I scraped my sole against the pavement. Tomorrow. Once I did what needed doing—retrieving Valentina and sending her home, solidifying my position—they were all going under my shoe. Simone. Enzo. I would save Lorenzo for last. He would cry for his life, that son of a motherfucker. And he had no wife. No kids. No one would miss the little bastard.
And fuck him. He had been too ambitious from the beginning. Ready to jump in my motherfucking grave as soon as I was gone. No wonder he had a sourpuss on the minute we turned up again. He wanted to be boss? Well, he could be boss between now and when I killed his crew.
My crew.
I scraped again and slipped a little on a stone. The sidewalk was troubled with cracks and upended pieces. I heard the water at the end of the block, crashing constantly. I found myself at a railing overlooking the beach, the sky turning bluer, the goddamn ocean in and out same as always. Maybe I’d drown them.
I had a pack of cigarettes that had travelled with me all the way from Tijuana. They stank, but I pulled one out and lit it, then picked a piece of tobacco from the tip of my tongue. An inadequate distraction.
My father would never have tolerated this nonsense. If he let them live, they’d be doing it with one or two limbs less. A crew was a marriage. Worse. Better. It was a blood bond, and they were breaking it.
The thought of it.
I realized my fists were tight when I started pounding the railing and the vibrations rattled my knuckles. I’d lost half my crew after nearly killing Bruno Uvoli. I never knew if I’d lost them because I went off half cocked over Theresa, or because I was too soft to wipe him from the earth. Maybe neither. Maybe both. But I’d been blinded by two things: the fact that my vendetta for my sister’s rapists was satisfied, and desire for Theresa filling the place where the desire for revenge had resided.
That moment, looking at Bruno with blood running down his face. He’d tried not to cry. I remembered that, because that was what changed me. I had no need for revenge, only a need for her. And his efforts to be tough and not cry or beg? I’d felt myself feeling pity for him, and if I hadn’t known it that night, I knew it standing by the water. She’d been chipping away at my command from day one.
I didn’t want to kill my crew, but I felt obligated to. The weight was my anger, yes, but the need to do something about it was the burden. What if I didn’t do anything about it? What if I got angry without turning the anger into physical action? What if my anger didn’t have consequences?
I’d be killed, for sure. I’d be weak, then dead, because a boss never forgets and only forgives for a price.
I walked back to the house lighter but no wiser. I’d decided nothing but what not to do. The last of my crew was safe from me until I got Valentina.
Theresa and Otto were in the front. He had his phone out, and they watched the screen. Her brow was knotted, and he was rubbing his pinkie space with his thumb. Theresa saw me when I was halfway down the block, and she ran to me, siren hair flying behind her.
“Contessa?”
“They’re saying you shot Paulie,” she said. “Your face is all over the news.”
“Daniel?” I spit the name. “That motherfucker.”
I looked at my watch but didn’t see the time. How foolish would it be to survive all this and end up in prison? I put my hands to my mouth, imagining being separated from her when we’d worked so hard to be together.
She took my wrists. “Let me see if I can take care of it.”
“You? Just you?”
“You can’t go anywhere in daylight right now.”
“Then neither can you. I never told you, there’s a quarter million out for your life.”
“That’s it? I'm insulted.”
“It’s not something joke about.”
“They don’t want me. They have Valentina. It’s probably safer for me away from you.”
She was wrong. Nothing about this world was safe whenever she was out of my sight.
“She’s right,” Otto interjected. “They got Tina, and they’re all holed up in Sequoia watching her.”
“Fuck you, Otto,” I said.