Tears rolled down her cheeks as she held her
beloved father’s barely breathing body close, his great weight
seemingly no obstruction to her surprisingly strong grip. But she
saw the napkin quickly become soaked and break apart under the
fountain of blood, and she knew what the end result would be. But
she continued to deny it all the same.
“Papa, don’t die!” she told him. “Please!
I’m sorry I sassed you before, I love you so much, you were a good
father to me…”
The barely conscious Don looked up at her,
the fire rapidly going out of his eyes. “Remember… all I taught
you, little girl,” he managed to choke out. “I’m proud of you…
always have… been…”
The great Gino Provenzo then expired in the
arms of his daughter as he fully bled out. Forced into accepting
the unacceptable, Gia screamed in protest to the God she was taught
to so devoutly worship. She then turned to the now standing Vito
Gambino with an expression evocative of a wild animal about to
pounce on its prey.
“I’m going to kill you, Vito!” she hollered.
“Bet your stinky little ass you’re going to pay for this! In bloody
spades!”
Within the previous moments, the violent
exchange between the two opposing security forces played out
thusly:
Panaro and the tallest of Vito’s guards
simultaneously reached for their Colt M1911 semi-automatic
firearms. Panaro proved the quicker draw as he blasted a hole
through his opponent’s forehead, shattering his skull and spraying
fragments of gray matter on the floor.
The second of Vito’s guards then drew his
own firearm and managed to blast a shot through Pinaro’s rib cage
before he could react any further. The Killer’s blood-soaked body
fell to the ground in what seemed like horrifying slow motion to
anyone viewing. Fido quickly returned fire on behalf of his fallen
brother-in-arms.
The round fired from the powerful .45 ACP
magazine didn’t hit its mark, however, as the target leaped out of
the line of fire and under a nearby table just in time. He then
overturned the table to use as a makeshift shield as he himself
returned fire. But Fido was similarly determined not to be an easy
target, and leapt behind a nearby counter. The round intended for
him instead blasted an antique clock off the wall.
Fido turned suddenly as he heard Florence
screaming in horror while she quickly headed for the door. He
considered giving a little emotional payback to Don Gambino by
blowing her away, but quickly reconsidered. He knew it was
important to conserve his ammo against the opposition capable of
shooting back, and he presumed that Vito was unlikely to actually
care about her enough to be hurt by her murder. So he allowed her
to run out the door while he went back to exchanging fire with his
main opponent.
Vito’s third guard leapt in front of his
boss, determined to shield him while attempting to take out Gia,
thereby spitefully cutting down the Provenzo Don’s cherished
progeny. But Ira was as quick to defend her as the Gambino guard
was with his boss. The suave Irishman drew his gun and blasted the
would-be executioner in his left arm, causing his shot to go astray
and miss Gia by a longshot. The round instead blew the cash
register off the front counter, causing the horrified employees to
scream in terror as they fled into the kitchen.
However, this guard proved to be of stern
stuff, forcing himself not to lose the grip on his Colt as he went
down on one knee. Channeling his will into initiating a counter
shot, he managed to strike Ira in his left shoulder blade, knocking
him off of his feet. He landed on his back, the impact causing him
to drop his gun.
Shouting her lover’s name, Gia came to her
senses and released her hold on her father’s corpse. With
prodigious speed and determination she leapt out of the guard’s
line of fire, successfully dodging another shot from him. Landing
on the floor towards Ira’s lost firearm, she grabbed it, aimed it,
and blew a round directly in the opposing guard’s gut. A spray of
crimson erupted from the hole cruelly blasted into his stomach,
while his small intestines spilled messily onto the floor a second
later. The man’s expression took on a combination of horror and
confusion just before he collapsed as a heap of dead flesh.
“Shit!” Vito shouted at the sight of his
defender’s execution.
He first considered drawing his own firearm
to inflict his share of destruction on the still breathing members
of his hated rival clan. He then thought better of it, and decided
to flee the premises. After all, Gino was dead, and surely the
Provenzo Family could no longer be a viable threat to his planned
coup without the big man. As he turned towards the door to flee, he
managed to almost reach it before he heard a loud blast and felt
his left leg go numb.
That bitch!
he silently shouted to
himself as he realized that Gia put a bullet through his limb.
Focusing his inordinate willpower, he forced himself to jump back
up on his single good leg and push himself out the door. Once
outside, his indomitable will enabled him to limp across the
parking lot towards his vehicle at surprising speed, leaving a
trail of blood behind him as he did so. While uttering a string of
obscenities in Italian, he drew his gun and shot two of the
Provenzo car’s tires, rendering the vehicle un-drivable.
He then clambered to his car as quickly as
he possibly could considering his serious albeit non-lethal injury.
Forcing himself into the vehicle, he managed to key the ignition,
and drive himself away while using his single usable leg to operate
both the brake and the accelerator.
You’re dead, bitch, you’re
dead!
he repeatedly shouted to himself as further motivation to
get to a place of treatment without passing out at the wheel.
Back to the present moment, Fido continued
his exchange of fire with the sole remaining Gambino guard. After
the leader of the Provenzo security force successfully blasted away
the top of the table protecting his adversary, he realized that he
was out of ammo. But the Gambino guard managed to reload his Colt
faster than Fido could.
