Dark Soul Vol. 5 (7 page)

Marino whispered something that looked suspiciously like “Fuck you.”

“Think about the alternative. Let’s assume your people leave you alive long enough, you’ll be around as a witness. Now,
that
is big news.

National news, maybe even international news. Stefano Marino, so far blameless young playboy, dragged out of his villa, giving evidence in a big mafia trial. They’ll dredge up everything. Everything your father ever did. That your grandfather was on the Commission. Your wife, everybody you rubbed shoulders with. That’s going to be a huge trial, big media presence. Every journalist out there is going to try to dig up more embarrassing little details about you. They’ll find everything—they’ll pick you apart like vultures. Even if you survive all that, your reputation won’t. Trust me, that kind of scrutiny would make everybody look bad, probably even me.” He smiled again.

Marino looked sickened. And who wouldn’t, in that situation?

Sebastiano leaned back, let the man breathe, think, allowed him to absorb everything, every sordid little scenario, allowed him to feel the humiliation, get a taste of the jeering crowd, the long hours in court. Maybe even glimpse prison. But Sebastiano didn’t think that scenario was very likely. They’d take care of a gay boss in their own way. They wouldn’t allow that kind of taint on their self-delusion of honor and uprightness.

Sebastiano was surprised he was actually rooting for Marino to choose life and dishonor over death and honor. Not that his own men would leave him any honor when they killed him. They wouldn’t understand that their boss had chosen that end over singing to the police.

Come on, Marino. You’re smart. Don’t be more honorable than
clever.

“Let’s talk about the alternative.”

“That one’s easy. The whole organization, down to the last man, and you get a nice new identity and nobody’s going to bother you.”

“Witness Protection?”

“Yes, of course.”

“My wife?”

“If she’s jumping ship, absolutely.”

Marino looked at the photograph again. The expression on his face was hard to read. “What about him?”

“Is he part of the organization? Then you’ll have to make a call on his loyalties. Is he fucking you because you’re the boss, or is he fucking you because you’re Stefano Marino? And you better not be wrong when you do make that cal .”

Marino nodded. “Yes, you’re probably right. Hell.” He looked exhausted, but he was keeping it all together quite well. Maybe there were the beginnings of defeat, too, because Marino suddenly looked like a vast weight had lifted off his shoulders. Maybe he’d worked the alternatives through in his mind and was reaching the stage of acceptance.

“We should meet again, what do you think?”

Marino nodded. “Good idea. In case. I need to think about this.

Maybe discuss it with a lawyer.”

“Please, feel free.” Sebastiano offered a card with his phone number. “Call me any time. I understand you might need somebody to talk to. I’ll be there.”

Marino took the card and slipped it into his inside jacket pocket, then stood. The dog jumped to its feet and gave the puppy version of a bark. “You’re gambling high. There aren’t that many bosses who turn coat.”

“No, that’s true.” Sebastiano smiled. “We’re going to make history with this. Up to you to decide whether you’ll be around to see it happen.”

“Not that you have any preferences,” Marino hissed.

“Actually, I do. Just because I’m prepared to see you go down as col ateral damage doesn’t mean I’d prefer it.”

Marino bent down to pick up the dog. “I might not call you back.”

“I’ll give it a week,” Sebastiano called at Marino’s back.

Marino navigated the revolving door with the puppy on his arm, and Sebastiano dropped back in his seat, studying Marino’s coffee cup until it was cleared away, then looked at the photo again. A man who bought a puppy like that didn’t strike him as somebody who’d commit suicide by mob.

Sebastiano smiled. He thoroughly enjoyed watching Marino strangle himself in the noose he’d caught him in. It was
very
therapeutic.

Dark Lie

he thought of that slimy attorney congratulating himself on how Goddamned smart he was was still gnawing on TStefano’s mind when he reached the villa.

We’re going to make history with his.

Asshole had stepped right out of a John Grisham novel. Good-looking man, getting heavy around the middle (“So definitely heterosexual,” he could almost hear Silvio say), black hair, green eyes the color of glass shards worn soft by decades in saltwater. His smile was an actor’s, though: too bright, too pleasant. Still, he had that physical solidity that attracted the weak, the troubled, and most likely a fair amount of women on the hunt for a nice paycheck, a set of broad shoulders, and a good listener. He had that kind of “trust me” vibe. Fucking snake.

