Page 66 of Triplets for the Mafia Prince

“Nothing’s worse.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means right now, all is fine, but we have to stay on guard.” I take side streets through industrial areas, watching for tails. Soon, the familiar skyline of Manhattan looms ahead, but I head south toward Newark.

All this time, I’m vacillating on calling Mickey. If I don’t call, I’m fumbling around blind. I need eyes and ears.

I pick up the phone and call.

“Wrong number,” Mickey says when he picks up.

“I’m calling in a debt.”

“I don’t owe shit.”

“I saved your life once.”

He pauses. “Nicky?”

“That’s right.” He’s the only one who’s ever called me Nicky. At least after I became an adult.

He lets off a whistle. “Rumor is you got whacked by the Outfit.”

“What’s that saying? The rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated?”

“Mark Twain. Fucking genius. I have odds twenty to one that your father is behind your hit.”

I shake my head. Is nothing safe from a wager? “Really? A long shot?”

“I didn’t think so, but others do. So, do I win?”

“You do, but not yet. I need a place. A place that my father doesn’t know of and that his eyes and ears won’t see me at.”

The line is quiet, and I imagine the old man scratching his chin as he thinks. “Yeah, I might have a place. It’s out in Orange. Where are you?”

“Coming south from Patterson.”

He rattles off an address. “I don’t like going against your father now that he’s forgotten I exist.”

I’m about to remind him that he owes me, but he continues, “I liked your grandfather. He was a good one, not a fucking narcissist like your father. I know he’d like you, kid.”

Whatever reason has him helping me, I’ll take it. “Grazie.”

“Prego.”

When I get off the phone, I rub my temple where a headache is starting to form.

“You’ve got another friend,” Bella says.

“Acquaintance, more like. He hates my father.”

“Ah, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“Something like that.”

Fifteen minutes later, I roll up on an old bungalow-style home in a quiet residential area. I pull up to the detached garage as Mickey told me to do. It opens, and I pull in.

When I step out, one of Mickey’s bodyguards pats me down.

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