Dom turned to his cousin. Felice was usually ice cold and together, but he looked rattled this time. Unsteady. A little pale. Which might’ve been grief, but even that didn’t seem right—Felice was the type to grieve with fists and weapons.
“Well. We’re here.” Corrado inclined his head. “What’s this about, Felice?”
Felice took a deep breath. “I know who killed Biaggio. And… who ordered it.”
Both Corrado and Dom stared at him.
“Luciano had him killed.” Felice exhaled hard. “He didn’t pull the trigger, but he orchestrated it with—”
Corrado backhanded his younger son across the face, sending him stumbling backward. “Vaffanculo! Don’t you dare accuse your own brother of—”
“I didn’t want to accuse him.” Felice righted himself, dabbing at the blood welling up on his lip. “Do you think I would’ve come to you about this if I thought it could possibly be anyone else?”
“How do you know this?” Corrado asked through clenched teeth. “Speak up, or I will—”
“I tracked down the man who shot him.”
Corrado and Dom glanced at each other, then back at Felice.
“Who?” Corrado asked.
Gingerly rubbing his jaw, Felice said, “It was the Georgian.”
Corrado tensed. So did Dom. The Georgian was an independent contractor who would take any hit if the price was right, and he never missed his targets. Ever. There were rumors he was actually several people working under one name, that he was a team of crack shots and psychopaths, but only a handful of people knew for sure. And like the Mafia itself, the Georgian demanded his own form of omerta—strict confidence that, if broken, meant death.
Felice dabbed blood away from his lip. “I’ve hired him before. For other contracts. I don’t know anyone else who could get that close to a house that secure and make a shot without anyone ever seeing him. Nobody else could’ve pulled off that hit and made it out.”
Dom resisted the urge to fidget. He couldn’t make himself run through the logistics of Biaggio’s death and determine if he could’ve pulled it off as cleanly as the Georgian apparently had.
“So you’ve spoken to him?” Corrado asked quietly. “Directly?”
“No. He’s got a handful of liaisons and won’t speak to anyone but them. I’m not even sure there’s anyone else in town who’s seen his face and is still alive.”
“But he killed Biaggio.”
“Yes.”
“And he did it…” Corrado hesitated. “He did it at the request of Luciano.”
Felice nodded slowly.
His father studied him, then straightened and shook his head. “There’s no way to be certain. Not unless—”
“I can show you.” Felice pulled out his phone. He tapped it a couple of times, and then turned it so Corrado and Dom could see the video.
A man knelt on pavement, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and a gun pressed against his temple. Someone held a handful of his greasy black hair so tight it stretched his facial features, and though he struggled, he couldn’t move.
Felice’s voice was tinny through the speaker as he said, “You say you’re one of the Georgian’s liaisons.”
“Y-yes, sir,” the man stammered.
“And my father’s consigliere, who hired the Georgian to kill him?”
The man grimaced. “Please, I can’t—”
“Answer my fucking question, Baltazar,” Felice snarled. “Unless you want the Georgian to see this conversation on YouTube.”
The man’s gaze slid toward the camera, and his eyes widened. He mouthed something, a prayer maybe, and then said, “Luciano Maisano. He… he hired me. Said he’d kill my family if I didn’t take the job to the Georgian.”
“So you took the job?”
“Of… of course. I had no—”
The gun went off, and the man’s skull blew out. Dom winced and looked away, and thankfully, the video stopped a second later.
“You should’ve kept him alive,” Corrado barked. “He had a direct line to the Georgian, you fucking idiot.”
Felice scowled. “And you wanted him to stay alive after he took the order to the Georgian to kill Biaggio?”
“If it meant he could help us find the fucking Georgian, yes!” Corrado sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Your temper is going to get you killed, Felice.”
“I think my brother is more likely to get me killed,” Felice snapped. “If he’s willing to take out Biaggio, then he—”
“I’m aware of that.” Corrado lowered his hand. “But why? Why would Luciano do this?”
Felice shook his head. “Who knows?”
Dom chewed the inside of his cheek. This didn’t make sense. Luciano wasn’t the hothead in this family. Felice was. Luciano believed in diplomacy and resolving differences over a table, not a pile of bodies.
He cleared his throat. “Luciano loved Biaggio. I don’t—”
“You heard the video.” Felice gestured so wildly with his phone, Dom almost thought he was going to throw it in his face. “He hired the fucking Georgian to take out Biaggio.” He laughed bitterly. “Is that what you call love?”
“Of course not,” Dom ground out. “But something isn’t adding up. Why would he do this? If we don’t know that, then we can’t assume—”
“It doesn’t matter why,” Felice said.