Page 93 of Twisted Obsession

Dante

Iwas sure the car hadn’t come to a complete standstill before I shoved open the driver’s door. Extinguishing my cigarette, I threw it to the ground and grabbed at my bag to the side of me, before getting out. The steps of the plane were down and the engines were running, and seeing that the pilot was already seated and ready to go home urged me on. When Marco appeared at the doorway, equally smart in a handmade Italian suit, I could see he had also come to the same conclusion as myself.

We were going home.

As he lifted his hand, he began to jiggle a couple of bottles of Moretti beer in front of him and I jogged the final few feet, before mounting the steps two at a time and taking one from his hand.

‘Let’s go.’ I chinked my freezing cold bottle to his.

‘Take us up,’ he spoke, as he signalled to the waiting pilot, by whirling his finger around in the air, that we were ready to leave.

No sooner had I taken my seat and slung my bag to the side of me, than the door slammed shut and the plane began its run before taking off into yet another clear, blue sky.

Marco grabbed at yet another couple of beers and occupied the seat directly opposite mine.

‘So, what’s happened?’ he questioned.

‘Alessio was ambushed early this morning.’

‘Fuck!’

‘He took five bullets to his body and one to his head.’

‘Christ, dude… is he alive?’

‘Last I heard he was hanging in there, but he’s critical and is at this very minute undergoing an operation to find out why he’s still bleeding internally.’

‘Shit… who?’

‘We don’t know yet. Salvatore has his men asking questions and has moved my family out of the villa and into the De Luca compound.’

‘Ricco!’ Marco sat bolt upright, as though his thought was so powerful it physically moved him. ‘Could this be the pressure Ricco asked for?’

‘It could well be,’ I agreed, nodding as I thought it over. ‘Jesus fucking Christ… Ricco.’ I shook my head.

‘He respected and loved Salvatore Snr…’ Marco began to reason. ‘We both fought alongside him in the last war, there was no question of his loyalty to our ‘ndrine… We were both there the day he took a knife to the face, protecting Salvatore Snr.’

‘We were,’ I agreed.

‘If it’s him—what turns a man like him against the family he’s worked with for years?’

‘It was no secret he hated Gianni.’ I shrugged my shoulders as the impact of what we thought we may have discovered hit me. ‘He thought, like the rest of us, that he was weak in mind and body. Maybe he felt that Gianni would be a poor successor?’ I spoke of Salvatore’s papa, who Salvatore himself had taken a gun to after finding he was trafficking women and children andwas responsible for the death of his mama. ‘I only ever saw him talking to Gianni with contempt.’

‘True.’ He blew out an audible exhale through his mouth. ‘Which I always found weird. I mean who talks to the potential under boss that way? Even if you felt that strongly against him—you’d have to have a death wish.’

I looked down to my lap, after feeling a drip of condensation fall off the brown beer bottle. It made a small circle on my suit trousers. I traced my finger around it, looking at my family ring on my finger. ‘One who had something on him?’ I lifted my gaze up to meet Marco’s once again.

‘Mmmm interesting. Do you think he knew all along what Gianni was up to?’

‘Knew it. Was blackmailing him because of it?’ I shrugged as I thought it over, before shaking my head. ‘Or was part of it?’ I narrowed my eyes.

‘Was—or still is?’ Marco added.

‘My money is on,is. It’s got to be him.’ I nodded. ‘But what sort of family would attack a consigliere?’ I asked the question, but had already worked out the answer. ‘Except for a rogue fucking one. A family that’s gone out on their own. One that feels they could take over and do a better job than the current Don.’

I watched him absorb my words and begin to move his head slowly up and down.

‘If we don’t act fast, my whole family is going to be in danger. Because whoever they are, they’re closing in.’

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