Page 1 of Capo

Prologue

Tell on the Mob and Die

Chicago

Chloe

You’ll die if you talk.

The words make the skin on my back crawl. I clutch the old, worn leather on the steering wheel until it squeaks as a shiver runs through me. Reaching for the panel, I crank up the heat a couple of notches even though it isn’t that cold. My best friend was afraid. She was really, truly afraid. I’ve never seen anyone in the state she was in when I found her a few weeks back, hidden away in her dark house, curtains pulled closed, her usually bright and happy home eerily silent. It was as if something in her had died. A mob hitman had tried to kill her because she had overheard something she shouldn’t have. She had escaped death by the breadth of a hair, but it was as if it had caught her anyway.

You can’t tell anyone. You don’t want to get involved.

That’s what she said.

And then I got involved anyway, helping her flee San Francisco.

I drive a block, but then I stop and sit for a long while after watching her disappear into the house, trailing after my cousin with one last glance over her shoulder. Her posture was stiff, as if her body wanted to slump in defeat while her brain forced her to stay upright, too proud to yield. I don’t know if her moving to Chicago will solve anything. With a professional murderer after her she needs to disappear off the face of the Earth, but how does a person do that in the modern US? We leave traces everywhere. ATMs. CCTV. Receipts. Cell phone calls.

Me, I’m left with everything. I need to lock up her house more properly. Turn off the water and gas. Lower the heat to a minimum. I need to talk to her mom and explain the best I can without saying anything.

And what do I tell our friends? People are going to ask.

It’s not Kerry’s fault, but what happened to her is going to make my life hell. I’ll be looking over my shoulder for a very long time.

Mafia.

The mob.

Luciano Salvatore. The father of little David at the center for autistic children where I work part time as an accountant. The rest of my time I run my own business, working my ass off to stay afloat. I guess that will be my only business from now on. I don’t think I dare set foot at the center again. David isn’t there anymore, but it’s where everything started, it’s where Kerry’s hell began.

Salvatore.

He doesn’t know who I am. At least I don’t think he does. Why would I be on his radar? I’m sure he’s got bigger fish to fry.

I fall over the steering wheel with a groan. Maybe I should just stay in Chicago too?

With one last glance at my cousin’s run-down little house, the white paint so chipped it’s almost not visible, and feeling a twinge of guilt over putting Kerry in there, I start the car and put the gear in drive. No. I’m going home. I have nothing to be afraid of.

---