But then, that alarm had gone off, and I’d realized I was on borrowed time.
So in head to toe black and camouflaged by the newly fallen night, I’d changed position to get the trajectory I needed, pulled out my Remington XP-100 bolt-action pistol, and emptied four rounds into that café. Into the two women sitting at the center of the restaurant.
I’d only taken enough time to see that each had fallen and had then high-tailed it out of there.
That whistle meant more Varasso men were coming, possibly the Crown Prince and/or his brothers, so I’d made myself scarce. It wouldn’t do to go to all this trouble only to be caught.
I’d made my way back to my van, back to my monitoring equipment. I still needed to establish that Molly Greene had become deceased. Once that was done, I’d move on to phase two.
This second phase would be about setting up Luca to take his fall.
I had a story all ready to go. The last time he’d lost his lover, he’d nearly fallen apart at the seams. This time, I’d take him out but make it look like a suicide. Then I’d spin the story. Poor Luca Varasso simply couldn’t handle all this tragedy.
His mother. The mother of his daughter. His father. And now his newest love… It’d all become too much for him to cope with.
So he’d offed himself. Taken his own life.
With him out of the way, I’d begin the final phase.
This phase would entail me sharing my own heritage as a Varasso, with one slight alteration. My mother would be an upstanding citizen who had died six months prior from multiple sclerosis rather than a prostitute who had overdosed ten years ago.
With Angelo’s past infidelities being known, my narrative should prove to be believable. Another dalliance of Angelo’s had produced an alternate heir.
Me.
In terms of age, I was the second son, the second in line to the throne. It only made sense for me to ascend to that throne, to take on that mantle. It was my birthright. My rightful place. Marco and Alessandro had already proven to be accepting of half-brothers if Gabriel Varasso was any indication.
I had no reason to believe they wouldn’t extend that same courtesy to me.
A new brother. A new Crown Prince. This was Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. They’d accept me. And if they didn’t, accidents could happen to them, too. There was a Varasso Curse in action after all. Everyone knew that.
I glanced up from my monitoring screens and through my windshield, looking down at the Varasso estate from my vantage point on top of a nearby hill. I scrutinized all those buildings constructed from mortar and stone, lit by a myriad of decorative and security lights and imagined myself there, ruling over it all.
I would take their billions and claim them as my own. Then, I’d expand into the rest of Philadelphia, using the V
arasso name, power, and fortune to not only become the king of one section of the city, but of every square inch of the place.
Imagining that, seeing it come to fruition in my mind, made me smile.
Victory was so close I could taste it.
33
Luca
“Fuck,” I heard my brothers’ oaths behind me. It’d sounded like the expletive had come simultaneously from all three of them.
Maybe it did. Not that I had the mental capacity to deal with them.
Molly was expecting our child. My child.
I hadn’t known. Didn’t realize. Moments shimmered through my mind, piecing together a conclusion I felt like a goddamn cretin for not already coming to. Molly and I on the gym floor. Molly sick. Molly looking upset. Why hadn’t I seen this before?
But none of that mattered because right now she was teetering on the edge of consciousness, her eyes fluttering shut and not reopening.
The EMTs were working on her as we flew down the busy streets, and though I’d been speaking to her and holding her hand firmly letting her know I was there, she didn’t wake up. I kept calling out to her, even screaming at her to come back to me, but she didn’t.
I didn’t think she could.