If The Seas Catch Fire (4 page)

“But as for this guy who took out Floresta and Mandanici,” Luciano said, “he had to have been a pro. He didn’t leave a thing at the scene. No weapon. No witnesses. No fingerprints. Guy didn’t even leave any footprints—they said the ground around the car had been wiped. Like he’d used his foot to erase his prints until he got to the concrete.”

Dom drummed his fingers on his arm. “They’re going to find my blood in the backseat of that car. I’m almost sure of it. Probably the trunk, too.”

“Well, that’s your alibi,” Corrado said. “You were in the trunk and backseat, so you weren’t the one driving. The only thing you might be questioned about is the identity of the shooter.” He narrowed his eyes a bit. “Do you remember anything else, Domenico? Anyone else who might’ve done this?”

Dom shook his head. “I blacked out. After that… nothing.” That wasn’t entirely true, of course, and he didn’t like lying to his uncle—
never
a wise thing to do—so he added, “I remember someone else being there, but the details… it’s all a blur.”

Beside Corrado, Felice glanced back and forth from his father to his brother, but he said nothing. Luciano swore under his breath.

Corrado sighed. “Well, in any case, the men who did this to you are dead. When I find out who sent them, he’s dead too.”

“But we should also find out who the fuck killed
them
,” Felice said. “Are you just going to let that slide? I mean, how do we know this guy’s on our side?”

“Because he didn’t kill me,” Dom said through his teeth. “Trust me, he had ample opportunity.”

Felice eyed him. “So you
did
see the guy?”

Dom’s blood turned cold. He held his cousin’s gaze. “I was on my knees and spitting blood while he was putting those boys in the trunk. And
someone
helped me into and out of the backseat. He even gave me a phone to call Corrado. If he’d wanted me dead, I would be.”

Felice scowled, shifting in his chair.

Luciano pursed his lips. “He might not have known who you were.”

Dom vaguely remembered telling the guy his name. Which seemed stupid now, but he did recall feeling like he didn’t have a choice.

“
What’s your name?
”

“
Who wants to know?
”

“
The guy who’s going to decide whether you wake up tomorrow in a hospital, a jail cell, or a morgue.
”

“
Domenico Maisano
.”

“
You’re shitting me
.”

He shuddered, which hurt like hell. Yeah, that kid knew who he was. Exactly who he was. And yet, Dom was still alive.

And his cousins and uncle were still watching him, waiting for him to say… something?

He shook his head again. “If he knew something, he didn’t say anything. And he didn’t shoot me.”

“You’ve got to remember something about him,” Felice said.

“No.” Dom looked him in the eye, and despite the mental images of that leather crop top, the sharp cheekbones, and those icy, unflinching eyes, said, “I don’t remember anything.”

“Then that’s all we have,” Corrado said. “The important thing now is finding out who sent those boys after you. Because I want a message sent to whoever sent
them
.”

Usually Dom would be the one dispatched to send a message. Most hitmen were just goons or independent contractors—they were more disposable, more easily shot and discarded if the cops got too close—but his uncle kept Dom in plain sight. The boss’s well-known nephew, the man who everyone assumed was a turncoat coward just like his father, the one who maintained debt ledgers and efficiently laundered even the bloodiest money, was apparently the last person anyone would suspect of carrying out dirty work like
that
.

But the message that needed to be sent couldn’t wait until Dom had recovered enough to send it, so Corrado would handle it. Who he’d send and what they’d do to whom, Dom had no idea, but with his uncle involved, the message would be received loud and clear that the Maisanos were not to be fucked with. And although Dom wasn’t thrilled about the condition he was in at the moment, he was secretly relieved because being this fucked up meant he wouldn’t be the one pulling the trigger this time.

“What about the guy who took them out?” Felice fidgeted in his chair. He was more agitated than usual, which said a lot. “We just gonna forget about that?”

Corrado shook his head. “No. I’ve got cops filling me in on what they know, and plenty of ears to the ground in case somebody talks. Domenico, if you remember anything, I want to know about it. Until then, he’s done us a favor and he did it for free.” He chuckled. “Perhaps we’ll find out who he is when he tries to send us a bill.”

Luciano laughed quietly.

Felice didn’t. “Dad, we need to find—”

“When your cousin remembers more details, we will.” Corrado shot his younger son a pointed look. “Until then, you’ve all got business to attend to.”

Felice swore in Italian, and then got up and stormed out of his father’s office. Corrado watched him, but didn’t try to stop him—he shook his head, muttering something about God blessing him with a bullheaded son, and then dismissed Luciano and Dom.

On the way out of Corrado’s office, Dom didn’t say a word to anyone. Nobody here needed to know that, once he’d finished licking his wounds and could breathe without pain, he had every intention of finding out who the stripper was and what he’d seen. That he fully intended to find out what this kid’s deal was.

But he wasn’t bringing the family into it. This he was doing on his own.

A week after Domenico Maisano had his ass handed to him in the alley, Sergei still jumped every time someone came strolling into the club. On his way in tonight, going in through the back door since he’d gone in through the front last night, he glanced over his shoulder for the hundredth time, searching the shadows for gun muzzles and suited Italians.

