Sal baulks. “You want us to kill Paddy’s daughter?”
I lift my head, lift my knife—and point the business end at my sons. “You two don’t touch a single hair on her fucking head, you understand? That’s above your pay grade.” I stab the end of the knife into the chopping board in front of me. The wood splinters apart with the force of my rage. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out a folded piece of paper and slap it into Sal’s open palm. “Program this number into your phone. Right now.”
“What is it?” Strange numbers never normally equal anything good, and he knows this better than anyone by now. His fingers still quickly key the number into his cell as he frowns at me, though.
“I have something coming up. Something big that I need a professional to deal with. That number belongs to one of Charlie Holsan’s ex employees.”
“Charlie Holsan? The crazy English bastard that runs Seattle?” Theo asks.
“Charlie Holsan ain’t running shit these days. Guy got stabbed in the neck with a fork from what I hear. No one is running Seattle now, and I want that fucking city. A power vacuum needs to be filled, boys.”
“And that’s the big job?” Sal asks, screwing the paper into a ball and tossing it into the trash. “You want to take Seattle? Why not let us do it?”
I shake my head, pounding a tenderizing hammer into the meat on the chopping board in front of me. Why do they insist on knowing everything? “Kidnap the girl. Bring her back here. Call that number and get the motherfucker on side. Today. That’s all you boys need to worry about. Now get to fucking work.”
ONE
THEO
“We’re kidnapping a teenager. We should be wearing balaclavas and overalls, not fucking Armani suits.” Tugging at the overly starched collar of my white shirt, I shrug my shoulders, trying to somehow make my clothes fit better. I haven’t worn this suit since our mother died. Should have burned the fucking thing the same day. First thing I found when I put on the damn jacket this morning was the folded service program from St. Francis Xavier’s Catholic Church in the breast pocket. That and a pack of six-year-old unsmoked cigarettes. Mom fucking hated me smoking. I’d wanted to light up so bad as they were lowering her coffin into the ground but all I could think about was her slapping me round the back of the head, giving me shit about my life choices. The girls I fucked. The crap I ate. The car I drove. The booze I drank. All of it. I was twenty-three back then and I thought none of it mattered, that I was gonna live forever.
These days I’m far more aware of my own mortality. Knowing I’m liable to get shot in the head at any moment, just like my mother did, hasn’t done much to alter the life choices she disapproved of so much. If anything, the knowledge has probably made them worse. I could die tomorrow. What’s the point in living off salad and drinking fucking light beer when you could be getting your dick sucked and eating steak?
“She’s not likely to climb into a town car with two guys she doesn’t know if they’re wearing ski masks, Theo. She’s more likely to call her dad and have his boys come down to the airfield and pump our ride full of holes.” Salvatore gives me a dry look. His left eyebrow nearly hits his hairline. “We should just execute the bitch on the runway and have done with it. Get her on her knees and then—” He forms the shape of a gun with his right hand, pulling back the action with his left, and then firing. “Pcheeew. Job done.”
“No. No, job not done. Didn’t you hear what Roberto said? He wants her safely delivered back to the house. Not one hair harmed, he said.” It’s been like this forever—Sal wanting to tear off half-cocked, completely disobeying our father, and me, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and holding him back. “You’re not executing anybody. Jesus Christ, Sal. The old man’s unhinged, and we are not invincible. He’s business down to the bone. If he needs to make an example out of us, he fucking will.”
Sal doesn’t say anything. He’s very good at that—keeping his mouth shut when he disagrees with something that’s being said. He holds onto it for days, months, years and then dredges it up, verbatim, whenever it suits him. Usually when he wants to demonstrate that you’re being an asshole or contradicting yourself in some way.
He holds up his cell phone and waves it in my peripherals. “If you don’t want to piss off our father, we should call that fucking specialist, right? The Seattle guy?”