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I kiss him one more time before he starts driving again. We stop a few minutes later, and I realize we’re on the other side of the oasis. He must’ve driven a large loop around the block.
Matty’s standing nearby, looking around innocently like nothing’s happening.
I get out and watch the truck disappear around the corner before I turn and glare at the young guard. “Don’t you dare say anything.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Stefania.” But his grin says enough.
I point at him. “You can call me ma’am now, dick.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I march past him and back to the house. Once inside, I stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom, and touch a streak of red on my cheek, and notice more red on my hands where I was touching Davide.
Some stranger’s blood. It would bother me, but I just wash it away with soap and water, making the sink turn pink. I’m normal. I’m totally normal. I’m so normal, I should get a little yappy white dog.
Chapter 24
Davide
The driver knew nothing and he paid an ugly price for it. I took most of his fingers and three of his teeth before I was confident that he had nothing to do with the gun heist.
Which leaves only Santoro as the primary culprit.
“This is an escalation,” Simon says as we sit in my truck outside of a benign-looking office park in a quiet part of the Chicago suburbs. There’s not much out here except fast food chains, decaying malls, crumbling auto factories, and the people that refuse to walk away from the homes they’ve known all their lives.
“You’re right, it’s an escalation.” I lean forward, studying suite number 305. The name above the door reads “Perfect Properties” but that’s just a shell. The people inside that place don’t deal with real estate.
“Did father sign off on this?” Simon’s face is hard, and made harder still by the streetlight glow coming from a nearby lamp. Several more soldiers are parked nearby.
“He told me to make sure Santoro never tried something like this again. I interpreted that as him giving me his blessing.”
Simon sighs and leans back. He’s been groomed to take over the Famiglia one day since he was young, and he views rules and regulations much differently than I do. For him, what father says is iron-clad law, while for me it’s more like a pretty good suggestion, so long as I’m working with the organization’s best interests in mind.
“Have you thought this through?” He looks at me and his eyes roll to my burned hand. I pull it away and tuck it against my side, out of his sight, and force myself not to get angry. He’s asking because he’s worried about me, not because he thinks I’m weak and can’t handle this, but it still sets off a whole chain of insecurities and anger that I’m still not equipped to deal with, even after all this time.
“I’m fine,” I say and it comes out harsher than I wanted. “Worry about the mission.”
Simon sighs. He’s probably used to me acting like this, and I wish that weren’t the fucking case. I wish I could stop feeling like the metal bars of my cage were still there, like they haven’t gone away since I was twelve years old, but I haven’t been trapped in that nightmare in a very long time. I don’t have to keep going back to that place.
“If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right,” he says and checks his phone. “I want the whole place gone. You hear me? But nobody gets killed.”
“That’s asking a lot.”
“Arson is one thing, but bodies bring on real heat. Nobody dies. You hear me?”
“Understood.” I kick open my door and get out. “Send the signal.”
I head to the bed of my truck while Simon flashes the high beams. I pull back a tarp and grab a gas can, hefting it up and carrying it toward the suite. Other men get out of their trucks nearby and do the same, and Emilio takes the lead, hurrying up to the door ahead of me.
“Ready?” he asks and takes a small cannister from his back pocket. It’s the size of his fist with a tab at the top. I look over my shoulder and Simon’s lurking at the back of the grounds, looking back toward the main road, watching for bystanders.
“Go,” I tell Emilio and pull a medical mask over my face. The rest of the men do the same.
Emilio rips the tab on the smoke grenade and throws it inside before putting on his own mask.
Nobody follows. Smoke hisses and pours from the cannister. There’s some shouting from the suite and the workers begin piling out talking anxiously about a fire. They’re mostly young, mostly white, though there are a few older folks mixed into the group; as soon as they see us, they start to panic. Emilio’s men herd the employees away at gunpoint, barking orders at them, and the whole restless crowd is forced down onto their knees in the parking lot. Once the smoke starts to dissipate, I force my way into the building.
This must’ve been a normal business at one point. I can still see the outlines of the cubicles, where the receptionist probably sat, the little corner office for the boss. Now it’s all one big, open room with rows of computers and headsets, most of the monitors still on, the microphones thrown on top of the keyboard. The smoke’s rough, but the mask helps filter some of it out as I begin splashing gasoline all over the place.
