“You see this?” Mario said, his gun waving back and forth between Gio and Carla. “You should both be glad you'll never live long enough to have children. All they ever do is ruin everything. Now there's gonna be two charred corpses in the house when it burns down, and how the fuck am I supposed to explain that away, huh? I gotta pay even more to the fire inspector, I gotta pay off the coroner's office now...more hundreds of thousands of dollars pissed away, just like when I had to pay off the private schools to let Gio in because of his shitty grades. And the whores I bought for him, and the car, and the house, and the restaurant. All those years, all those gifts, all that money, all of it wasted on an ungrateful fuck of a son!”
Mario bunched up the shopping bag, tucking it under the arm that was holding the gun. Then he reached into his pocket with his free hand, produced a Zippo lighter, opened it, and flicked it. A small blue flame danced on it and he threw it upstairs. It caught the kerosene instantly and the second floor flared into a crackling blaze.
“First we're gonna lock Carolyn—or whatever the fuck her real name is—in the trunk of your car,” Mario told Gio. “Then you're gonna get in the driver's seat and drive us all down to the woods so we can end this nonsense once and for all. I swear to Christ, my own son betrays me, I lose two of my best guys...worst fuckin' day of my life. Open the door and let's get outta here.”
Gio turned the handle on the front door, pulling it open to reveal roughly two dozen FBI agents in a semicircle out front with their guns drawn. Don stood with them.
“Mario Mancini, you are under arrest,” Don announced clearly. “Throw down your weapon an' place your hands on top of your head.”
Inwardly, Carla cheered. She didn't know how Don had known to come to their rescue, but she was glad he had.
Mario let out a squawk of shocked laughter. His face was covered in a sheen of sweat, and his eyes were bulging with surprise and disbelief. Suddenly, he tossed the shopping bag over his shoulder into the burning house.
“So what?” he screeched, his voice cracking. “What have you got left without that, huh? Some half-baked charges, with most of the evidence muddled by a fire? My son, who's so goddamn stupid he couldn't even understand most of my business, let alone testify about it? I'll hire the best lawyers an' I'll be out in a year or two tops, just like always! You got nothin', understand? Ugatz'. None of you fuckers can touch me. You never could, an' you never will!”
“If'n you're so sure of that, Mario, then how 'bout you just go ahead an' come along quietly, huh?” Don asked. His tone was mild, but his steely gray eyes were locked on Mario and every muscle in his body was tense. “Just let those two go an' drop your gun, if you know you got us beat.”
But as Carla stole a glance backward at Mario's face, she could see that he wasn't so sure at all. His bloodshot eyes were flickering from her and Gio to the FBI agents, and his gun was wavering.
“Fuck you!” Mario screamed. He pushed Gio off to the side and seized Carla from behind, pressing the barrel of his gun to her head. “You put your guns down an' let me go right now or I'll drill a hole through this Fed's skull!”
“Easy,” Don urged as the agents behind him bristled. “Just take it easy, okay? Here, me an' my guys are gonna put our guns away so we can talk this over like civilized adults.” Don holstered his pistol, then turned to the other agents and yelled, “Well? Put 'em away, now!”
“I'll do it,” Mario hissed urgently. “I'll kill her, I mean it!”
Slowly, the other agents holstered their weapons, following Don's lead—even though most of them seemed uncertain of why they were being ordered to do so.
“Now, that's just the kind of thing you don't wanna do, okay, Mario?” Don reasoned, putting his palms up imploringly. “You put the gun down an' let her go an' like you said, your hot shot attorneys'll probably dig you outta this without a hassle. You murder a federal agent in front of a million witnesses an' it ain't gonna matter if you got Jesus Christ an' the heavenly host representin' you in court...they're gonna lock you away forever, guaranteed.”
Mario's gun shook in his hand as he considered his options, breathing hard. The barrel lowered several inches, drifting away from Carla's face. His grip on her began to relax.
“That's right,” Don drawled. “Just put it down an' let's sort all this out.”
Mario's eyes suddenly flashed with insane anger, and Carla felt his entire body tense up again as he raised the gun toward her head once more.
He's going to do it, she thought. He's going to pull the trigger, he's going to shoot me, this is it, these are the last moments of my life, but at least it'll be enough to put Mario away forever and Gio will finally be free, so at least it wasn't for nothing...