Page 149 of The Savage

My every message for the last three days straight has been ignored.

Anger hums under my skin. Hotter now that I’ve heard Giada say it out loud. Now that I know I stood in that burnt-out convent with the woman who killed my mother and didn’t end her.

Orazio takes his chair at the head of the table. Old dog. Old king. Still running the room.

‘We lay low,’ he says. ‘We listen, rely on new and old networks. We don’t bleed on my floors unless it’s necessary.’

‘I say fuck laying low. We know who’s in St Petersburg, and we know that’s most likely where the Madre is headed. Palinski is the way in,’ I say. ‘We should storm his goddamn dacha or whatever the hell they call their shitty houses.’

Orazio glances at me, then at Cesare, who nods.

‘Yeah, he means the father,’ Cesare says slowly. ‘Not Stan Paul, the idiot son who thinks changing his name grants him anonymity.’

‘Yeah, definitely not him,’ I muse. ‘The fucker who tried to kill you in Vegas and we let him breathe. Big mistake.’

Cesare’s mouth twists. ‘Yeah. I chose mercy. Look how that turned out.’

‘Maybe not entirely mercy,’ I muse. ‘It was leverage.’

‘And now?’ Dante asks.

‘Now we use it,’ Rafa slides in.

I pace once. Stop. Keep my voice even.

‘Liv Ivanovski is still making noises, especially in Italy. He’s looking to finger Sicily, and that’s what got Vittore all het up like a nerdy virgin on prom night with his dick in one hand and a hotel key in the other.’

‘But without a girl,’ Dante finishes dryly.

Orazio cracks the hint of a chuckle, then grows serious. ‘How are they doing all this and we don’t know about it?’

I sense – and, I suspect, so do my brothers – that’s where the Madre comes in, but they don’t volunteer the information to our grandfather and neither do I.

The old man has a tendency to drop odd-ball directives when you least expect it. Like the shit with travelling separately, for instance. The last thing I want is for him to put the kibosh on offing the diseased Madre. And as much as I took a vow never to harm a woman, she killed my mother, and she’s come after my girl, the reason for my fucking breathing, one time too many.

I have zero qualms sending her to meet her maker, the devil.

‘We pay Palinski a visit,’ I continue. ‘We remind him we spared his son and why. We ask why his nephew keeps stirring shit and who he’s doing it for. Then we see how squeamish he is about doing the right thing.’

‘And Vittore?’ Cesare asks.

‘We starve him,’ I say. ‘Intel first. Pressure second. After the Netherlands Grand Prix, if we have enough, we hit one of them with everything.’

Silence. Agreement.

Orazio taps the table with his cane. ‘Fallbrook is home base. No heroics. You want blood, earn it.’

I check my phone again. Still nothing.

I pocket it and feel the weight settle. Giada’s truth changes everything. It also paints a target so bright it burns.

‘We’ll need to go to St Petersburg,’ Dante says flatly. ‘Sooner or later.’

‘I know,’ I answer. ‘But not blind.’

Orazio rises. ‘Then it’s decided. You sleep under my roof. You plan. And you don’t bring war to my doorstep unless you intend to finish it.’

I nod. ‘Capisci.’