Trust me, that kind of scrutiny would make everybody look bad,
probably even me.

That was an interesting thing to say, or should that be “admit”?

Was the bastard daring him to try to dig up dirt? But then, attacking a US Attorney would get him into even deeper trouble. Goddamn it.

He’d walked into that like a beginner, had let the guy play his game, carefully scripted hours if not days before their little conversation.

Fucking bastard. Fucking asshole.

One week wasn’t a lot of time to dig up anything. He had nothing but a name. And few people he could trust with this. He couldn’t even go to Falchi—impossible to trust him to not throw him under a bus when the authorities came cal ing.

This was a surgically precise application of pressure around his neck. And very much a warning: Struggle too hard and you’ll be in a world of pain. Worse. Disgraced. Dishonored. Shamed.

Dead.

Stefano rubbed his face. He would
not
lose his nerve now. He was good at this, too. He had to find a way out. Some way to neutralize that attorney asshole, some way to weasel out of it.

He stopped outside Silvio’s bungalow and noted the late autumnal chill in the air. It was really starting to get cold.

He grabbed the dog by its neck, put it on one arm, and knocked on the door. He probably looked like a complete fool with the cranky puppy squirming against his chest. Hopefully, Silvio was in as he’d promised.

The door opened. “Could have used your keys,” Silvio said, then paused and looked at the dog. If it hadn’t been impossible to read in his black eyes, Stefano would have sworn his pupils had dilated, which was a surefire sign of pleasure or attraction.

“Sorry, had my hands ful .” He jingled the car keys in the other hand.

Silvio blew out a breath. “Okay. Come in.”

Stefano walked in and closed the door behind himself. He turned back to face Silvio and smiled. “I guess this is happy birthday, Silvio.

I’m not singing, you know.”

“What?” Silvio frowned.

“October twentieth. Your birthday. I have it on authority that you didn’t just materialize on the mortal plane. It’s today, twenty-five years ago.”

Silvio grinned. “Weirdo. Thanks. Uh.” He reached out and touched the puppy’s ear, tentative at first, then, still carefully, its neck.

“You’re serious, she’s for me?”

“It’s a he.” Stefano handed the dog over, which squirmed when its paws found no purchase. Silvio stepped up immediately and cradled the dog to him. Stefano thought that was probably the most endearing thing he’d ever seen. He stared at Silvio for a few more moments, then cleared his throat. “I have a bag of stuff in the car. Let me get it.”

“Sure.” Silvio sat down with the dog, and when Stefano returned, bag in hand, the puppy was busy chewing on Silvio’s hand. Silvio grinned, then hissed and playfully closed the puppy’s snout. “No biting.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Stefano said, and the puppy disagreed, too, trying to push Silvio’s fingers away with both his paws.

“I have a pile of chew toys in here.” He set the bag on the kitchen counter and couldn’t stop staring at the man and the dog. There was just something fundamentally right about a good-looking guy with a stupidly cute puppy. “Any idea for a name?”

“Right now, it’s Sharky. Have you seen those teeth?”

“Barracuda and Sharky? Has a ring.”

Silvio laughed. “I guess.” He ruffled the puppy’s coat and looked intently at Stefano. “How did you know?”

“About your birthday? Franco told me.”

“Did he tell you about the dog, too?”

“Yeah, he mentioned you had a golden retriever as a kid. The little guy there has papers and some serious pedigree. Depending how he turns out, you could even go on show with him. Not that I think you would.” Okay, he was babbling. He shrugged. “Hard to buy something for a guy who has everything and doesn’t wear jewelry, you know.”

Silvio nodded. “Thanks. That’s . . . a great gift.”

“I like giving gifts.”
To people I love.
He smiled.

Silence settled between them, only interrupted by something that sounded like a chortle from the puppy. Silvio spread his fingers before its face and the animal grabbed them with both paws and its teeth again.

Just as Stefano was planning to make his excuses and head back up to the house, Silvio spoke. “How’s Donata?”

“She’s spending hours and hours on the phone, talking to her uncle, I think. Maybe his . . . partner, too. I don’t know. We’re currently not talking much about anything.”

