Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
“Just you, Larkin, and me.”
“I’ve called an ambulance,” Larkin murmured.
Carina let out a hard breath. “I knew you were counting the minutes between them, asshole.”
“Had a few my own, Carina. Well, the ex did. I managed to be around for a couple of them.”
She stood from the chair slowly. “Don’t call Salvatore yet, Larkin. Not until the family meeting has ended, okay? He needs to see it through today. And he won’t if he knows...he won’t.”
“Sure thing, boss lady.”
27. — hold it...
Staten Island, New York
Nico, Gallo Estate
“Cars are starting to land,” came a familiar voice from behind Nico.
He turned, finding Salvatore. “Let me guess, Big Mike showed up first?”
“Good guess—but no, it’s the Maine family. Between them and Vegas, those’ll be the easiest. Perhaps wary, given the state of things recently, but that can’t be helped.”
“And Big Mike.”
“He’s got a good reason, doesn’t he?” Salvatore returned, standing in the doorway of the study while he fixed a cufflink on his left wrist. “Now that he’s got all that territory from Carcoli. A pretty good deal for him, considering everything.”
“Yeah, and he only needed to lose a handful of men and a dozen properties to get there.”
“That’s business,” Salvatore returned. “And good fucking riddance to yet another problem on my ever-growing list. Anthony, I mean. His brothers will be the next to go.”
Nico didn’t comment. It didn’t matter.
The boss spoke. That settled it.
Salvatore strolled into the study fixing the buttons on his blazer and eyeing where Nico stood near the windows. “You should pick a chair and sit.”
Nico didn’t move. “Rather not, if that’s okay.”
“We will all be sitting today, that is the point of having a sit-down meeting, son.”
“I’d rather not,” he repeated, “if that’s okay.”
Salvatore said nothing as he made his way to the massive round, oak table. Passing the seats along the right side, he paused to tap the top of each white marble ball sitting in a matching circular base with a hole in the middle to keep the spheres in place.
He wanted to do things differently. Give people a choice, even if there wasn’t one. Or that’s what he told Nico, anyway.
The study had been rearranged over the past week to accommodate what Salvatore intended to be his new normal. He’d kept the desk, but now it had been adjusted to the corner of the room with the windows on one side, and shelves on the other. The sitting area with the white leather couch and chairs remained facing the fireplace, but with less space between them as the glass coffee table had disappeared somewhere. The room now welcomed visitors straight to the round table.
There wasn’t necessarily a head of the table, but Salvatore moved to the far side and sat where he could watch those who would enter the study. Nothing and no one at his back.
Except...Nico. That alone spoke volumes.
“So, why don’t you want to sit?” the man posed to him the longer Nico remained quiet.
“You didn’t a lot of the time.”
Salvatore snorted derisively under his breath. “First, that came from Giorgio. He deemed it proper for me to stand at his side, or rather, just behind his shoulder until he was ready to dismiss me.”
“Second?” Nico asked.
Salvatore glanced back at him. “Pardon?”
“You said first, so there must be a second thing.”
“Ah, yeah. The more important one.”
“More important how?”
Salvatore’s shoulders lifted beneath the black blazer that was a sharp contrast to the black, ripped jeans and the staple hoodie Nico wore. The man hadn’t told him to dress any differently than he usually did, so he made the judgement call. Besides, Nico thought it mattered that the first impression he gave the round table of made men was the same motherfucker they should expect to see any other time he rolled his ass up to chat.
He did fancy when he needed. He didn’t give a fuck otherwise.
“More important because I want you to take it in, kid,” Sal eventually replied after taking out the only marble at the table that wasn’t white to spin against the top. The black marble made a rumbling noise as it turned and turned and turned. Salvatore stopped it suddenly and tossed it with a loud plunk back into the base he’d taken it from. “Really take it in, and act accordingly.”
“Okay.”
Salvatore’s advice had yet to fail Nico.
“It’s unnecessary, and frankly, a losing battle, for you to try to be me,” Salvatore murmured, never turning around to look at Nico as he spoke. “You’ll be chasing a ghost that you’ll never reach if that’s the goal. That man came from survival, and nothing more. It’s what made him.”
“Do you know what it looked like to me, though?” Nico asked back.
Salvatore cleared his throat. “Hmm, what do you mean?”
“Me and probably everyone else,” he added, then.
The man did turn at that point. Slightly. Enough to peer over his shoulder with amused eyes tracking Nico’s fidgeting fingers that wouldn’t leave the strings of his hoodie alone. He needed something to do when there were so few things happening in the moment to sharpen his mind on.