Brutal Legacy

3

Chapter 3 Episode 3

“Basta, Renato. I don’t want that. It’s undignified. I’m old, and soon, I’ll no longer be of this earth. I don’t want to be dragged into interview rooms, or worse, a cell, before I die. Allow me to die with dignity… at my country estate.”

Renato hid a smile of affection for his cantankerous old uncle. He’d been a hell-raiser in the past, but you’d never know it from his stooped posture and fragility now.

“Certo, zio. So, what do you want to do?”

Sal waved his hand. “That’s for you to work out. I don’t know. I’m old and I want to get back to bed. Make this go away.”

“Ho capito. Rest up, and I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

LEAVING THE HOTEL, we stood on the steps and watched Zio Sal disappear into his town car.

“What do you think I should do with Alfredo Bellisario and his daughter?” Ren asked, staring up at the slice of early morning sky visible between the old buildings surrounding us.

I shrugged. Mask in place. “Whatever you want. It’s not my business.”

“Oh really? I’d have thought there was no one more your business than her,” Ren mused.

I held my tongue and avoided his probing gaze.

“If killing her is off the table, then the most obvious course of action is to marry the daughter off, of course, to a De Sanctis man. She’s our collateral against him spilling his guts and Salvatore’s history to the law in order to reduce his sentence. He clearly cares about her welfare… so she becomes a De Sanctis, and as long as he plays nice, she lives.”

“You’ve forgotten that she’s already married,” I reminded Renato before he could get too carried away with his ridiculous idea. Zio Sal gave me a strange look, as if a husband should be no impediment to making her one of the De Sanctis family.

“And what about the threat from the Ravelli family?” I pressed on, trying to force him to see reason.

“Protecting the father in prison is no big deal, half the guards are ours, and half the inmates. Protecting the daughter can fall to her new husband… the tax on getting a wife like Georgia Bellisario. Once Alfredo dies, he can do what he wants with her.”

Georgia Bellisario.

The name stuck like a claw in a furrow scored across my heart.

A remnant of a time when the organ I housed in my chest used to beat.

I used to be a living, breathing man.

I used to have hopes and dreams and hot blood running through my veins.

Georgia Bellisario had been the end of all of that.

The day I met her, I started my descent into hell. Now, I lived there.

“Of course, it’s Georgia Conti now, isn’t it?” Renato mused. “Now she’s the Conti widow.”

Widow. She’s the Conti widow. A widow. The word threatened to send me into a spiral.

“She’s what?” I managed.

“A widow. Her husband passed not too long ago. Some illness. Everyone is dying,” Zio Sal said, dramatic as ever. “You didn’t know?”

I shook my head tightly. No. I didn’t know. I didn’t let myself check on her. I didn’t let myself wonder. My life only worked if I continued to be a cold, emotionless machine, performing tasks and following orders without question. Looking up the woman who had ripped my heart from my chest and left me to bleed out didn’t fit. It wasn’t allowed.

“Ah, yes, she married the Conti boy, didn’t she,” Zio Sal muttered, nodding. “Those two were always inseparable.”

Right. Inseparable. The reminder that Georgia had married her childhood boyfriend after all, when my life had burned to ashes, was just the reminder I needed to reinforce my indifference to her situation now.

“Who do you suggest for the husband?” Renato asked.

I glanced at him and met my capo’s eyes. There was a question in them. Something that saw beneath the steel cage enclosing my mind.

I looked away.

“That’s not my decision. It’s none of my business. But I pity the poor bastard.”

Renato chuckled softly. “I’d bet my fortune that Georgia is still a handful. I’ve only ever heard of one man handling her.”

“Renato,” I interrupted him. I had no desire to walk down memory lane. I’d decided long ago that the woman in question was dead to me. She’d died on a warm, late summer day, lying under the shadows of an olive tree. She’d died. She was gone forever. I didn’t care about what was left over.

Renato blew out a breath, sensing my determination not to get dragged into the situation. He thought, nodding decisively. “Jimmy. Jimmy will marry her.”

“Jimmy… Jimmy who I think is skimming off the casino Jimmy?” I asked, surprised.

Jimmy De Luca was a low-level made man, one who I was pretty sure was a traitor and deserving of the same punishment I’d dispensed last night.

