Page 31 of Tide of Treason
I lied. It was six.
A year ago, I’d have channeled this itch differently. Pushing Sergius Braga out of New York hadn’t been easy. It cost blood, teeth, and my last shred of goodwill. And in the aftermath, I’d have taken something soft and nameless to bed. After stamping his name out of every deal and torching his warehouses, I let his most loyal men watch as I carved up his lieutenant. The fucker who put a bullet in Abel. Left him hanging from a meat hook in Queens, his own intestines slithering down his thighs, screaming until he had no voice left.
After that, the others fell in line, or they fled.
The ones who resisted?
Their bodies washed up in pieces, tongues cut out, eyes eaten by the sea.
Men called mepatrãobehind closed doors, but no one said it too loud; Sergius was still alive, and even a caged dog could bite. Maybe I liked the idea of him rotting in some shithole down south, drowning in cheap whiskey and faded glory, or maybe I wanted the satisfaction of carving my own name into his ribs. Either way, the bastard breathed, and that meant the score stayed open. He still had men, still had money, still had his fingers in the dirtiest trade of all—flesh.
Enter Francesco. He was a sick fuck with a taste for the business, but even he wasn’t dumb enough to pull that kind of shit on my watch. The tunnels under his family’s new casino were a perfect way to keep Braga’s last lifeline ‘running’ while making sure those girls never reached the men waiting on the other side. The second they passed through Francesco’s hands, they were mine. I paid off their contracts, faked their deaths ifI had to, put them on boats, planes, in safe houses, whatever it took.
Sergius would never track it back to me, never see my fucking hands in it.
I rubbed out my cigarette on the edge of the railing and flicked it into the bay.
If he wanted his throne back, he could come and take it.
I was right here, waiting.
The rest ofSunday passed like a bottle left open—flat, bitter, and evaporating by the hour. I was pouring a couple fingers of much-needed whiskey neat when Viviana came up beside me.
“Do you think the Baccarat tables are too close to the bar?”
I admired the view with my wife from the mezzanine. Bass from the speakers thrummed through the half-finished walls, rattling the chandeliers still wrapped in plastic. Taster night at Casa Sforza was a fucking spectacle—gold trim, velvet drapes. Red carpet had been rolled out since my last visit, and plastic still covered some of the tables. A few were open for the guests to play, but this was about show more than profit.
Truthfully, I didn’t give a fuck about the position of the tables. Viviana waited for my answer, so I humored her, and made a show of mulling the question over. She tapped her heel impatiently.
“Does it matter?” I said finally, eyes coasting across the floor below. “You think a drunk’s gonna stumble toward the blackjack table and have a crisis of conscience halfway there?”
She let out a breath. “You’re insufferable.”
I shrugged. “You’re weird.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re weird, Viv. Always have been.”
She crossed her arms, nose wrinkling. “How exactly am I weird?”
“You like women but still ask me to open jars.”
She blinked.
“And you care if Baccarat’s near the fucking bar. Mixed signals, Viv. You confuse the fuck out of me.”
“You’re being a dick,” she muttered.
“Yeah? And you’re being a Sforza. So we’re both sticking to type.”
Viviana gave an exaggerated eye roll and grabbed my glass, knocking back the rest of my drink as if she needed it more than I did. The burn made her cough. “This tastes like tar.”
“It is tar. Tar aged in a French barrel and sold to assholes with money.”
She passed it back, nose wrinkled. “You should try painting sometime. Release all that repressed rage in a productive way.”
“I release it just fine. And I don’t paint. I dismantle engines.”
