Page 100 of The Doctor

One of Cosimo’s men yanked me up again. “On your knees, Fierro.” I steadied myself as he did the same to Berto and Arik.

“What are you talking about?” Berto asked, his body leaning to one side.

“Yes, Stephano, why don’t you tell us what you think I’ve done?”

The kid scoffed, and where he got his bravado from, I didn’t know.

“You killed Benito,” he said, and I watched as Cosimo’s evil smile grew, all the pain in my head centering in my chest as he failed to deny the kid’s words. “You’re the reason Big Tony and the others are dead. You recruited a bunch of kids who didn’t like Paulo and his friends and got them to take out as many Syndicate men as they could.”

“Don’t forget the women and children.” The old man picked up his gun from the table. “It’s a pity those pathetic kids couldn’t have done more. If they had, we wouldn’t be here today. Instead, they stuck their dicks in everyone they could, wasting time when they could have been killing more.”

“You’re a sick fuck,” Mario wheezed from the far side of the room, the bleeding man holding his hands to the wounds in his brother's gut.

“Says a man who won’t leave this room alive.” Cosimo motioned to him with his gun. “Tell me, Mario. Would you like to live to see the end of D’Angelo’s reign, or would you prefer I just kill you now?”

“Mario—”

“It’s okay, Piero,” he said, looking down on his dying brother. “Just hold on. You’re going to be okay.”

I didn’t need to be next to them to know there wasn’t a strong chance of that. Already, the pool of blood beneath Piero’s body was far too big.

Cosimo ignored his sons, turning instead back to Stephano. “What I should have done was gather them all together, just like this. I could have gotten Berto and Zeno then and not had to mess with all of this. Time and time again, I’ve watched the power of the Syndicate slip right through my hands. First, your mother stealing it out from under my thumb,” he said, pointing his gun at my forehead. “Then, Arik’s father taking a seat Paulo should have given to my son.”

“Oh yeah?” Stephano hissed. “Which son would that be? Oh, that’s right, you only have one. Despite all your efforts to get Piero and Mario into lieutenant seats as well.”

“They are not my sons!”

“And yet they bear your name.”

“I’d rather be a D’Angelo than a Provenza,” Mario said.

Cosimo raised his gun, pointing it at the man. “You will die a disgrace to the Provenza name.”

“Better… than… an honor,” Piero said, his voice weak as his body failed him.

Something hit the side of the building, drawing Cosimo’s attention away from putting Piero out of his misery.

“Manilo, go see what that was.”

“On it, sir,” said the man behind us. Without a backward glance, he raced out the front door.

Through my blood-caked eye, I swore I saw Stephano smirking. I swore I saw him wink my way. But the pain pulsing in my head had my vision blurring, and I closed my eyes, trying to fend off a wave of dizziness that had me ready to fall back to the floor.

“Since you were nice enough to grace us with your presence, Stephano, I’m going to let you choose who dies first.”

At that, my eyes snapped open, and once again, I found Cosimo’s gun in my face.

“Is it going to be the good doctor?” Cosimo stepped back, pointing the gun toward Arik. “The young lieutenant?”

The old man smirked, pointing his muzzle between Berto’s eyes. “Or should I finish what I started that night and take down Adalberto Vinci? Then I can kill you and end the Vinci line.”

Stephano’s shoe scuffed the concrete floor, and though I couldn’t take my eyes off Cosimo’s gun, I saw Raoul stepping behind Arik, disappearing from my view.

“Hands up!”

“What for?” Stephano asked Raoul, and I couldn’t mistake his usual pompous attitude. “You’re worried your men didn’t take my fingernail clippers before they threw me in here on my ass?”

“Make your choice, Stephano. Unless you’d rather go first.”