Page 88 of Mafia Star

She’s not moving more than to breathe. I can feel her against my back. I know Carmine’s covering Steve as best he can. The guy isn’t as broad or tall as Carmine, but he’s close. Beth is practically invisible to Simms despite what he says, but Steve’s still a target. I wouldn’t put it past Simms to shoot him to lure her out.

“Is this a little solo project or did someone hire you?”

“Does it matter?”

I laugh.

“It will when I kill you. I need to know whether this’ll be done, or if I’ll still have someone to visit.”

Beth sucks in a breath. She knows I killed the last time I drew my gun. But now she’s going to have a front row view since she isn’t trying to put one foot in front of the other.

“You won't do that. Then you’d leave your gnocca for me to enjoy a bocchino before I take her alla pecora.”

Once again, he insults Beth. Gnocca— vagina —a shit term to mean a hot chick. Bocchino— little mouthful —a blowjob. Alla pecora— like a sheep —doggy style. He’s throwing out all the profane slang he must know.

I don’t need to look at Carmine to know he’s just as pissed as I am. It’s not like we haven’t used words like that— but never toward women. Never. Our mothers would skin us alive, and our fathers would beat us till our last breath. It’s always been to insult men. There’s a world of difference.

“Congrats on your Italian. Rosetta or Babbel? Get to why you’re here.”

“That’s simple. Your new sister-in-law fucked me out of a shit ton of money. Killing her doesn’t punish her, but killing her sister will. Getting their brother is just the cherry on top. You and fuckface are the whipped cream. I gotta kill you both to get to them.”

He’s had his gun trained on us the entire time, just like ours have been on him. But there’s one of him and two of us. Mutually assured destruction. Unless he has someone else who can shoot Carmine or me— whoever’s left standing. That makes me want to look around, and he knows it. He knows I want to survey the scene, but that means shifting my attention from him. It makes us vulnerable, but it also admits he has control of the situation since I don’t know everything that’s happening.

Neither Carmine nor I respond. What’s there to say? I’m not giving up anything to him, so I can wait him out. The only problem is, standing, I can’t hit my tracker on my belt, and neither can Carmine. To move our hand would signal him. To not move our hand means we can’t alert our family.

“Carmine, you usually have plenty to say. Strong, silent type doesn’t suit you.”

My cousin laughs. But it’s not with humor. I know the sound. It’s the one he gives men just before he puts them in excruciating pain.

“You assume one of us will shoot you, then you’ll shoot the other, and whoever you have waiting in the wings will shoot whichever one of us is left. But who’s to say we both won’t shoot you at the same time?”

“Because your men aren’t outside anymore. At least, they’re not breathing outside. You might kill me— though no one else has —but you won’t get the bitch or her brother out alive.”

That makes me think he wants to take all of us. He has other people here because he knows he can’t manage all four of us by himself. If he intended to kill all of us, he would have sniped one guard at a time and come in guns blazing. He would have made it a solo mission and possibly succeeded. It wouldn’t be the first time he took out that many people on his own.

Carmine laughs again.

“Then why are you stalling, faccia de cazzo? You can fangul.” Testicle face. Fuck yourself.

“I’m not stalling. I’m giving Elizabeth Russo— five-feet-six, one-hundred-and-fifty-pounds, favorite color the cinnabar shade of red, and doesn’t like caramel —a chance to adequately fear me. Steven Russo— five-feet-eleven-and-three-quarters, two-hundred-and-five-pounds, gets an almond milk latte every Thursday morning, and has a cheating girlfriend— is that cherry on top, so I definitely want him to fear watching his sister die.”

How the fuck he knows these things is beyond me, but it means he’s been studying both of them for a while. Likely since Laura came into the picture. He probably did a full dossier on Chelle since she’s Laura’s best friend. From there, he probably spider webbed out to do Chelle’s entire family.

I hear noise coming from the back entrance where Pauly is. I can’t turn to look, but I already know what’s happening. Simms’s people are moving in. He wasn’t trying to scare Beth and Steve by making them wait. He was stalling. Something isn’t going right with his plan. Standing around chatting like this invited failure for him. Before Carmine and I can make any move, we need to know how many people we’re facing. I haven’t heard a single peep come out of the kitchen since Simms entered. But I know Mikey has a full arsenal back there. You don’t entertain the New York City don and not have protection for these kinds of situations.

Mikey has never paid a penny of protection money to my family in his life. He grew up with Papa, Uncle Salvatore, and Auntie Paola. He and Uncle Salvatore have been friends for nearly as long as Matteo and me. Their desks were next to each other in first grade. They drove the nuns crazy. People know not to come near this place. That doesn’t mean Mikey’s naïve. He has the guns and the people who know how to use them. That’s why I haven’t been scrambling to find a way out of this.

A woman pushes Pauly into the main dining area with a gun to the back of his head. I take one look at her, and I’m not worried Pauly can’t get that gun from her. Five men follow them in, each with a handgun. I’m certain they all have at least one knife somewhere. Carmine and I have ours in our pockets. Neither of us has left home without it since we each turned twelve. Fucked-up rite of passage into manhood. Here you go. Carry this because you’re still a boy in our eyes, but the rest of world thinks you’re fair game. Good luck.

I know some of them. They’ve done jobs for us when we’ve outsourced to Simms. A couple we’ve hired directly. I wait to hear the front door’s bells jangle, but there’s nothing. I hear no sound coming from the kitchen, so I doubt that door’s opened. That’s the one they’re most likely to take us out through since it dumps into the alley. The emergency exit Pauly was near is also a backdoor based on layout, but it opens to a side street. There has to be at least one— if not two —people at the kitchen door, keeping an eye on however they plan to leave.

The thing that concerns me most is each of Simms’s worker bees has a vintage military mailbag. More than ammo is in them from the way they hang. Why do they need that?

It becomes obvious the moment a guy walks over to Simms and flips his bag open. Fucking hell.

Carmine sees it at the same time as Pauly and me. Pauly spins, his elbow into the woman’s outstretched elbow, his other fist to her jaw. Carmine and I flip the table to make a barrier for us. I reach back for Beth.

“Hold on to my belt. Steve, do the same to Carmine. Don’t let go.”

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