Renato nodded. “He’s the right age and single. Maybe it’ll make him less annoying… or Georgia will kill him. Either way, it’s a win-win. You got a problem with that?”

He cut his eyes to me.

I studiously avoided his gaze and shook my head. “No. No problem. It’s not my business.”

“Right.” Renato sighed as though I was the most trying person he’d ever met. “One part is your business, however. Georgia lives in LA. Her fiancé lives in Atlantic City. Someone needs to go and get her… and that someone is you.”

“Me?” I repeated.

Ren nodded. “You. Once all this business with Bellisario gets out, you don’t think the Ravelli family will have the exact same idea as us? Right now, it’s about who can act fastest to help old Alfredo make the right choice about who to rat out. I don’t trust anyone else to bring the daughter back in one piece but you. Cheer up. You’ll only have to put up with her for a few days, then Jimmy will do his duty and take over.”

“I can send a trusted man,” I stated flatly. Everything inside me resisted the very thought of seeing Georgia again, never mind talking to her, being around her… I wasn’t sure either of us would make it to the wedding in one piece.

“Don’t overthink it, Colonel. Just follow orders.” Renato gave me a grin.

He knew exactly how ingrained the habit of following orders was for me. When you’d dedicated your entire life to serving your country, questioning orders, or worse, refusing them, felt like an unforgivable betrayal.

“Still, I didn’t intend to see her again,” I pointed out, knowing the battle was lost. My capo’s mind was made up.

Renato’s hand landed on my shoulder. It reminded me of that day, a lifetime ago, when we’d first met, and I’d tried to steal his wallet, only to get caught immediately and hauled in front of the prosecutor.

“It seems like fate has other plans for you.”

Imade it to the third day in Castel Amaro, when I knew I had to find a way to eat. The village was tiny, a speck on a map. I had caught a ride that far with a farmer. Hitching on the back of someone’s truck was easy enough. He’d caught me at a rest stop on the outskirts of the village and run me off with a shotgun.

So much for the countryside being friendlier than the city.

I was heading south. I needed to get the hell out of Napoli and the legacy my father had left me… son of a rat.

I wandered during the day, keeping out of sight of the locals, and slept in someone’s barn at night. There was a hole in the roof, and through it, I watched the stars.

I missed my home. Napoli. They called it the city of the seven castles, but I’d always think of it as the city of thieves. It stole your heart, while its inhabitants stole everything else. Well, at least they had in my neighborhood.

My father had worked for a local Mafia and done a s**t job of it. When he went down, he’d rolled over and sang like a birdie for the local police and made it impossible to stay in the city. Then the family he’d ratted on got to him and he’d joined my mother in the dirt. There was only me and my little sister, Giada, left. The state sent her to stay with some distant relatives they’d dug up from somewhere, whereas me? I was on my own. I was old enough to take care of myself and answer for my old man’s crimes… I couldn’t have stayed in the city. That life, and everyone I’d ever known, was over for me.

It was better that Giada was with family right now. They could at least feed her. She could sort out the rest herself. She might be small, but she was mighty. Once I was settled somewhere, had a job and a way to support her, I’d steal her out of her bedroom one night. The Santori siblings belonged together.

The aroma of roasted lamb threaded through the air, making my stomach cramp painfully. f**k, I was hungry. I’d been hungry before. Since our patriarch was arrested and then died in prison for being a rat, there had been more than enough nights when I’d gone to sleep starving. Somehow, caring for my sis had pushed the mundane needs of the body out of my head. Today, I had nothing to distract me from the certain knowledge that if I didn’t get something to eat today, tomorrow, walking, stealing, or just standing upright would be a challenge.

The church bells rang overhead. It was Sunday, and the locals of Castel Amaro were out in full force for church and lunch, and passeggiata. It was the time to see and be seen, and I had my eye on someone in particular.

There was a family in town that was miles above the others in terms of wealth. An older, distinguished-looking man, and a younger man who could be his son, or even grandson.

Lifting one of their wallets would ensure a full belly for more than a few nights.

I waited until the men retired to the bar inside the restaurant where they’d just eaten a lavish lunch, and when one went to the bathroom, I made my move.

It was a tiny taverna, and the bathroom hall was cramped. I peeked into the bathroom through a crack in the door. My mark smoked a cigarette at the window, leaning on the sill and talking on the phone in a rapid stream of English.