When the video was over, I asked, “What do you want, you piece of shit?”
Sal smiled, glad to have arrived at the crux of his lesson for tonight. “Take care of LC,” he replied as he broke off a piece of focaccia bread and dabbed it in the bottom of the soup bowl. “That’s it. And your dear, sweet Mariah’s returned to you unharmed. It’s really quite simple.”
“I want my daughter, and I want her now,” I growled.
“And I just told you what you need to do. Capisce?”
I tried to appeal to reason. “I don’t know shit about killing someone. They’ll just wind up killing me instead, and then we all lose.”
“No. You’re too brilliant, boy. You’re close to them. You’ll figure out something, and they’ll look to you to steady things in the aftermath.”
“I won’t. They’re my family.”
“Bullshit. You’re nothing like those common street thugs and drug runners. LC has always been nothing more than a petty crook with delusions of grandeur. A wannabe king who won’t admit he’s still a stable boy. Besides, it’s easy for you to cut ties. You did it with your father all those years ago. Come back to your real family.”
I was reduced to begging. “Please. Just give her back to us. Anything but this. I’m not a killer.”
“Oh, I know that,” Sal said, causing the men on both sides of me to laugh. “That’s why they won’t expect anything from you when it happens. Now, do the right thing. Don’t make me have to show you how a killer acts—at your daughter’s expense.”
Orlando
51
Pop and I stared across the conference room table at one another with horrified expressions. Between us were two phones, neither one providing answers, only a tortured silence. We’d been blindsided from the beginning by Sal Dash and the Italians, and it had most likely cost us the lives of Rio and Paris. I’d wanted to sit in Pop’s chair all my life, but how the hell could I have ever thought I was ready for this? No one was ready for this, not even Pop. It was a dark day for us that I’d surely never forget.
“What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know, Pop,” I replied. “I don’t know, but I think we fucked up.”
“How am I ever gonna tell your mother this?” Pop asked in frustration, as close to tears as I can ever remember seeing him. “And who told you to send Paris out there?”
I knew that was coming. He needed a recipient for his rage, and I didn’t blame him. His eyes were flashing red, like they did when he dealt with Alejandro.
“No one,” I replied, trying not to blink with LC dead in my face. I understood his anger, but I was not the only one to blame for the predicament we were in. “I took it upon myself to undo what you set in motion. That was my brother you sent out there to die! He was your son. Rio was your son, Pop.”
“And Paris is my daughter! Damn you to hell!” he yelled so loud that they probably heard him outside his office, in spite of the soundproofing.
I could tell he wanted to hit me, but he put some distance between us before things got physical. He was a tough old man, but without a piece of steel, he couldn’t take me—unless I let him, and I was no longer willing to let him. I think he knew that.
“What is it with my children no longer listening to me? Why do they think they can do whatever the fuck they want?”
“I can only speak for myself,” I started, “but your children are no longer children. We’ve grown up. You have to see that. Would you even be having this conversation with V—”
“Shut up!” he bellowed. “Just shut your mouth, boy.”
The conference phone rang, interrupting our heated battle. There was a moment of hesitation between us. I didn’t know if I should pick up the phone or defer to him. He looked down at the phone and then to me, sending a silent message that it was up to me now.