Page 51 of Savage King

This time, I don't even have to pretend. I rise from my chair so hard that it rolls against the wall with a resoundingboom, and point my finger at him. "No amount of money can make up for what you did."

I pull out my Glock and point the barrel at Marcello's head. Chairs roll back, more guns are drawn, and curses ring through the room. The gun is pointed at Marcello, but my eyes burn intoCarlos's. "So if I shoot your son, you'll be okay with me turning the LA territory back to you?"

"Put the gun down," Edoardo orders in a wavering voice that sends waves of disgust down my spine.

Marcello stays in his chair. He regards me with interest, not like a man with a gun to his head. The man has balls. I’ll give him that. His father, on the other hand… Carlos stares back at me, calculating. "That might be a deal. There's a lot of money to be made in LA, and I still have the equipment to produce more sons."

Disgust rises up inside me at his words. Marcello raises an eyebrow at me, and a mocking smirk tugs at the corners of his lips. The man is utterly unfazed by the gun pointed at him or his father's words.

"You disgust me," I say, re-holstering my Glock. "Is there anything else to discuss today?"

"If you think you can pull out guns duringmymeeting without consequences, you're sorely mistaken," Edoardo threatens.

Marcello raises his arms, "No harm, no foul." He inclines his head, "Don Edoardo." The biting tone in his voice makes me consider him. Marcello has never been aplayerin this club. It's no secret that Carlos much preferred his elder son, Angelo, and groomed him for years to be his successor while Marcello was shipped to Sicily. Where, from all accounts, he built himself quite the organization, only to be forced to abandon it when he was recalled last year after his brother's sudden, unexpected death made him the heir apparent. It doesn't seem like there is any love lost between father and son. Interesting. That might be something to explore further in the future.

Thoroughly disgusted, I glare at the Capo dei Capi. "Like what? Who will you get this time to kill me or another member ofmia famiglia?"

The room is so quiet that the falling of a paperclip would have sounded like a bomb exploding. All eyes are on Edoardo and me.

I'm done.

I stretch out my arms and rub my hands together before I wave them out as if distributing ashes. "Ah,basta!Finito!"

There are quite a few more things I would like to say, but this should do. Vigorously, I pull the doors open and call for Igio and Berto. "We're done, let's go."

My anger has reached its boiling point. One more second in that room, and I would have shot Edoardo and Carlos, consequences be damned.

"Hold on." A hand pushes the elevator doors open just as they're about to close. I would have expected Enrico, but to my surprise, it's Stephano.

He stays on the other side of the door, "A word?"

"Get in," I snarl.

Stephano is a few years younger than me, and his dad is still in excellent health. The two run fraud, cybercrime, and counterfeiting for our organization. So far, he and my family have always gotten along.

"My dad wants me to take the lead on this," Stephano explains as the elevator goes up. "If anything goes wrong, it was the hotshot," he grins, pointing at himself.

I get it. Gustave wants to side with me, but he also wants to ensure his family is not compromised. Nobody wants to be in Edoardo's crosshairs. If whatever they think I'm planning goes south, Stephano will take the blame as the son who wanted to prove himself. They'll have to pay a hefty fine, and Stephano might lose a finger or two, but he'll come out of this alive. Contrary to his father, who would most certainly die should he be caught in the conspiracy. Clever and daring. Another man to take note of.

"I'll ride with you if you give me a lift back?" Stephano suggests.

"Be my guest."

The elevator stops, and we make our way to my waiting helicopter. The next hour goes by quickly as Stephano lays out his family's role in what he thinks I'm planning.

"My father and I both consider Edoardo to be a weak man. Dad is already auditing the accounts because some of the numbers are not quite adding up," he confides.

This is news to me. I've been so wrapped up in my desire for vengeance that it never occurred to me to investigate any other angles. The Contis are right, though; if Edoardo is weak on one end, there is no reason to believe he's on the up and up on the others.

"There are five families, six, counting Edoardo’s. If we want to avoid a war, we all need to be on the same page," I warn.

"That's why my father is working other angles as well. Trust me," he turns to convey his sincerity with his eyes, "what happened to you and your father is an atrocity that has not and will not be forgotten."

"So, you're telling me there are others in the family not happy with our current Capo dei Capi."

Stephano inclines his head. “Carlos is not one of them, even though I don't understand how he can still support a man who has left him hanging high and dry after following his orders."

That's an easy question to answer: "Carlos doesn't have a choice. He has to lick Don Edoardo's boots. Otherwise, he has nothing. It's not a matter of liking him. From here on out, he's always gonna be the man who killed my father in cold blood. Nothing is ever going to change that. He knows the only person keeping him alive is the Capo di Capi."

---