Page 80 of Bastard Prince
Parking outside the darkened restaurant, Enzo and I exited the vehicle and headed for the door. It opened as we approached, Giuseppe Argenti standing just inside, waiting for us.
“He’s in the back,” he said softly, before closing and locking the door and locking it. I nodded my thanks, but said nothing, steeling myself for the confrontation ahead. “I really think I should—” Giuseppe started, but Enzo raised his hand.
“She’s got it handled, Pops.” Giuseppe eyed me, then nodded.
The sense of déjà vu was eerie as I once again walked past the empty tables with Enzo on my heels, their chairs tipped up so the floors could be washed, their checkered table cloths missing. No one had eaten in this place since Don Carlo had been shot, and I could feel the emptiness, the lifelessness, as I passed through.
Entering the empty kitchen, I made my way to the walk-in fridge, pulling it open to find that the secret door inside was already unlatched, the man in the hidden room clearly unconcerned with his own safety.
He really should have been.
I stood unnoticed in the open door way and watched as my uncle Silvio paced the room, phone to he ear as he muttered, “Come on. Come on. Pickup, you stupid bitch.”
“She won’t answer,” I called out, startling him, and he spun, his pudgy face a mottled red as he seethed. “There’s terrible reception down in the Clark County morgue.”
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he snarled, his eyes darting from me to Enzo and back, then glancing around the room, likely for a weapon.
“Surprised to see me alive, uncle?” I asked conversationally. “So sorry to disappoint you.”
“That can be easily remedied,” he said, reaching for the gun laying where I’d clocked it on the table when we’d entered.
“I don’t fuckin’ think so,” Enzo drawled, leveling his own piece on Silvio before he could even get close to grabbing it. “How about you keep your hands where I can see them and have a seat?” Enzo nodded to one of the chairs along the wall, far from the table, as I wandered over and slid the gun toward me with one finger.
“What did you do to Anderson?” Silvio asked, slumping into one of the chairs and crossing his arms like a pouty toddler.
“Me?” I asked innocently. “I didn’t do anything to her. That crazy bitch dug her own grave.”
True to his word, Eric had managed to keep Enzo and I completely out of whatever had happened after we left the farm. It had been a couple weeks and no one had even looked at us funny, so it seemed we really were in the clear.
“So she really is dead, then? Stupid bitch.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Yes, she really is dead. Dino, too, but I’m guessing you knew that already.” I knew Gino had gotten the call from the FBI that Dino had been killed in a supposed shootout with the feds. No one besides Silvio had even been aware that he’d gone to Las Vegas, so Gino was completely blindsided by the loss of his only son, shit-head though he was. “Looks like you’re all out of allies, Silvio.”
“Fucking bullshit! I don’t need allies, I’m the goddamn Don of the De Marco family. I make the fuckin’ rules.”
“Yeah, about that,” Enzo chuckled. “It seems you’re not completely up to speed. Babe, why don’t you fill him in on what he’s missed?”
Taking a seat at the table, I crossed my legs and smiled a devilish smile at Silvio.
“Funny thing, really. It turns out that in order for Don Carlo to come out of his coma, all we had to do was stop the nurse and doctor you were paying to keep him sedated.” I dug my fingers into the arms of the chair, remembering getting the news that my uncle had been paying a low-level associate who worked at the hospital to keep my grandfather drugged and out of the way. One conversation with Mia about his situation and she’d given me some ideas to follow up on. I emailed her copies of his chart once we got to New York, and she’d seen it right away.
“Now that he’s no longer receiving a cocktail of drugs to keep him under, he’s recovering nicely and should be able to pick up right where he left off.”
“Son of a bitch!” Silvio screamed, his throat tight as he let out his rage. Huffing hard, he leaned forward, hands on his thighs and stared at me, eyes full of hatred. “So, now what? You gonna kill me? You think the Commission will let that fly? Even if I’m not Don anymore,” he ground his teeth, like just saying the words was difficult to do, “I’m still the goddamn Underboss. You off me and they’ll have you both dead before the end of the night.”
“You see, that’s where you’re mistaken.” Holding out my hand, I didn’t take my eyes off of Silvio as Enzo reached inside his suit coat and passed me the manila envelope he was carrying. Opening it, I spread it’s contents on the table before me. Silvio, hesitant to get close, craned his neck in an attempt to see.
“The fuck is that?”
“That, uncle, is all the FBI records of all your dealings with them, dating back over a decade.” The panicked look on his face made my heart soar. “In these pages is every transgression you have ever committed against the Outfit.” I spread my hand over the pages, curling them into my fist. “Every lie, every broken promise. All right here.” Standing, I leaned forward over the table, curling my lip in disgust at the face of my sniveling uncle. “Spread throughout these pages is your every betrayal.” Taking a deep breath, I finished, “Including how you killed my mother.”
After the dust had settled, Eric had contacted us one more time, asking to meet so he could deliver some items to me. What he had when he arrived was over a dozen boxes, copies of all the evidence the FBI had on the De Marco crime family, as well as all of Caroline Anderson’s private files, things he’d only been able to uncover because of their relationship. When Eric had gone through her apartment in D.C., he’d found everything she and Silvio had been cooking up, all of their plans to work together to get them both promoted within their respective organizations.
The FBI was working hard to put together a case against Silvio De Marco based on all that information, but I didn’t plan on giving them a chance to execute a single warrant.
Enzo and I had been disgusted by what those boxes contained, how Silvio had broken hisOmertàso thoroughly. It was enough to bring shame to the entire organization.
But it was those other documents, the ones that held the details of my mother’s last moments, that were the absolute worst to read.