He swore in his native tongue and stepped inside, pausing in the dim hallway to catch his breath for a moment. More and more, he regretted leaving Maisano alive. Killing a made man, taking out someone as high up in the ranks as Domenico, was suicide, but so was letting him live after he saw Sergei’s face.

On the other hand, so what if Domenico knew Sergei had killed the goons in the trunk? The gun would never be found, and even if it was, there’d be no connection between that weapon and any other killings. There was no way anyone would conclude this was anything but a random murder. A lifesaving one, for that matter—if nothing else, the Maisanos should’ve been rewarding him for saving Domenico’s life.

But someone else had wanted Domenico Maisano harmed, and they might not be too happy about that night’s interventions. Whatever the case, though, Sergei wanted to put the whole thing behind him. And over and over, as he wandered to the backstage dressing room to get ready for his shift, he berated himself for leaving that asshole alive. Dead men told no tales, after all.

As he changed out of his shorts and T-shirt and shimmied into some tight black leather, his stomach fluttered with nerves. In a few minutes, he’d be out there in the lounge, and he was certain one of the Maisanos would come in with questions. Or worse—Domenico himself would show up. Sergei wasn’t even sure why that was worse, but the thought of the battered Mafioso walking into his club made his skin crawl, as if that would cross lines and make worlds collide after he’d so carefully kept them separate. Even if Maisano just wanted to say “thanks for saving my ass” or something, Sergei didn’t like being in the same room as a Mafioso unless it was to accept a job or put a bullet through his brain.

But he didn’t want to see any of his contacts now. None of the Mafiosi. Not here. He was sure with every new arrival, though, that one of them would show up, and he was relieved beyond words every time it was just another lonely dude with a hard-on.

He usually got a little thrill out of seeing one of his contacts come in. Although their very existence—every one of the Mafia-connected Italians in this town—sickened him, there were a handful who came in here specifically to see him. They came promising him money in exchange for doing what he loved most: kicking Mafiosi off this mortal coil and, one body at a time, moving the families closer to their inevitable collapse.

Ever since the night Domenico Maisano had his ass kicked, though, Sergei had been more on edge than the town had been after Barcia’s body washed up with a mouthful of testicle. Sergei had covered his tracks well enough, but if anyone connected him to the dead men in the trunk, or to Maisano’s busted ribs, there was a good possibility he’d be silenced.

For the past week, Sergei varied his routes to and from work. He made sure Roy or one of the other giant bouncers stayed close for all of his private dances with non-regulars. He socialized more than he probably had in years, just to be around people who knew him so some goon didn’t surprise him.

But no one had come looking for him. The only people who asked for him were his regulars. Maybe Maisano didn’t remember him. Maybe they’d already taken out whoever had ordered the two goons to rough him up.

In all the years he’d spent planning to bring the families down from the inside out, Sergei had never given much thought to Domenico Maisano. He was high up the food chain, and yet… not. Domenico was the Joker in the deck, and this wasn’t a game of Jokers Wild. He was that card that nobody knew what to do with. Or why it was even in the deck. The adopted prince who would never be king, but everyone still had to go through the respectful motions anyway.

Sergei suspected Domenico was little more than a pity case. Though he’d never amounted to much as a Mafioso, he was untouchable. After all, he was the orphaned son of Corrado’s disgraced brother, taken in as a boy despite the damage his father had done to the family name. Sergei had heard that if Alessandro Maisano had survived two or three more years, his son would’ve been killed along with him, but Corrado had taken pity on the boy because he’d been so young.

As if the Maisanos had ever hesitated to execute children for sins of the father.

On his way into the backstage dressing room for his shift, Sergei ground his teeth and shoved those thoughts away—the brutal family and the man who shouldn’t have been stuck in his mind—as he tried to concentrate on getting ready for work. Another night, another dozen or so dances for horny men with too much money. There hadn’t been any goons in here lately, thank God.

It was over. Maisano was in the past. No one was coming to bother him about it, or they would have already.

Focus, Sergei. And not on him.

Once he’d finished preening in the dressing room mirror, he went out to the lounge to start earning his pay. The left stage had just opened up, so he nodded to the deejay and took his place at the pole. The music started. So did Sergei. Undulating, shaking his hips and ass so there wasn’t a soft dick in the room. Business as usual.

And right on cue, someone from Cape Swan’s seedy underbelly showed up.

Though Sergei didn’t miss a beat, the sight of a slick-haired man in a pin-striped suit made his skin crawl. This one wasn’t Italian, though. Baltazar was the smooth-talking Greek who’d drawn Sergei into this world in the first place.

Like Sergei, Baltazar could never be made because he wasn’t Sicilian, so he worked as an independent contractor. He was the go-between for a motley crew of thugs and contract killers—some who worked together, some lone wolves like Sergei—who carried out some of the families’ dirty work. He handled jobs for both the Maisanos and the Passantinos. Maybe the Cusimanos too. Sergei had never heard the guy say anything remotely endearing about that clan, but their money was as green as anybody else’s.

