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)
He thought he could still taste vomit. Sometimes. And smell the gunpowder. Sleep troubled him, if he did.
Maybe those things would be made easier if Frankie were there to distract him in all the ways he loved the most, but a part of him knew that wasn’t true. Because those memories, and the way they left him breathless and shaking told a different story. He couldn’t let it go.
“Hey,” came a soft murmur.
Nico thought he could hear footsteps somewhere in the hallway outside the office, so he kept his attention on the door instead of the dark eyes of Salvatore watching him from the chair. “Yeah, boss?”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Sal lift his hand and point to his own temple. “That’s a scary place up there, isn’t it?”
“Lately.”
“I’ll tell you something that it took years for someone to say to me. Don’t sit with it, kid. Don’t walk it alone, either. Don’t spend too much time up there with those things that keep drowning you. Ask someone else to help you swim for a while.”
Nico scoffed softly. “Who? Can’t even call my fucking—”
“Me. Right now, there’s me. Then, there’ll be Larkin. He understands that place, too. And yes, soon you’ll have Frankie.”
The promise of her quieted Nico. His heart, on the other hand...it raged.
“Are you going to attend your cousin’s funeral next week?” Salvatore asked as a pair of footsteps approached the study.
“No. Probably better that I don’t. Why incite something?”
“He was still your cousin. You spent summers with him.”
“He made his choice,” Nico deadpanned.
He meant it.
Salvatore let him have the final word, but only because they had guests. The father and son pair from Maine took in the man at the table and the one at his side first before tracing the rest of the room with studious attention. They wouldn’t find anything. No weapons to make an unspoken threat. No men in black suits, holding guns and wearing balaclavas in the corners like the capos liked to do whenever they had to make a point to their crews.
No, Salvatore stood on something different.
There was strength in silence. A calm confidence. An energy that the man learned and earned. Sure, they would all have a choice today, but the answer shouldn’t be difficult because it sat right in front of their faces. It always had.
Planning for a different outcome? That was just good business.
“I think we’re early,” said the older of the two.
Salvatore simply gestured at the table, unbothered. “Pick a seat; you’re right on time.”
Over the course of the next hour, the remaining made men of the family arrived at the Gallo estate. Each, like the first, were greeted at the front door, escorted to the hallway leading to the study, and then left to make their own decision from there. By the time the table had filled all the empty seats, the silence in the room ticked along with the grandfather clock in the corner. A lot like a bomb.
The second to last man to show up was the only one related to Salvatore. His cousin. The last man to walk through those doors and take the remaining seat available at the end of the table, staring straight at Salvatore and Nico as he sat down, was Carmine.
His partner, Davido, stood at his back.
“And now we can begin,” Salvatore murmured. He wouldn’t waste time explaining why they had all gathered there, nor the reasons he called for them. They already knew. In their business, word traveled fast. For some of these men, Nico delivered the news himself. “My apologies for the fewer seats in the room—although, we’re only down by two.”
Anthony Carcoli. Giorgio. The unspoken names hung in the air.
Nico’s finger tapping at his back sped up, still needing the outlet as his gaze scanned the faces that occasionally found him watching. He didn’t look away when a man’s eyes met his, instead lingering to make sure they felt the way he watched back.
He would find something if it was there.
“Unfortunately, those changes were a seriously needed upgrade to this family’s structure, and I suspect, more than a few of you know why.” Salvatore settled into the chair with a more relaxed posture, eyeing the larger circular marble plate in the middle of the table with enough holes around the rim to fit each marble in front of every man. “For the most part, I would like to think we could all continue our business as we always did, but if for some reason one of you disagrees, now would be the time to voice it so that we can have a proper discussion on the matter and then we can move on to better things. As I’m sure you would all prefer.”
The two from Vegas spoke amongst themselves quietly but settled whatever discussion they had with a nod back and forth.