Boss (Chianti Kisses #2) (14 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I left a few of the security team members back at the main house, but every other one of them has been brought out to the country house. The intruder was most definitely looking for me last night, but I won’t take a chance of a second attempt with someone I love getting caught in the crosshairs.

Each and every one of them are settled in, the kids catching up on the sleep they missed last night, the adults reminiscing around a table of coffee cake and cappuccino, telling stories of Nonna. Reliving her funniest moments, retelling their fondest memories.

I slip away to the master bedroom, trying Carmine’s cell phone once more along the way. Still no answer. This is looking worse and worse for him. Once I’m satisfied that he won’t be answering, I don’t bother to leave a voicemail. Instead, I call Joe, one of my dad’s old employees.

Joe was in his early twenties when my dad passed and our soldiers had been disbanded. It’s been eleven years, but he’s still young enough to be able to step in for what I need of him. Unlike some of the others, he didn’t move over to another family. He took his payout and opened up an auto repair shop in Brooklyn.

I had been prepared to pull out all the stops if need be, but all it took was a simple request. He took the blood oath he made to my dad, to my family seriously enough to drop everything and come to my aid.

There were a few others just like him that would be eager to help, and so he tasked himself with tracking them down. I hope he has good news. “Joe. Dom here. How’d we do with the recruits?”

“I got six men, Dom. If I had more time, I know I could get more. I know of two that moved to Florida. A plane ride’s gonna be two hours too late,” he proceeds to rattle off the names of the men that have bravely stepped up to protect an oath that most would have abandoned by now. Many of the names I recognize from my younger years. Men that can be trusted. Men that follow the old ways. Honor, silence, or Omertà, and respect.

“How long until they’re ready, Joe?” I ask anxiously.

“They can all be here at my shop by noon,” he volunteers.

Finally, something in my favor. “Good. I’m heading back now. I want to hit the pizza shop at dusk.”

We have a plan. I have men behind me. I’m all set to go. The only thing left is to tell V that it’s time for me to leave.

~*~

“You can’t know that for certain Dom,” V fixes my collar.

“I do know it, V. After everything that brought us together, there is no way this can be the end. I’ll come home to you as soon as this is all settled. Just… just hold down the fort until then.” I try my best to hide my nerves.

She cracks a fake smile. We both hold the pretense, pretend as if everything is normal. I wonder if this is how it was for my Mom and Dad back in the day? If he would tell her what she wanted to hear. If she would try her best to smile to set him at ease, while deep down they were both just trying their best to keep the other one calm.

“You know, it hasn’t escaped me that everything was perfect when we were away on our honeymoon. None of this became real until we got home,” I make a point.

She’s finished working on my collar and now proceeds to smooth out my tie. “Is that so?”

I smile. “Yup, and that means we should go away, take another vacation, where everything can be perfect again. You know, where the biggest decision to make is whether or not I let you come first.”

She laughs. Not a fake laugh like the little smiles she’s been forcing for the last few minutes, but a real laugh. “I think that’s called a babymoon.”

“
Babymoon
? Why don’t you get started on booking that?” I hope she takes me seriously.

Now that my collar and my tie are perfect, she moves her hand to my cheek. “You be careful DiBenedetto.”

I move my chin just enough to kiss the palm of her caressing hand. “Babymoon here we come.”

~*~

It’s no easy feat to call a meeting of the commission. It’s not like they’re all on speed dial. In fact, the head of the Marchese family is in federal prison for the next twenty seven years. His Consigliore sat in for him today. It took every ounce of proof I have to get their approval to move against Rizzo and Moretti.

They wouldn’t outwardly approve a hit, but at this point if things were to go awry, at least I’ll have it on my side that the commission sent me with their blessing. Even if it turns into a blood bath.

“We ready, Boss?” Joe asks me. He’s much more experienced at things like this than I am, but appreciate the show of respect he gives by asking for direction, although at this point I’m pretty comfortable with his guidance.

“As ready as we’ll ever be, I suppose.” That’s all he needs. His hand signals in a half circle to the men around us. We split into two groups. Half and half. Joe leads one group while I lead the other.

Joe takes his men around back where they’ll sneak up on Moretti’s guard. I’ll take my group straight in through the front door and march into the back that way. Not much for the element of surprise, I know, but I’m counting on sheer numbers for the advantage today.

Moretti will have a few goons around, no doubt. But we can easily take them if we have to. My guys may not be as young as his, but that also means that my guys have more experience than his. My guys have actually lived through wars before. His have probably only heard tales of them.

The dining section of the pizzeria is scarcely filled this time of night. Those here are having either a late dinner or just a snack. As soon as I file in with my men, the last of us, Pete, or Pastrami Pete as the men used to call him back in the day, turns the generic plastic sign on the from door to indicate that the restaurant is now closed.

He then makes an announcement to the customers. “Sorry folks, we’re closed. Pack up and head out.”

Most of them take the directive seriously enough to follow his suggestion, and they gather their things to abandon their half-eaten slices The one or two that need some additional encouragement get it as soon as Pete moves through and pounds his fists on their tables hard enough to disrupt whatever dining experience they were trying to preserve.

Once the last of the reluctant diners has left, Pete proceeds to lock the door and pull down the shade. The aproned men behind the counter stand back with their hands up, not wanting to do anything that could accidentally involve them in what’s about to go down.

“Where’s your boss?” I ask them.

One doesn’t speak, he only darts his eyes toward to back of the store, behind the kitchen doors. The other one doesn’t speak at all.