Baltazar sidled up to the stage and sat down at the last empty seat. While Sergei continued to dance, they locked eyes for a split second, and the subtle nod confirmed what he already knew—this was business.

At the end of his dance, as he always did, Sergei grinned down at the men watching him. “All right. Who wants a private dance?”

Immediately, cash came out. Mostly twenties. A few hundreds. Held in wads, waved in outstretched hands, with “I can get more from the ATM” called out over the thumping music.

Baltazar, of course, casually fanned enough hundreds on the edge of the stage to halt all the others in their tracks. The men lowered their hands. Twenties disappeared. Then hundreds. Baltazar and Sergei exchanged grins, and Sergei collected the cash before stepping down beside him.

The cash he laid down here wasn’t a bid for a private lap dance, but it wasn’t just for show either. It was a means to outbid the others in order to get Sergei alone without rousing suspicion, and it was also a deposit for the deal they were about to negotiate. There was no question that Sergei would take the money and complete the job. He’d learned at a very, very young age that
nobody
said no to the Mafia.

On the way back to the private booths, he surreptitiously thumbed through the cash. Roughly ten grand, which meant the job was a hundred. Somebody fairly high in the ranks, then. At
least
a lieutenant, maybe, or a captain. Not necessarily a made man, but definitely a valuable target.

He was curious about the hit, especially since it seemed to be coming awfully quickly on the heels of Barcia’s contract, but he wasn’t terribly surprised. There’d been an uptick in violence among the families over the last few months. From all three sides, men were sending up smoke signals to each other in blood and gun powder. There was a war brewing. A big one.

Sergei had played a role in that. None of the families had yet caught on that for the past few years, he’d been methodically arranging them like chess pieces. He’d long ago learned what could mark a man for death. By strategically setting someone up—framing him for embezzlement, planting conspicuous bugs in homes and vehicles so it appeared someone was in cahoots with the law—Sergei could virtually guarantee that the powers that be would issue a contract on that man’s head. Getting that contract himself was a plus, and the money certainly never hurt, but as long as it ended with one more Mafioso in a body bag, Sergei was pleased.

The most important part was that when the right people were killed—either by Sergei directly or because he’d set them up—then other people moved into power. With time and patience, he had, for all intents and purposes, sculpted the leadership of all three families until they were, without even realizing it, moving themselves into checkmate. He’d cleared the way for men with bloody grudges to rise to power opposite each other. Removed the more sensible, diplomatic ones in favor of the hotheads and sociopaths. The ones who could be manipulated into going to war with each other and, ultimately, bring all three organizations down in flames.

Causing the right people to move up in the ranks at the right time was like throwing gas-filled water balloons at a bonfire—explosions were inevitable. For a hundred grand, Sergei could arrange for one of those explosions to happen sooner than later.

He exchanged nods with Roy and then stepped into a private booth with Baltazar.

Baltazar didn’t sit down. They faced each other across the small booth, and the man slipped his hands into his pockets as he said, “I’ve got an invite to a party, Dmitry.” Even Sergei’s Mafia contacts didn’t know his real name. He carefully kept it that way.

“When and where?” he asked.

Baltazar pulled out a photo and handed it to Sergei. On the back, the mark’s name, Nicolá Cannizzaro, was handwritten. He knew the name—a member of the Maisano clan. The brother of Luciano Maisano’s wife, if he recalled correctly. Sergei committed the name to memory, then studied the photo for a moment until it, too, was well burned into his mind.

He handed it back. He didn’t want that photo anywhere near him when the body was found.

Baltazar tucked the photo in his pocket again. “I’d also like to bring a friend.”

Sergei nodded. That was code for killing two birds with one stone. “Who’s your friend?”

Baltazar handed over a second photo. That was a face Sergei had seen before. Eugene Cusimano, a soldier who answered to one of the Cusimano lieutenants.

He handed back the photos. “Are they both getting in on it? Or does one want to watch?”

“My friend only wants to watch, but
not
participate.”

So Eugenio Cusimano needed to be framed, but left alive. Why they didn’t want Eugenio taken out too, or why this needed to be on him, or what would happen to him once Nicolá’s people got their hands on him, was none of Sergei’s business. What was his business was the fact that Eugenio would be marked after this, which would probably mean another contract for Sergei, but more importantly, Eugenio would be out of the picture. That would remove a worthless drunk from the chessboard and leave room within the Cusimano ranks for one of the hothead newly made men to move up. Perfect.

“I’m in.” It wasn’t like he could say no even if he wanted to, but he rarely objected to culling Mafiosi. “When’s the party?”

“Sunday.”

Sergei raised his eyebrows. “That’s a bit tight for a party with this much going on.”

Baltazar gave a tight shrug. “It’s what’s offered. Take it or leave it.”

“Logistics are what they are. If I can’t do it by Sunday, I guarantee no one else in this town can.”

Baltazar scowled. “Get it done in ten days, or it’s both our necks in ropes. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Baltazar handed him an envelope. “This plus what I gave you earlier is twenty grand upfront. The rest on completion.”

Sergei quickly thumbed through the bills, and then closed the envelope. “See you at the party.”