OWN HER: A Dark Mafia Romance(53)
Do you know the shame that would have brought down on this family, having a bastard hanging around? Everything I've built for us could have been lost, so I did what I fucking had to do. And I've lived with it every day since then, like a man does. Just like I'll have to live with this.”
Gio turned and started running down the stairs, expecting his father to start shooting after him. Mario had the drop on him, but Mario was fat and slow, and Gio was in excellent shape. If he could just get to the bottom of the stairs...if he could just get to his 'Vette...if he could just get a safe enough distance to call Carla and have her meet him somewhere else so he could hand over the journals...
But when Gio got to the bottom of the steps, he stopped in his tracks.
Bruno and Julius were waiting for him with their guns drawn. Bruno was holding a large can of kerosene in his other hand.
Shit, Gio thought. They must have been hiding outside, waiting for me to go in so they could come up behind me and trap me. I was an idiot to assume Papa would have come here alone. Still, maybe I can turn this around somehow...
“You guys, listen,” Gio began. “I don't know what Papa told you to turn you against me, but whatever it was, you've got it all wrong. He killed his own son, okay? I had a brother, and Papa whacked him.”
Bruno and Julius stood their ground, their expressions unchanged.
“They already know,” Mario said as he walked down the steps behind Gio, his gun still drawn. “They've been my most trusted guys since before you were born. They're the only ones I told about Salvatore, just like they're the only ones I told about this.”
Gio stared at Bruno and Julius. “All this time, you guys knew that I had a brother, and that Papa murdered him? All these years, and you fuckers never told me? How could you do that?”
“You ain't exactly got the moral high ground here, Gio,” Bruno pointed out.
“After all, we ain't the ones about to turn over all the family's secrets to some Fed,” Julius chimed in. “What did they promise you, huh? Witness Protection? You gonna change your name to Peter Smith and work as an assistant manager at some Olive Garden in Iowa?”
“You coulda been the boss of this family,” Bruno added. “Most guys would've done anything to be given the chances you got, us included.”
“But you pissed it all away instead,” Julius concluded sadly.
“So now we're gonna wait for your little rat girlfriend to show up,” said Mario. “And when she gets here, I'm gonna burn this place to the ground so no one else ever sees the monument to perversion you built in your attic. The fire inspector's gonna blame it on an electrical fire, an accident.
Meanwhile, you and the Fed are gonna come with us down to the Dan Ryan Woods. And maybe, just maybe, if you prove you can show some loyalty to me after all by shootin' her through the fuckin' head and burying her out there, I'll let you run off an' disappear forever like Salvatore should've done.” As he spoke, Mario reached into Gio's jacket and quickly snatched his gun, holding it at his side.
“And how's that going to play with the rest of the family, huh?” Gio challenged him. “You really think no one's going to notice how your only son just suddenly vanished?”
Mario shrugged. “I'll tell 'em you ran off to marry your lawyer an' live happily ever after. They'll believe it. Everyone could tell you were never cut out for this life anyway. It'll be embarrassing to me, but not half as embarrassing as having a spineless waste of a son who pranced around in a leather harness like a faggot and then dimed us all out to the FBI.”
“You want I should wait for her downstairs, boss?” Julius asked.
“Yeah, make sure you stay away from the windows,” Mario said. “Get her as soon as she walks in the door, and keep her quiet. I don't want no showdowns, and no gunshots if we can help it—we don't wanna get any nosy neighbors in on the act. Let's finish this whole rotten business as quickly and cleanly as possible.”
Julius nodded and trudged down the stairs to the first floor. Gio watched him go, hoping like hell that he could think of some way out of this before Carla showed up.
Chapter 29
Carla
As Carla ended her phone conversation with Don, she realized that her cell phone's battery was about to die. She chided herself for not keeping a closer eye on it.
At least this whole thing's almost over, she thought. From this point forward, there's no reason to believe anything will go wrong. All I have to do is go to Gio's place, pick him up along with the journals, and drive him to the field office.
She got behind the wheel of her car and started the engine just as her phone rang. She checked the caller ID and saw that it was Don again. She wondered why he'd call her again so soon and hit the green button to accept. “What's up, Don?”