Page 51 of The Capo

Only my pops’ friend had died on the street, the bullet nicking his aorta.

Ever since then, my father had made certain his widow wanted for nothing. It had been the first and only time my father had taken me with him. Gone huntin’, as my father had said. He’d handled finding the person responsible himself, not botheringwith taking his soldiers or ordering them to do it. I’d been eighteen years old by a day; initiation, my father had also said.

I’d learned just how brutal my father could be, watching and learning as the powerful crime boss had tracked the man to his posh apartment, showing me how to pick the lock with ease. He’d trapped the traitor, spending hours with a piano wire. Next we’d gone to the cartel leader’s house.

Then my father had had me ring the doorbell, easing into the shadows and watching the moment the patriarch of the family had found his son’s head.

That had taught me a valuable lesson.

Never fuck with a member of the Thibodeaux family.

The cartel had taken the warning, leaving town almost overnight. The power of persuasion.

Maybe I’d changed my ways in the two plus decades since, becoming more of a traditional businessman than my father had ever been. However, that hadn’t diminished the lesson learned.

It was an incident my father had sworn me to secrecy about. What I learned much later in life was that he’d initiated my two brothers as well, only Louie, the surgeon of the family, had been sickened by the heinous act. I’d hungered for more. I suspected Arman had as well.

I never would have imagined that in doing Brandon a favor, I was placing the lives of two families in the middle of another dangerous and toxic event. Just as with what had occurred with the family and my brother months before, this felt personal, as if I’d wronged someone in my past. I didn’t like the coincidences in the two situations in the least.

Both Rocco and I entered the bar on Bourbon Street, finding the informant sitting on a barstool in the back room. Sammy had been used several times, his information always reliable, which was the only reason I was here today. And willing to pay the ten Gs.

“Do you want me to handle this?” Rocco asked.

“No, I do not.”

“That girl is getting to you.”

I stopped long enough to give him a hard look before walking toward the bar. The good news about so many of the establishments in New Orleans was that my family owned a part of many and every inch of more than a few. This was one of them, not something that was broadcast to everyone. We were merely wealthy investors who ensured New Orleans would recover from the devastating hurricane years before and remain thriving.

What that offered was men in my employ who would look the other way should things need to get… messy.

With Delaney still frightened, waiting inside a house she likely didn’t remember and wasn’t happy about being in, the last thing I wanted was for this to take more than a few minutes. I had an overwhelming need to protect her at this point, which no longer surprised me. Seeing the way her lower lip had trembled had finally done me in, taking me to places my mind shouldn’t be going.

I also had the need to keep her, which troubled me even more.

I strode up to him to where he was waiting, sliding onto the next barstool. Within seconds, the other man in close proximitysuddenly disappeared. A drink was placed in front of me, the bartender backing away.

Until I left, no one inside the smaller bar nestled in the back of the larger club would become thirsty. If they did, they’d leave the room.

Rocco remained standing, ensuring I wouldn’t be bothered during my conversation with the man.

Sammy seemed more nervous than I’d ever seen him. which meant the kid who’d lost more in gambling in a single night than he made in a year was second guessing the lie he was about to tell me or doubting whatever he had was hot.

“I heard you wanted to see me,” I said while glancing up at the screen. The Lakers were playing, a favorite team of mine, one that I’d invested in recently. If I had to guess, I’d say Sammy had placed a bet on them given the edginess of the way he was seated, glancing at the screen every so often. He’d sold his soul to the devil to continue his one real vice.

Every man had one.

“I don’t think it was a request once Rocco heard what I knew,” Sammy said, his voice shaking.

“Which is?”

He glanced over his shoulder, his hand shaking as he took a long pull on his beer. “I think I didn’t ask for enough.”

I’d had it with bullshit.

I had him lifted off the chair, the beer bottle in his hand tossed several feet against the back wall within seconds. Seeing that I’d accidentally pitched him across a table where three guyswere enjoying the game, smashing their drinks on the hardwood irritated me even more. Losing my cool wasn’t something I liked doing in front of people I didn’t know, under any circumstances.

“Make certain their tab is taken care of,” I told Rocco. “Make them another drink as well. Whatever they’d like.”

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