Dom opened his mouth to protest, but Corrado spoke first.
“I’m afraid Felice may be right.” He absently rubbed his knuckles along the edge of his jaw. “With this war brewing, we…” Sighing, he dropped his hand and shook his head. “We may not have time to question the motives of every man who fires a bullet.”
“So, what?” Dom lifted his eyebrows. “We’re going to shoot back and ask questions later?”
“We can’t show weakness,” Corrado said quietly. “And we can’t let our enemies see that there’s strife within the family.” He wrung his hands gingerly, as if the slow movements hurt his bones. “This is a battlefield now, Domenico. We can’t risk a wound becoming gangrenous. Amputate and keep fighting.”
Dom swallowed. If not for the faint note of sadness in his uncle’s voice, he wouldn’t have believed this was a man contemplating giving the order to kill his own son. In the space of a conversation, the family’s relationship with Luciano had been reduced to a metaphorical wound, a gaping invitation for gangrene, and the only solution was to slice away the rotted flesh. To cut off the once useful limb, the piece that had once helped make up the whole, and move on.
“Say the word, Dad,” Felice said. “After what he did to Biaggio, I’ll—”
“You’ll continue running your businesses,” Corrado snapped. “And if I order it, you’ll take on your brother’s responsibilities until someone else can—” He closed his eyes for a second. Exhaling, he looked at his younger son. “Until someone else can fill his role.”
Felice pressed his lips together, eyes narrow and jaw clenched, but he didn’t speak. Then he swore under his breath and turned away, and as he started pacing across the thick carpet, he snarled, “He can’t get away with this, Dad.”
“That’s for me to decide.” Corrado glanced at Felice’s back.
Then he looked at Dom.
And nodded.
And Dom’s heart sank.
He could barely find the strength to return the nod.
But there has to be another way.
Enough killing. God, enough…
*
If there was another way, Dom couldn’t find it. All mental roads led to the same conclusion—he had a job to do.
He made sure Luciano’s wife and kids weren’t home. His cousin’s staff and security knew him well enough that they didn’t bat an eye when he let himself into the house.
He waited for Luciano upstairs in the bedroom, sitting in the antique chair beside Serafina’s white bureau. This was the part he hated most about every job—waiting. So much opportunity to think about why he shouldn’t do this, and come up with possible alternatives, and dwell on just how far out of reach those alternatives were. This wasn’t a trucker or an indebted immigrant who could be scared into leaving Cape Swan and never coming back.
This was Luciano. A made man. Someone whose death was not ordered lightly and whose execution couldn’t be stayed. Corrado wanted this body found.
This was Luciano. For all intents and purposes, the brother he’d never had.
But Luciano had orchestrated the death of the man who’d been Dom’s surrogate father. By all rights, Dom should have been pacing the floor and cursing his cousin’s name, and he should’ve been looking forward to making this death slow and painful.
But he wasn’t. He couldn’t. As he mentally replayed the video Felice had shown him and Corrado, he couldn’t make sense of it. The man had been threatened and tortured into confessing that he’d conveyed the death sentence from Luciano to the Georgian. And while Dom fully believed the Georgian had pulled the trigger, he wasn’t convinced by the rest of it.
He didn’t need to be, though. This wasn’t a federal court. The man had confessed. No cross examination was necessary. And the murder had all the hallmarks of a Georgian killing. Why would a man accuse Luciano if he hadn’t ordered the killing?
Why would Felice indict his own brother like that unless it was true? Felice and Luciano butted heads like any brothers, but they loved each other, and Felice would’ve burned Cape Swan to the ground if anyone had laid a hand on Luciano. If Felice had no choice but to accept that his brother had arranged Biaggio’s death, then neither did Dom. Especially since Corrado had also accepted it and expected Dom to dispense justice accordingly. Whether agreed with it or not, whether he believed in his cousin’s guilt, Dom couldn’t refuse the hit.
Footsteps in the hallway sent his heart into his throat.
A second later, the door opened. Luciano walked into the room, fiddling with his wallet as he did, but then he froze. Slowly, he turned toward Dom. Even slower, his gaze slid downward to the pistol in Dom’s lap. For a long moment, he studied his cousin and the weapon.
Finally, he toed the door shut behind him with a quiet click, sealing them into the master bedroom.
“They’re blaming me, aren’t they?” His voice was heavy with resignation. “For what happened to Biaggio?”
Dom nodded. “You hired the Georgian to kill him.”