“You miss her.”

“I’m just . . . yeah.” He rubbed his neck, then rolled his shoulders.

“I miss her. I’m sleeping in one of the guest rooms, too, so that’s part of it. And I’d feel like an asshole if I just ran away from that. It’s just really awkward. I can’t lose her. But I can’t lose you, either.”
Not after I
finally found you. After all that strife and battle, I think I deserve both.

I think. I do.

“It would be easier for you to just tell me to get lost.”

“I’m not interested in
easy
.”

Silvio frowned, but then nodded. “Especially since you have another war on your hands.”

“I do?”

“Yeah. Remember Augusto Viero’s cal ?” Silvio disengaged his hand from the puppy and leaned forward, rubbing his fingers. “The dead guy? Viero told me he’d been caught by the Russians, tortured, skinned, and then dropped at that meat plant his associate owns.

When I got there, the body was frozen solid.”

“Why are you telling me this
now
?”

“Because it’s bullshit. The cuts were made when the guy was dead.

He wasn’t tortured. Pretty sure he was just executed with a point-blank shot to the neck. I didn’t look that closely.”

Do I want to know why you know this stuff?

“Viero invented a murder so everybody would stay scared. The Russians had nothing to do with it.”

“Okay, I follow you. So why do we have a war?”

“He said you were weak and in that kind of situation, the family needs a decisive leader.” Silvio shrugged. “He hired me to kill you.”

“Shit.” Stefano felt his heart pound in his chest and up to his throat. “You should have told me this sooner.”

Silvio glanced at the puppy. “I could kill them al , you know.

Viero and all the other traitors.”

“How much support does he have, do you think? Who was at the meeting?”

“Enough to play at this shit, not enough to take power outright.

Possibly a couple
capos
. I’ll take them out for you, it’s no big deal.”

Seemed he’d stumbled from one massive bloodletting into the next. For years, nothing like this had happened, and then all this shit hit in just a few weeks.

Sell the whole thing. Sell everybody, and you’ll walk free.

And of course Silvio would do it, and he might even get it all done without being killed in turn. Silvio could somehow wade through rivers of blood without actually getting tainted by all that red.

“How many people have you killed so far, Silvio?”

“Around forty, give or take a couple.” Silvio nodded. “I’ve been productive, Battista always said.”

Adding how many to that? Ten? A dozen? Pushing the number past fifty in any case. To be honest, he didn’t give a fuck about any of those people. Nobody got hit by a
sicario
if he wasn’t a complete scumbag. Well, mostly. Normal people could usually be made to see reason without employing a highly-trained, highly-paid killer. Silvio could easily do it, no doubt. He was capable and ruthless. But there was always the potential that he’d get hit, too. Or that some avenging force or karma would catch up with him eventually.

Speaking of avenging force; not with the Feds in the city. Not with all that surveillance going on. “I’ll think about it,” Stefano said eventually, and received a curious glance from Silvio. “It’s not that I’m weak, but I do need to think about this a bit longer. These are my people. I can’t just execute them on a suspicion.”

“You have to act before Viero tells me to do it.”

“Yeah. I will.” If Silvio received the order and didn’t act on it, the war would ignite, and there would be no stopping it. It would tear everything apart. Stefano pushed his hands in his pockets. “Anyway, there’s food and a water bowl in the bag. A flea col ar and brush and whatever else you need.” Silvio caressed the puppy’s neck. The little thing was stretched out on the couch like it intended to fall asleep.

“What are you planning for your birthday?”

“Nothing much. Was thinking to hit a club or something.”

Get laid. Stefano remembered the two policemen in that nasty place. Was there anything sadder than sex with uncaring strangers on one’s birthday? “Why don’t you settle Sharky in and come up to the house later? We could have a nice meal. Spend some time.”

“And your wife?”

“I don’t know, Silvio. Maybe we should all spend some time working this out.”

Silvio shrugged. “Or I could just go to some club.”

“Right now, I’d feel better if you stay close.” Last thing he wanted was the Feds drawing a bead on Silvio, getting their hands on him and nailing him down for a petty little crime. Silvio in a prison cell—that couldn’t ever happen. “Just come up when you’re ready.”