Page 62 of Owned By The Bratva King

I roll my damp hair into a bun, securing it with pins. “And if they don’t agree?”

“I’ll do it anyway.” His face twists into a bitter sneer. “Fuck the consequences. This city is mine, and the whining admonishments of a few old men won’t prevent me from murdering the man who tried to hurt my wife.”

Roman’s cell rings and he frowns at the screen. “Komissiya leader. He rarely calls me himself.” He answers the call. “Kolya. What’s up?”

47

Roman

“We found Vercotti. He’s in our custody.”

Kolya’s words should be music to my ears, but it’s weirdly anti-climatic. I thought I’d have to hunt him down, but no.

It’s over.

“Your man Leon came straight to us with the security footage from the hospice. The bastard was there, clear as day. Didn’t try to hide his face until he was outside the building, so the camera at the gate caught him just fine. He was limping, too. Is it true you ran over his foot?”

“Yes. I could have done worse.”

“Fair enough. You got married, correct?”

“Yesterday.”

“You didn’t run it past me,” Kolya says, a hectoring tone creeping in. “I suppose you think you can do whatever you want?”

“Can’t I? I’m not a komissiya member only because I turned it down. You would have agreed to the wedding; besides, it was urgent. Look what happened. Silvio tried to kill my wife, for fuck’s sake.”

“That is secondary. There is a more pressing matter at hand. Do you remember Don Fredo Familio of Sicily? He came to live in New York to be near his grandchildren.”

“Sure. He was a mean old fucker, but a legend in his time. What about him? I thought he was dead already.”

“He is now. The poor man had dementia and was a resident at Two Pines; he had no chance of escaping the fire. He’d only been there two weeks while his son moved him to a better facility.”

Woah. Back in the day, the Familios and the Vercottis were friendly. Don Fredo’s son is Bernard Familio, a long-standing mob lawyer and a senior mafia commission member since I was a kid.

“I’m calling you as a courtesy, Roman,” Kolya says. “The komissiya and the commission agree; Bernard has the last word on what happens to Silvio Vercotti. The idiot denied everything until he was confronted with the footage and broke down. He claimed he was targeting your wife; a man called Ricky Lubomski corroborated it all. Don Fredo’s death was accidental, but that will make no difference to the outcome.”

“What outcome?” I ask. “I just want the piece of shit dead.”

“Vercotti is a broken man,” he replies. “We ordered him to cede all his assets to us, and the mafia commission agreed. They will not shelter him. Bernard will fly Vercotti to Sicily this evening, where the extended famiglia will give him the welcome he deserves. Don’t worry—he’ll be gone from the face of the Earth.”

“Let me do it, Kolya. I’ll pay anything Bernard wants.”

“No way, kid. I knew you’d say that, so I already asked him, and he’s not prepared to sell you his revenge. Accept it. You still get what you want; go live your life.”

I hang up. I shouldn’t end the conversation with the head of the komissiya so abruptly, but I don’t know how to feel. Quinn is staring at me.

“Is it over?” she asks.

“Yes.” I frown. “Somehow, it is. I was gearing up for a war, and there won’t be one. Vercotti went down without a fight.”

“That’s good, right?”

I feel robbed. It’s not only that I wanted to be the one to take Silvio down. I wanted to make him understand that he chose this.

It could have been different if he had only backed down and lived for more than vengeance. I hate him for going after Quinn, but I know the man had the potential to be someone else, someone better.

I have that potential, too, and a reason to fulfill it.

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