EpilogueComeuppanceDon Messino Dies

Epilogue

Comeuppance

Salvatore did as promised.

Nina sits strapped to a metal chair in the box, eyes defiant despite the chapped lips, messy hair and snot dried onto her face.

Her time as a guest of the mafia hasn't been pleasant, but she's not dead and that's what Salvatore promised.

Her defiance turns to hatred when her gaze lands on me. "You can take the mask off. I know who you are, Angelo Caruso. "

"You think I care if you know who I am?" I guess that piece of wisdom from my book on relationships is true too.

Every situation reads differently to the person experiencing it.

I didn't believe it because Candi and I see things in the same way if not for the same reasons.

It's weird, but it works.

"Don't you?" she sneers. "You think I won't go to the cops after this? Tell them what you did?"

"What exactly did I do?" I ask. There are so many things.

"I hear things working at the club."

"This is new." Salvatore pushes himself off the stainless steel wall with torture implements on it. "She hasn't said a word about knowing things before now."

Nina's gaze slides to him. "I know you own the club and that you're a mafia capo."

"You sound like you think that's some big secret." Salvatore pulls out his phone and taps the screen.

The tune for Candy Crush plays as he slides his finger over the screen.

"It is!" Nina glares. "You don't want the cops knowing the mafia owns the place."

"You mean the cops on our payroll, or the cops not on our payroll?" I ask.

"Right. This isn't a movie," she derides. "You don't have cops on your payroll."

"In a movie I'd spare you to show my humanity. In real life, I'm Death and today I end yours."

She gasps and stares up at me. "You can't kill me. I'm a woman. Everybody knows you have rules."

Ignoring her claim to know my rules, which do not apply in her favor, I ask, "Did you know Perla's plans for Candi when she bribed you to help them?"

Showing intelligence for the first time since I came into The Box, she refuses to answer. Because she knows the truth is not going to set her free.

"She did not. She didn't even know what they drugged the wine with," Salvatore says, his fury at Nina's actions bleeding into his voice. "For all she knew, it was poison, not a knockout drug."

"You did know Salvatore owned the club though."

Nina nods, clearly not as proud of that fact now as she was a minute ago.

"So, you knew you sold information on how to access one of the mafia's properties to our enemies?" That would be an offense punishable by death in our world.

That she facilitated Candi's kidnapping only guarantees her demise at my hands.

When Salvatore questioned her earlier, Nina admitted that Gino showed her an access panel to a hallway that runs between Pitiful Princess and the business next to it. There's a stairway that leads to a passage that eventually connects up with one of New York's underground tunnels.

After looking into the history of the building, we learned that back in the thirties, the same man owned both business sites and ran an illegal gambling den in the back of both. We've got people checking the walls in the dressing room for access to the other backroom.

I don't know how Gino knew about the panel in the office and I never will, because he's dead and gone.

"How was I supposed to know they weren't your friends?" Nina asks truculently. "They're mafia too, right?"

"The fact they bribed you to give drugged wine to my wife and Death's woman should have been a big fucking clue," Salvatore bites out.

Nina's mouth twists into a pout. "They didn't tell me the wine was drugged."

"You lied to get Candi and Bianca to drink it. You knew." I pull out my knife and start flipping it over my knuckles.

Death is ready to claim another soul.

"So what if I did know? Bianca's fine. Candi's fine," Nina spits. "You'd be throwing it in my face if she wasn't."

"They fucking kidnapped her." My voice sounds loud. I never noticed the acoustics magnifying sound in here before.

Nina tries to rear back in the chair.

Salvatore lays a hand on my shoulder. "You alright, brother?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" I ask. This is what I do.

"I've never heard you shout before."

"Because I don't shout," I say dismissively.

His raised brows mock my words. "Looks like you do now."

Huh. I guess I do.

"You put Candi and Bianca's life at risk." I carefully modulated my voice this time, keeping the emotion out of it.

The only person who gets my unfiltered emotion is Candi. Even when I'm furious, I act on it, but I don't express it by yelling.

Nina eyes Salvatore like he's the dangerous one in the room. "They said they wouldn't hurt Bianca."

"But mia amate was fair game in your eyes?" I ask.

"Candi deserves what she got. I know you did something to Gino because of her. Because she thought she was too good to sell her ass like the rest of us."

"Candi is better than you." It's got nothing to do with whether or not she sells her body for sex. "Because she's a decent human being and you're not."

Candi would never take money to set someone else up to be harmed. She's got me to protect her soft spots.

"You're a rat." The disgust he feels toward Nina infuses Salvatore's voice. "You sold our secrets. You were willing to risk my wife's life in order to get some petty revenge for a stronzo I would have killed if Angelo hadn't. "

And if I had killed Gino earlier when he first leered at Candi like she was a commodity, he would not have been able to cause Candi and Bianca so much stress. That's a lesson for another day.

"I knew you killed him. I knew he was dead because of her." Nina spits at me.

The globule of mucus lands on the floor a good two feet away and I roll my eyes behind the skull mask.

"I'm not cleaning that up," Salvatore bitches.

"The sanitization process will take care of it." And any other DNA left in the room.

I jerk my head toward the panel that opens the floor. Salvatore gets my meaning immediately and walks over to activate it. The floor drops and starts sliding away from where Nina is sitting.

On the last flip over my forefinger, I grip my knife instead of flipping it again. "You've got such a hard on for Gino, you can spend the rest of eternity with him."

"No! You can't throw me in some pit to starve to death. You can't do that!"

"Don't worry. I won't."

