Page 17 of Burn this City

“Back to the topic,” Sal said. “Hard or easy?”

Barsanti lowered his gaze, and Sal caught himself staring. Fuck, the whole situation, from Barsanti’s clean-cut attractiveness to his strong shoulders to how he sat there, tied up on the chair and considering his options, plucked at strings he’d thought he’d muted. Several of them had been cut, because he doubted that the stars would ever align again and give him somebody like Catia—a person he could trust and love enough to do that kind of play with without all the scars inside hurting like fuck.

“Don’t make me ask again.”

9

Rausa stood there, in his black military-style pants, black turtleneck, eyes blazing. And the other man was similarly dressed, but tall and blond. Both of them were armed—gun holsters sat snugly against their sides, and the second man carried what looked like a small utility pocket on his belt. A Leatherman or similar multi-tool. Useful for pulling out somebody’s fingernails.

That it had turned out to be Sal Rausa was the worst and maybe the best of all possible worlds. Best because it didn’t involve Andrea. Cassaro hadn’t stabbed him in the back, either, and the peace with the Dommarco held.

But like a revenant from hell, the third boss in the city had apparently risen to kick the ants’ nest and trample everything that Jack had so painstakingly built. Not at all a drunk has-been—the Sal Rausa in front of him seemed even more volatile and a whole lot more violent than Andrea. Those two would tear into each other like two fronts of wildfire. Capturing a consigliere in good standing signaled that Rausa meant what he said. There was no coming back from this. In private, Andrea might disagree with Jack, but he’d come down on Rausa like a mountain if he caught wind of this.

It meant Rausa was racing a ticking clock. Once Andrea realized what was happening, the game was on. And if Jack pegged Rausa right, he’d follow his course like a falling star—nobody could catch him now or slow him down. Nothing but pure force and decisiveness could win the battle for Rausa. Jack didn’t know what state his family was in—he was frankly surprised that Rausa thought he had the manpower to win the inevitable war, or perhaps he just didn’t care. He had to know that even if he managed to take the Lo Cascio down, the Dommarco would have Rausa leftovers for breakfast once this was over.

Jack ran his tongue along his gums, then lips, but the sharp, lemon juice in a papercut feeling there told him the blood was from a cut in his lower lip. All teeth were still in place, a small mercy and marked contrast to the nasty throbbing all over his body where Sal had punched him. But this hadn’t been the first or worst beating he’d received in his life. The first time, he’d considered it a great injustice that it was impossible to pass out at will. Thirty years on, Jack knew justice didn’t exist. All he could do was wrestle the terror and protect himself as much as possible. Still woozy, he figured he must have hit his head against the hardwood floor when the chair toppled. His vision had blackened, and lights had sparked before his eyes. He might even have lost consciousness for a split second.

He met Rausa’s eyes. “It’ll have to be hard, and you know that. It’s not a real choice.”

“Maybe not.”

Jack swallowed. “Alternatively, you come to the table, and we’ll renegotiate. There’s plenty of business for everybody in this city. I’m sure rather than fight a war, we can sit down and divide up the spoils. You take your rightful place; we all make money.”

“My rightful place.” Rausa sounded thoughtful. “And I let you go, and you get to be the brilliant dealmaker who secures another few years of peace for everybody.”

“Why not?” Jack shrugged, though his shoulders were beginning to feel stiff and ached from the unnatural position. “At this stage, it could be nothing but a … a mistake. A show of force. Message received. I know you mean business. I know you’re willing to go to war. But you don’t have to.”

“Simple as that.”

“Yes.” Jack didn’t get the impression Rausa was seriously considering it, but he had to try. While he could still speak, still appeal to the man’s … well, maybe not humanity, but maybe any doubts he might harbor against going to war. Rausa had to know there was a fair chance he would get killed too. That kind of war was too chaotic to know who’d be left over at the end of it, however meticulous the planning. If he was mad because he’d been sidelined and pushed out of his former business, there was a way to appease him and give him some of it back. There would be stomping and table-thumping and shouting and threats, but in the end money and opportunity would win out.

As long as he managed everybody’s egos carefully, they might just all live. Cassaro would see it the same way. Did Rausa have a consigliere?

Rausa nodded to himself, before catching his man’s eye. “Enzo.”

The blond man left the couch, cast a glance at Jack and followed his boss.

10

Enzo followed Sal outside through the glass door out to the garden. It was getting late, past three in the morning, so dawn wasn’t far off, and Sal thought the sky was already a little less black and turning a dark Prussian blue.

“I know you have thoughts. Spit it out.”

Enzo glanced back over his shoulder as if making sure Barsanti wasn’t breaking the chair apart and scrambling for a gun.

“He’s got some balls on him.” Enzo suppressed a small yawn.

“Yeah.” Sal fought the impulse to yawn as well and shook his head, despite himself impressed by the man still trying to broker peace. Fuck him, he’d probably try to fucking broker peace with fucking terrorists while kneeling in the desert sand in an orange jumpsuit, sabre already on his neck. That kind of man. Courageous to the point of stupidity. Rational. And he did have an argument. The sheer composure it must have taken him to make it.

Of course, it wouldn’t work, because peace wasn’t what this was about. Aside from requiring both Andrea Lo Cascio and Guy Dommarco—who had admittedly upheld some kind of peace deal—to be cool-headed men in Barsanti’s mold, Sal himself would have to muster the will to accept that Andrea Lo Cascio was still breathing, and act as if the War and its aftermath had been nothing but an interruption of business as usual. He had failed at that so far because he didn’t want to succeed.

There was no way he’d shake hands with Catia’s murderer. The thought alone made his pulse beat against the insides of his skull, and just her name hurt and conjured all kinds of emotions and memories he couldn’t use inside that house when he tried to get into Barsanti’s head.

Barsanti’s job required him to be a schemer and a risk manager, heading off dangers before they, to use business parlance, crystalized. Nowadays, consiglieres came with business or law degrees, and Sal could easily imagine Barsanti walking amongst lawyers unmolested.

“I’m definitely not thinking rationally.” Sal gritted his teeth. “Fuck.” They were both running on far too little sleep, no more than five hours each for the past couple of days, driven onward by rage, determination and, last but not least, spiky caffeine jitters.

“Rest, regroup, let him think about it some more?”

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