I was halfway to the exit, finally deciding I wouldn’t be able to concentrate until I went to her, when a man I’d only met in passing came sauntering through the door. Like me, he wore a suit, though his was of the three-piece variety, a long wool coat, and a Rolex, but there the similarities ended. Stocky and a head shorter, he had a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Everest.
The last time I’d seen him he’d been subduing Alessandro before pistol-whipping him hard enough to knock him out altogether. It’d been the night his father had murdered mine. And while there was no lost love between me and Angelo, this man had some pretty big balls to strut into my place of business unannounced.
As the second son of Donovan Bianchi, we were of comparable rank. His older brother Dario would take over when Donovan died, just like Luca had taken over for our father. Not that that explained what he was doing here.
“Dante, care to step outside?”
“I’d rather stay in if it’s all the same to you, it’s cold as a witch’s teat out there.”
If this hadn’t been such a public arena, I might’ve broken his neck then and there for propriety’s sake alone. There were certain protocols among the mafia families and showing up out of the blue while refusing to let the opposing leader take the lead on the conversation was a gigantic breach. I didn’t know what Dante wanted to play at, but I didn’t like it.
“To my office, then.” The second I closed the door, I dragged him up by the lapels and threw him against it. “Give me one goddamn reason not to kill you where you stand.”
“Whoa, man, I’m not here to start trouble.” Since he didn’t seem overly panicked, I shoved my elbow into his windpipe to help make my point.
“Really? And why should I believe you?”
“Because I’m coming to you for help, Marco.”
“You’re coming to me for help?” I asked incredulously. Maybe he didn’t have big balls after all. Maybe he was simply a moron.
“Jesus H. Christ, will you let me explain? Sheesh…”
“You have thirty seconds,” I told him, and that was being remarkably generous.
“Fine. Fine. This is a you rub my back, I’ll rub yours kinda situation. I need to vanish, like permanently. Fake my own death, you know? But it has to be good. Believable. And my family can never know the truth.”
I backed up an inch. “Why do you want to fake your own death?”
“Now see, that’s my business, ain’t it? The reason I came to you, is because I’ve got something that could help you. Some intel on my family it’d be impossible to get any other way. With it, you can seize more territory, make ‘em pay for offin’ your dad, whatever.”
“And you’ll provide this if we help you fake your death?”
“No, I’ll provide it if you help me fake my death. In this scenario, it’s gotta be mano a mano. You and me only. No one else can be involved.” He was sweating and gasping, but I didn’t mind watching him suffer. Consider it a little bit of payback for my baby brother’s sake.
“You expect me to do this behind my family’s back?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ve got two words in reply: Fuck. You.”
“No, man, wait,” he entreated me, his tone beseeching. “You don’t understand. You don’t know how good this stuff is.”
“What ‘stuff?’”
“I have all sorts of stuff. Secret connections with the Philadelphia elite. Video recordings of murders being committed. Encrypted online files giving specific details on embezzled funds in million- and billion-dollar corporations. Footage of our human trafficking ring with the names of all the underage girls we’ve prostituted out. The whole enchilada.”
I curled my lip in disgust. As a Varasso, I couldn’t claim much when it came to a moral high ground, but we didn’t treat women like the Bianchis did. Women were to be loved and protected, not to be treated like meat, especially not those who basically amounted to little more than children.
I thought of my niece and her big blue eyes. I hadn’t known how to interact with her when she’d been an infant, but now that she was toddler and my burns had improved, I’d begun to play games with her on occasion. Our favorite game was hide and go seek. She might be horrible at it, but we still had fun.
Imagining the Bianchis getting their nasty clutches on her for use in such a degrading life made my stomach churn. I backed off of Dante, no longer wishing to be in contact with such a vile piece of vermin, even to choke him to death. If I’d had my Glock, I might’ve blown his head off just to be done with him.
“I’m still trying to figure out what good having such information will do me.”
“Leverage, man, leverage. You never know when something might go south without warning and you’ll need a backup plan. Or didn’t Roman Petrella teach you that?”
I stared at him.