"I knew you had a rule about killing women," she says smugly.

"Wrong." I step up behind her and pierce her jugular, pulling out the knife immediately. "My rule is about torturing them."

Her blood sprays in an ark into the soup and she bleeds out in seconds. When she's dead, I unstrap her and toss her body in.

"I wondered if you had a rule about women too when your mom survived kidnapping your woman." Salvatore remarks.

I shrug. "Killing her would have made the role she's going to play in her father's death impossible."

I'm strangely reluctant to kill Perla. When I mentioned this to Candi, she told me not to worry. If Perla ever came for me again, I wouldn't have to be the one to take her out.

Candi's not a killer, but she's right. My men will kill Perla without hesitation if she poses a threat to me.

"You're a cold bastard, Angelo. That's one of the things I like most about you." Salvatore's grin is a little unhinged.

And I know what people mean when they say I look like I have a demon in my soul. And that's probably one of the things I like best about him too.

Don Messino Dies

The call comes from my uncle a week later. His father's condition has deteriorated rapidly. The doctors are blaming his emphazyma and lifelong gastric trouble like expected.

"I'd like to come to say goodbye," I tell my uncle.

"You are family, Angelo. You are welcome."

"Perla might not agree with you."

"My sister gives her loyalty to the wrong people." The soon to be new godfather of Sicily never liked Perla's husbands.

Including my father.

When I arrive in Sicily, my uncle has a ride waiting to take me to the Messino estate from the private airfield Severu's jet landed at.

There's a hush over the household. They're all waiting for the Grim Reaper to come for my grandfather's soul.

What they don't know is that Don Messino doesn't have a soul and Death is already here.

My uncle greets me with a somber handshake. "Thank you for coming, Angelo. I know the family has not always treated you like we should, but know that once I become godfather, you will always be welcome here."

"Thank you. My life is in New York with my family there."

My uncle nods. "I heard you are engaged to a lovely young woman. The daughter of a capo."

Severu would have told him that. Perla wouldn't have said anything so complimentary.

"He doesn't acknowledge her," I say grimly.

"But her brother's do. One day Renato will be capo in his father's place and things will change in that family."

"Like they're changing in this one." I don't call it my family, but I acknowledge that my uncle has a plan for the future that is very different than my hidebound grandfather's.

"Yes."

Death has a smell I'm very familiar with and it clings to the opulent bedroom as my grandfather gasps his last breaths.

Perla jumps up when I enter the room. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to say goodbye."

She shakes her head and starts to speak, but at a look from her brother subsides back into the chair beside the bed. "Say your goodbyes then."

"I will leave you to it," my uncle says before turning to go.

"You don't mean to leave this killer with our father?" Perla demands.

"He is your son, Perla. Remember the importance of family. He is here to pay his last respects. There is nothing to criticize in that."

"He's a…" This time her voice trails off after a look from me.

"There are guards right outside the door. Invite one of them in if you feel the need," my uncle says like he's pacifying a hysterical woman.

"Yes, invite a guard in," I tell her and then say quietly so only she can hear. "I'm sure he'll be very interested in my final words to my grandfather."

My mother is not always stupid. This time she realizes whatever I have to say, she doesn't want a mafia soldier overhearing.

She's right.

After my uncle shuts the door, I activate the handheld scrambler that will prevent any audio or video feeds from sending a signal while it is on.

Then I stand at the end of the bed and inform my grandfather and mother the truth about why he is dying. "Try to tell someone," I say to my grandfather, who frankly isn't telling anyone anything despite the venom in his eyes. "Have an autopsy performed and it comes back on you, mother dearest."

"That's not possible," Perla denies. "I didn't do anything the Sicilian mafia would blame me for."

"Only the American Cosa Nostra considers you an enemy, Perla. It's in your best interest to keep it that way."

"I'm loyal to this family even if my spawn isn't."

I shrug. Spawn. It's not a bad word. "If you attempt any more interference in the American Cosa Nostra, your part in the death of your father will be revealed."

"I had no part."

"You did. In fact, you've been poisoning him with thallium for months. Analysis of his fingernails will show the longevity of the use."

"No one will believe that."

"The fact the fatal dose was administered in the cheesecake you bought him is very compelling."

"There's no way to prove that."

"This is the mafia, Perla. Not a court of law. One whisper of the truth becomes fifty and you are tried and convicted before Sunday dinner. You were very protective of the cake after all, not allowing anyone to have a slice but him."

"That's because of his rule. They all know that."

"But will it look that way when his autopsy proves he's been imbibing thallium for months? Your husband was ambitious, after all. He wanted to be the next godfather."

"He's dead!"

"Yes, but that doesn't change his ambition before he died. Does my uncle know that you supported Barone's delusion of taking your father's place?"

"I don't…how did…"

"You and Lora Revello will be moving to Elba to grieve the losses of your husbands in your shared widowhood."

"I'm not moving away from my home," Perla hisses.

"It's fitting, isn't it? Napolean was exiled to Elba for trying to claim territory that was not his. You and Barone were doing the same and it started with trying to kill Severu, but it wouldn't have ended there, would it?"

My grandfather is looking at my mother like she's the devil in the room now.

"You planned to get rid of my uncle after your father died to clear the way for Barone to be godfather."

I look at my grandfather. "If you had left Severu alone, you would not be dying right now. But I protect my people. I guess you could see this as me protecting my uncle too, the only member of this cancerous family worth it."

I'm on a video call with Severu when Don Messino passes. The last voice my grandfather hears is my brother telling him to rot in hell.