“The well will run dry eventually,” I countered, taking another long pull of my beer.
“Not until the streets we live on are polluted, lives are ruined and people are dead,” he declared.
I stared at him, processing his words before I turned to Riggs.
“Give us a minute, Riggs,” I said, pulling him out of the coma he seemed to be in.
“Yeah?” He asked, looking confused.
“You okay kid?” I questioned, scrutinizing him.
“Kid’s probably got the shits,” Anthony surmised, suppressing a grin. “Just found out his favorite woman will be in town for a few weeks,” he continued, reaching over and squeezing Riggs’ shoulder.
“You got yourself a woman?” Blackie asked.
“Fuck no,” he protested, pointing his thumb toward Bianci. “This fucks crazy mother is coming home,” he groaned, turning to me. “Think you can put someone else on babysitting duty? Me and Carmela Soprano don’t exactly see eye to eye.”
“The only eye she sees of yours is the black one she gave you,” I added, laughing through my words.
“Don’t stress it too much, kid. She’ll be too preoccupied to pay much attention to you,” Anthony insisted, glancing down at the table, a small smile working his mouth.
“You got something you want to share, brother?” I questioned, cocking my head to the side.
He kept his head down for a second before lifting his eyes to mine, that smile teasing, his lips widened unable to shake it if he wanted to.
“Adrianna’s pregnant,” he said.
Seeing him genuinely happy, I couldn’t help but smile back at him, it was contagious.
“That’s a fucking beautiful thing,” I reached out and patted his back. “Congrats, real happy for you man,” I added.
“Thank you,” he replied, sincerely.
“Congrats man,” Blackie gritted out.
“Mama Leone is going to be a grandma? Fuck, if I thought she was crazy before, she’s going to be all sorts of bonkers now,” Riggs said, more to himself than the rest of us. He shook his head, rising to his feet, briefly glancing at Anthony. “Congrats on the kid,” he mumbled before heading toward the bar.
I looked after him for a minute, watching as he checked his phone before reaching behind the bar and grabbing a bottle of Patron.
“What’s his deal? He’s acting strange,” I said perceptively.
“Isn’t he always like that?” Anthony asked, looking over his shoulder at Riggs who was taking swigs of the tequila, shouting about a worm or some shit in between gulps.
I shook my head, dismissing any concern over Riggs as Blackie cleared his throat.
“Think we can get back to the task at hand? Some of us have other shit we need to tend to,” Blackie sneered. “You wanted the Bulldog here. He’s here. Now talk.”
Bianci fixed his gaze on Blackie, eyes darkening, a flicker of something he tried to bury in his newfound life reborn. There was no denying Anthony Bianci was once a brutal fuck who wouldn’t think twice about beating the shit out of someone.
“Talk to me, Bianci,” I said, reeling him back in before he knocked Blackie out.
He rolled his neck, sucked in a breath between his teeth before finally pulling his eyes off of my VP and shifting his stare back in my direction.
“Jimmy’s looking for drugs and he’s looking for a large quantity. Remember awhile back you found out he had been visiting someone locked up close to the Canadian border?”
“Yeah, we couldn’t get a name though, wound up being a dead end,” I said, narrowing my eyes as I tried to figure where he was going with this.
“It came to light that the man he was visiting was the man who ordered the hit on Val. The man I was sent to prison to kill,” he revealed. “Don’t know how long they’ve been working together but I wouldn’t put it past Jimmy to have had a hand in the hit on Val. Think about it—Val’s gone, paving the way for Jimmy to become the underboss. All the shit that’s gone on over the last couple of years with Vic; the body being discovered, Rico pulling the wool over Nikki’s eyes, Victor going down and Jimmy finally taking the throne—it all makes sense. This beef with the guy up near Canada started because Vic and Val shut down his operation when he pushed drugs through Vic’s territory,” Anthony continued.
“What kind of drugs?” Blackie questioned.
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.
Poor Bastard.
Still haunted by that shit.
“Heroine,” Anthony declared, eyes moving back and forth between me and Blackie.
Blackie’s hands clenched around his bottle at the word. Heroine robbed him of his wife, his future and his fucking conscience. To say it was a sore subject wouldn’t be right, it was a hard fucking limit.