swallowed. “I’m not telling you all of this so you hate my family even more, but to show you they’re desperate. I mean, last I heard they were going to sell all you guys out to the feds. What if I give them a truce?”