All over again, guilt swamped Mac at the sight of the young man wrapped in bandages, a tube shoved down his throat to keep him breathing, and his body prone with little life.
Luca sat at his son’s bedside, a phone to his left, and a cup of to-go coffee in his hand. His gaze never left Enric as Mac entered. The lights were dimmed in the room, and other than the noise of the machines, there wasn’t much else to hear.
Mac let the door close quietly behind him, though he didn’t think Enric could hear it either way.
“They induced a coma during the surgery,” Luca said quietly as he studied his son’s lax features. “He was under too much stress—his body wasn’t handling it well.”
“I’m sorry, boss.”
Luca took a minute to reply, and when he did, it wasn’t in response to Mac’s apology. “The cops have been around asking questions. I know they had you down at the precinct as well.”
“The cops are a fucking mess.”
One they really didn’t need.
“Two FBI agents showed up about an hour ago,” Luca added.
Mac cringed. “So there is something going on there, too.”
“Seems so. Although, I have no idea who is feeding them information. I’m worried—I know something is going to happen, and I’m helpless to stop it because I don’t know who or why. I’m failing. I had one job in la famiglia, and I’m failing horribly.”
Mac was all too aware that a boss’s main job was to protect his men, and his family. It wasn’t Luca’s fault that things were falling apart at the seams. It wasn’t his choices or actions that put all of this into motion.
“We’ll figure it out,” Mac eventually said.
Luca nodded, finally giving Mac his attention. “Your wife, where is she?”
Mac’s throat closed, the reminder that Melina was still in the wind, stuck as a victim of his father’s crazy plan. “I don’t know, boss.”
“Enzo said—”
“Enzo answered a lot that I didn’t know,” Mac interjected quickly, “and I apologize for thinking he was involved in some way with the attacks.”
Luca smiled thinly. “Enzo is a good man. Well, as good as we made men can be, that is.”
“I am sorry about Enric. I didn’t mean for him to be caught up in all of this like he was. I thought whoever it was wouldn’t be stupid enough to attack me again in such a public way.”
“Desperate men …” Luca trailed off, his brow raising as if to allow Mac to finish the sentence.
“My father has been desperate for a long time.”
“Seems he found others who are just as desperate to work with him. The better question is why, Mac.”
Mac nodded, wondering that himself.
Although, if he were honest, he didn’t think he had to ponder on it all for very long. From the very moment Mac had gained any kind of traction in la famiglia, a feat his father had never managed to do because of his shitty lifestyle and terrible choices, James Sr. had been far too interested in his son’s business and where he was going in the mafia. He’d made that clear on more than one occasion.
“I think it was because of me,” Mac said.
Luca’s attention was back on his son, then. “Continue.”
“I think he wanted me to move up in Cosa Nostra, and his way of making me do that, was to force me into it by causing problems like he did. Problems that have, essentially, made rifts and caused trust issues between me and other Capos, and even you, boss. It gives others every reason to come after me, which gives me a good cause to defend myself, opening up seats in the family, we’ll say. That’s my theory.”
Luca sighed. “That’s a good theory.”
“I should have seen it sooner.”
“No one will blame you for overlooking a man whose greatest priority is getting enough money to drink, Mac.”
That was true enough.
“I need to find my wife,” Mac said. “Right now, that’s my main goal. I think the bomb was meant to kill her, if nothing else, to push me into a situation where I attacked someone—probably Enzo—without really thinking about what I was doing. It’s likely that James Sr. might have thought Melina, or even my enforcer, saw him that night outside of the club, and so the desperation came into play, forcing his hand to take my wife.”
“You think he’ll kill her, rather than keep her for a while,” Luca said.
Mac swallowed the lump forming in his throat. “I know he’ll kill her.”
And his child.
Unknowingly, sure, but it would also kill his child.
“What are you asking then?” Luca asked.
Mac passed Enric a look, knowing this would be the hardest request he ever made of his boss. Here he was, watching a man grieve and pray over his injured son, and he was about to ask that same man to give him permission to force information from another man’s son by any means necessary.
“Spit it out,” Luca said after a long moment of silence.