Page 18 of Savage Proposal

“Boss,” Elio said in acknowledgment, and the line went dead.

After taking a cursory shower and grabbing a sandwich from Amalia, I drove into the city. The casino was in the warehouse district; it was discreet from the street and could only be accessed by members who had been vetted as to their affiliations with authorities.

I came through the employee entrance that bypassed the casino floor so I could go straight to my office without being seen. Damian was waiting in the hallway; his face was carefully blank.

“Why aren’t you in the office?” As myvicecapo, Damian should have been taking meetings in my absence, not Elio.

“Don Gallo called it a conflict of interest,” he said. The Don was Damian’s uncle, although they weren’t particularly close.

My jaw went tight. “Are you the Vitalis’svicecapo, or are you a member of the Gallo family?”

In any other context, it wouldn’t be a fair question, but Damian knew my expectations. Putting him in a place of authority over my own cousin had been questioned heavily when I made thedecision, but I had never doubted it for a second, and Damian knew that. He straightened his shoulders. “I’m loyal to you, Enzo,” he said. “Always.”

“Let’s go, then.”

I pushed the door open. Elio was seated behind my desk with a portly man in his sixties seated across from him. Don Gallo wore his years clearly on his face. He was dressed in a well-tailored suit, but nothing could take away the air of criminality that hung around him.

“Don Gallo,” I greeted.

He turned. “Don Vitali.” His eyes slid to Damian. “I thought I told you to wait outside,nipote.”

Somehow, I was able to keep the irritation off my face. “Damian isn’t here as a representative of your family, Don Gallo,” I said. “He’s my second-in-command, and he runs this casino.” I looked at Elio, who immediately jumped out of my seat. “Did you check the shipments today?”

“Light,” Elio said. “By almost a kilo.”

“So, it wasn’t Dante,” Don Gallo said with an imperious sniff. “Someone on your side must be skimming off the top.”

Elio glared at him. “Like I wouldn’t have checked that first, you?—”

“Elio.” His mouth snapped shut. “I apologize for my cousin, Don Gallo,” I said. “He has a bit of a hothead, but I do trust that he looked into the workers who handle our shipments. Shall we compare weights from when they leave your warehouses and arrive here?”

“What good will that do? We know they’re light by the time they arrive here.”

“It could be a clerical issue,” Damian suggested. “If shipments are arriving to the Gallo warehouses?—”

The older man glared at him. “Are you doubting our family’s ability to properly weigh shipments when they arrive,nipote?” he spat.

Damian didn’t falter, nor did he apologize for speaking out, like he might be expected to if he were visiting the Gallo estate. “Not at all,” he said. “But that would mean that both the Vitalis and the Gallos are victims of fraud, and it would mean that we have bigger problems on our hands. It would be better to know that now than to squabble over it for months, yes?”

That seemed to soothe some of Don Gallo’s ruffled feathers, and after a call to get the Gallo ledger scanned over, we spent the next forty minutes comparing the two. There was an immediate and obvious gap between what was ordered, on both sides, and what was delivered.

“So, we’re both being screwed over,” Don Gallo said, “and my people didn’t catch it.”

“It appears that way.” It was a mistake that neither of us would be able to forgive. “In light of this, Damian will lead the investigation. He’ll be my representative; any decision that you would need me for, you can listen to him.”

“You want to put my nephew in charge of my men?”

“I’m putting myvicecapoin charge. Do you have a problem with that, Giovanni?”

The older man gritted his teeth, obviously pissed at the use of his first name over his title, but he shook his head. “Not at all, Don Vitali,” he said in a tone that told me to go fuck myself. “I’ll be grateful for his help.”

I held out my hand to him. “I appreciate you coming down to clear things up today,” I said. “I’ll send Damian to your warehouse in the morning.”

The man knew he was being dismissed. “You broke six of my Dante’s ribs along with most of his face, Don Vitali,” he said.

I dipped my head. “I was hasty in my assumptions and took the steps I thought were necessary.” It wasn’t an apology, but it was as close to one as he was going to get from me. “Once we get to the bottom of our shared issue, I’ll owe you one,” I tacked on, and that had the older man smiling.

“I will remember that, Don Vitali.”

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