Page 173 of Dagger in the Sea

“The doctors are very hopeful that my mother will be waking up from her coma.”

Mauro tilted his head slowly, his eyes on me. “Terrible accident.”

“This neighborhood, just isn’t what it used to be,” I said.

He sat up straighter, eyes narrowed. “How was your trip?”

“Eventful,” I replied. “Full of surprises.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It opened my eyes to a great many things.” Planting my hands on the table, I leaned over. A hiss escaped Tony’s mouth as he inhaled on his cigarette angling toward me. Mauro raised his palm, and Tony and the others stiffened.

I stood up, raised both my hands in the air, my unzipped hoodie opening to reveal only a stark black cotton T-shirt fitted to my torso. No gun, no weapon. Mauro flicked a finger, and my eyes held his hard gaze as Tony got up and searched me, his big hands patting down my chest, middle, sides, my back, my legs.

From the beginning, our dealings were always in private, shrouded, between us.

Not now. No more.

“He’s clean.” Tony remained standing.

I said, “I told you to leave my mother alone. I asked you to let it go, for me. But you couldn’t do that, could you? For years now. You had other plans, bigger plans. For her, for me.”

In the corner of my eye, I caught Tony’s hand moving across his middle, slowly oh so slowly. Oscar’s too.

“Your point?” my father said.

My pulse raced at a high pitch, an L train screaming down a black tunnel. I held his drilling gaze and gave him a grin. “You always taught me, like a good father should, that no enemy should ever go unpunished.”

Pop.

One burning hole in the middle of Mauro’s forehead. The pinpoint accuracy of Mishap’s aim from a distance was extraordinary.

Mauro’s body shuddered perversely, dropped forward on the table over a plate of cheeses. His beer glass crashed onto his ashtray, liquor splattering. Yells ricocheting. Shouts, hollers.

I swiveled and Mishap, a steady rock in the center of the deli, threw me a gun.

“Mauro!” Sal yelled, a gun raised.

I shot Sal in the chest, and he crumpled to the tiled floor in a messy heap. Tony’s eyes hardened, his gun raised, and I shot at his head. His neck jerked back and he fell over on the table, his head crashing on the tray of sweet rolls and ham slices, his gun going off. Rolls flew, the old Depression era lamp hanging from the ceiling shattered. A shower of splintered glass.

Chairs stumbled around me, Oscar lunged at me. My leg shot out, my foot slamming into his throat, knocking him back. He let out a howl, and I fired at his head. His body fell like a heavy stone over a chair, the chair collapsing under the shock of his weight.

Mishap charged over the bodies and debris toward the back door, and I followed, hurdling over the stacked three liter cans of olive oil in the narrow hallway, out the back door. We dove into the waiting car.

Bwoom. Boosh.

Our vehicle rocked and shook. An orange-black mushroom cloud of fire and smoke rose in the gray sky. The Dumpsters rattled out of their spots, bricks flying. Particles crashed and pelted the car windows as we took off around the corner, down another side street. Screams, alarms, sirens blaring.

Motherfuck.

Finger had told us we’d have a seven second window to get the hell out of there. His exactness shot my adrenaline level even higher.

I rubbed at the gun handle with my hoodie and handed the gun to Mishap. He tucked it in his boot and dismantled his weapon into small parts. I tore off the hoodie and Mishap grabbed it. My gaze flicked back for just a moment. That little deli, the original cornerstone of Mauro Guardino’s empire, had been obliterated, and him and his right hands along with it.

It was done. He was done with. And I had done it.

Destroyer.

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