Page 81 of Mercy in Betrayal

It’s Tom. The whistle stops everyone where the gun didn’t. Hands raised in a mollifying gesture, he starts to speak. “Everyone needs to shut up and pay attention.”

Cassidy keeps walking toward Enzo, apparently neither knowing nor caring who Tom is. I point my gun at my brother. “Listen to him.”

He halts, startled. “You gonna shoot me, little sister?”

“Just listen.”

“Apparently, Angel Valachi has been setting up the lot of you for this moment, and you’ve all played right into his hands.”

A murmur ripples through the crowd. “That makes zero sense,” Carina protests. “Angel protected me after—”

“After you avenged Francis,” Enzo finishes, expression grim.

“Yes.”

“Then it makes sense. Angel told me that an assassin came into our home and killed our father. He convinced me to execute all of our capos. Every man with any kind of leadership experience is gone.”

“And I was never informed that Evie and Cassidy had been given the green light to interfere with Luca and Enzo’s businesses. I meet with Angel all the time, and he never brought it up. He knows that I would have been able to put a stop to any rising tension if I would have known.”

Tom pauses. “He wanted the conflict to build between them.”

Cassidy frowns. “We weren’t interfering. Angel told us that he was taking those accounts away from the Marzanos and Scarpettas.

Luca scoffs. “Taking them away…? That motherfucker.”

My brother had warned me about how political things were between the five families in NYC, but this was beyond anything I could have imagined. I remember Angel’s smiling face at my wedding, the way he lifted his drink to Enzo and me in a toast.

As far as liars go, he’s pretty much the king.

Everything Angel did was calculated to get the families to slaughter each other. I just don’t understand why. Does he want to rule a graveyard?

Hesitantly, I lift my hand to speak. No one notices, so I clear my throat. “Excuse me.” Enzo squeezes my hand in support. “I want to say something.” Cassidy flicks a glance my way.

“Everyone shut up.” The crowd silences immediately at Enzo’s roar. “My wife wants to speak.”

I almost forget what I wanted to say in face of Enzo’s unflinching championing of me, but I quickly clear my throat again and begin. “I don’t understand everything that happened here, but I was with the Valachis earlier. Angel Valachi is organized and obviously well-prepared politically. He probably already has a plan in place to deal with this moment. He’ll be prepared for us to figure out his maneuverings. On our own, separately, we’re vulnerable. Together, we’re strong. In order for us to survive, we are going to have to forgive each other’s past transgressions.” I look up at Enzo. “All of us.”

There’s the tiniest flicker of emotion in his guarded expression—a softening to the set of his jaw, a widening of his eyes. “Agreed,” he murmurs.

“Hopefully, it won’t come to any kind of war,” Tom says. “Bloodshed doesn’t always have to be the answer—”

“The Valachis have fucked us over long enough. It’s time they paid,” someone says.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time and have a good relationship with most of the Valachi leadership. If you can give me a few days, I think I can sort this out—”

The sound of gunfire shatters the night once again, and I feel a splatter of something warm on my face. Everyone draws their weapons and points them frantically toward the river, trees, railroad tracks—wherever the shot could have possibly come from.

There’s a gurgle, and I look down. Tom is choking on his blood, the wound on his chest looking as though the bullet entered through his back and exited through his chest. He thought we could do this without bloodshed. The bullet disagreed.

An hysterical giggle escapes, morphing swiftly into a sob. Poor Tom.

Another shot, and another man falls. And then another. And another.

Azrael.

Enzo’s hand grips my forearm, and he pulls me toward the trees. Arturo screams behind us.

“Come on. Run beside me, little bird. Not in front. Not too close. We can’t give them an opportunity to get a double shot. Don’t make it easy for them.”

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