“Consider yourselves off for the rest of the night. Get lost and don’t come back.” They don’t hesitate to walk slowly from behind the marbled food display and exit through the main entrance, with Pete letting them through. He then stands guard right next to that same door.

The other two men and I continue through the kitchen and back toward the main office. Joe meets us with his men from the other direction. They’re down one man from what they started out with. He’s most likely guarding the back door, the big goon that was posted there earlier, or both.

We leave two men in the kitchen area to guard the middle of the building in case someone breaks past the guard at either entrance. The main office area is down a short hallway, the door closed.

This is my fight, so I take up the lead. I’m not about to ask any of these men to give their life for me if I’m not prepared to give it for them. I don’t knock on the door. I simply open it.

Moretti practically drops his fork onto the china plate set out on his white table-clothed round table. Rizzo sits opposite him, and chokes on his meatball as I enter, gun drawn. The other diner at the table happens to be none other than Carmine.

Three for the price of one. It’s my lucky day.

“Dom? What’s going on?” Moretti asks aloud, taking painstaking effort to seem calm.

“Hands on the table, gentlemen.” I instruct.

Carmine is the first to obey, with the other two hesitating and sharing conspiratory looks. They do, however, apply their hands palm down on the tablecloth.

“This is crossing a line, Dom. How dare you come in here like this.” Rizzo accuses. “How dare you show such disrespect.”

I laugh harshly. “Respect? Like the kind of respect that hit-man showed me last night?”

“What’s he talking about? What hit-man?” Carmine asks Moretti.

Moretti pacifies Carmine, his soldier, with his hand, making shushing motions as if the topic is unimportant. Rizzo clenches his jaw, angered that he’s on the open end of a pistol. It’s been a long time coming.

“I think this has gotten out of hand, EJ. I can no longer support this kind of behavior. You’re sending hit-men into peoples home now?” Moretti questions his dinner guest.

Rizzo looks shocked. His mentor, his savior is now throwing him under the bus. It’s obvious why I’m here and the slippery old man is trying to weasel out of this any which way he can. Sacrificing EJ doesn’t even make him bat an eyelash.

“I want to hear you cop to it. You fucking coward,” I spit at Rizzo.

Carmine looks on in disgust at the rat sitting to his right. He shuffles his chair away from EJ as if he had some sort of contagious illness. I lock eyes with my former
intern
, “Don’t move a muscle.”

He looks truly shocked. “Dom. You don’t think I have anything to do with this, do you?”

I ignore the question. It’s not a priority of mine right now. I turn my attentions back to EJ aiming my gun at his chest. Joe has his own weapon fixed on Moretti.

“You stupid old man!” EJ accosts Moretti. “Don’t even try to pin this all on me. I would have been fine just blackmailing him.”

“Shut up you fool!” Moretti spits out at his accuser. EJ becomes furious with the old man and lunges across the table for his throat.

The action is sudden, and my reflexes quick. I pull the trigger, with the rebound of the handgun giving a pretty good kickback. EJ is hit in the shoulder and recoils back to fall on the floor, clutching his bleeding arm.

Carmine stays pin still, eyeing the situation.

“Whoa! Let’s not do anything rash here Dom. You have enough cause to take him out, but let’s not make this any worse than it has to be,” Moretti begins to grasp desperately for anything to spare his own sorry life.

“Whose idea was it, Hmm? Did he come up with this or did you? You financed it, but who planned it?” I ask the old man.

One again Carmine shifts inches chair, this time to face his employer. “What’s he talking about, Boss? What do you have to do with any of this?”

“Shh!” he commands Carmine. “Dom, I had no idea what he was going to use that money for. I thought it was a construction loan. When I found out what he’d done, that’s when I stepped in to settle everything between you two so this wouldn’t turn out like
this
,” he gestures to the man bleeding out on the floor.

“You son of a bitch! You knew very well what I was going to use that money for,” EJ cries out from the ground.

That’s all I needed. An admission of guilt. I pull back on the barrel of my handgun and prepare to fire again, stepping closer to EJ. I crouch down, pressing the point into his temple.

He’s sweating profusely, shaking, “Dom, WAIT! You can’t shoot! I have information. I can tell you who killed your father in law.”

I freeze. He has my attention and he knows it.

“Who?” I yell.

He catches his breath, his breathing fast and frenzied. “I want your word. I want your word as a man, on your honor, on the honor of your family that you won’t kill me. Say it now, in front of your men,” he eyes the swarm of soldiers behind me.

Fuck!

I hadn’t counted on anything like this. If I follow my original plan, I’ll shoot him and probably never know the answer to the age old question that has haunted my family, my wife’s family for almost two decades.

“You rat!” Moretti calls to him. “You no good, rotten, spineless little rat!”

“Deal!” I swear to EJ. He turns pale with each passing second. The bullet wound isn’t fatal, but the stress of his situation as well as the loss of blood is making him weak. I don’t have much time before he loses consciousness. “Tell me now, or I’ll shoot you in the head myself.”

EJ swallows hard, gulping. “Moretti. He ordered it without permission from the commission. A deal gone bad.”

“You liar!” the accused proclaims.

“Whoa!” Carmine jumps up from the table and steps back. “You lowlife piece of shit!” he shares his newfound opinion of his boss. “I vow nothing to you. You have no honor!”

Joe moves his gun back and forth between Carmine and Moretti while I hold my own on EJ.

“I told you to hold still! Don’t make me shoot you, Carmine!” I’m clear with my instructions.

EJ finally passes out, a limp, pile of bloodied designer clothes at my feet. A loud crashing draws my attention as Moretti makes a move. He pushed the table over, freeing a hidden handgun from underneath it, and aims at me.