Spurred into a sense of confidence, the
Gambino trigger man decided to charge Fido. The latter ejected the
spent cartridge and reached into his belt for another magazine. But
before he could reload, he noticed the other guard standing in
front of him with the barrel of his gun pointed downward at his
temple.
“Say ‘hi’ to the Devil for me, willya?” the
guard said as he squeezed the trigger. The loud reverberation of a
Colt being fired was heard, and Fido’s body was covered in a thick
spatter of blood.
However, the trembling man quickly
discovered that he could still see and hear the surroundings of the
familiar world. He wiped the thick cover of stinging blood off of
his eyes as he looked up just in time to see his opponent’s body
fall to the ground. A gaping hole leading from the back of the
fallen guard’s head and out the front of his mouth was the source
of his demise. The blood that spattered all over Fido was not his
own.
Pushing himself cautiously to his feet, he
saw that the bullet had been fired from Gia. After taking out the
last of Gambino’s guards before he could kill Fido, she threw the
gun to the floor and ran to the fallen Ira’s side. She found that
he was wounded badly, but not fatally. Nevertheless, she could see
that he needed medical attention right away.
Cradling her bleeding lover in her arms, she
turned to the cowering employees peeking out of the kitchen door.
“Well, what the hell are you idiots waiting for, the sun to go
down? One of you get on the horn and call a goddamned
ambulance!”
Shakily nodding her head in compliance, one
of the waitresses ran into the break room where the phone was
located. She knew that ignoring a direct order from the female
dispenser of mayhem before her was even more unthinkable than the
tableau she had just witnessed.
As tears poured out of her eyes, Gia
continued to hold Ira while doing her best to slow his blood loss.
“Hold on, honey, an ambulance is on its way,” she told him. He
gritted his teeth and nodded his head in acknowledgement.
She then looked up as the sullen-faced Fido
walked up to her. “Thank you for saving my life, Miss Gia. Your
papa would be proud.”
“Papa is dead!” she screamed at Fido. “Look!
He’s dead! Oh my god, he’s dead!”
Fido turned and noticed the body of Gino
Provenzo strewn on the floor amidst the several other corpses, a
pool of his blood darkening the white tile along with their own.
“I’m sorry I failed ya, Boss,” he solemnly lamented.
* * *
A few days following the funeral of Gino Provenzo,
the expected important meeting in regards to the future of the
family business was planned. Gino’s nephew, Al “The Pain” Provenzo,
a rugged young man with a “take no prisoners” reputation earned
from his work as a lieutenant for the New York City faction of the
family business, had flown down to Buffalo to preside over the
meeting. The meeting was being conducted in a rented section of a
West Side community center. The building was now bereft of any
family-related occupant save the staff cook, Peter; and Pete knew
better than to say anything to anyone, considering his debts.
Al stood in front of a table addressing the
large assortment of the Buffalo Provenzo Family’s enforcers,
lieutenants, bookkeepers, attorneys, and security guards. Fido sat
at the head of the table where the security group was seated,
bearing a dejected countenance as he listened to Al’s speech.
“This is a difficult time for all of us,” Al
said in a convincingly melancholic voice. “My Uncle Gino was a good
guy… he totally earned his nickname, ‘The World’s Greatest.’ But
he’s gone now, thanks to the two-timing treachery of Vito Gambino.
Vito and his entire family are going to pay for this, and I’m here
to make sure that happens. Out of respect to my uncle’s memory and
the huge successful business he built here in the Queen City, I ask
all of you to join me in defending the legacy he has left for the
business.”
“Damn straight we’re gonna do that!” decreed
a somewhat husky female voice that emanated from the entrance door.
“Only it’s gonna be
me
who leads the way, not you, Al.”
Taken aback by that bold pronouncement and
identifiably feminine voice, Al turned around. There he saw his
cousin Gia standing in the doorway, with Ira at her side despite
his left arm being in a sling. This time, however, she wasn’t
wearing one of her characteristic bias dresses; she was wearing an
expensive beige leather trench coat over a white button down blouse
and a dark flannel skirt, with not a single flower design on it.
Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and the top of her head
was adorned with a gray pub cap. Every eye in the room was focused
on her, the men of a traditional persuasion finding her both
incredibly alluring as well as dynamically business-like and
“tough.”
“Oh, hi, Cousin Gia,” Al stuttered. “I
didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Of course ya didn’t,” she replied. “’Cause
you called this meeting without inviting or informing me about it.
Which was a dirty thing, considering I’m Papa Gino’s next of kin.
And his natural successor to the top spot of the family
business.”
Al’s countenance now took on a dumbfounded
look combined with a flash of anger. “Listen, Gia, I didn’t mean to
leave you out, I just didn’t think you would have any interest in a
business meeting like this. I was going to invite you to the family
dinner party scheduled for—”
“How could I not be interested in how the
business will be run from now on?” Gia replied curtly. “It’s a
business my papa shed blood to build into what it is, and he
sacrificed his life protecting it. Let’s call it things like they
are, Cousin. You didn’t want me involved, ’cause you want to take
over the top spot following the retribution on the Gambinos. And
you don’t think a dame can hold that spot. Well, guess what, big
guy?”
The tension in the room was now palpable,
with all the men in attendance paying rapt attention to what was
transpiring before them. Of them all, only Fido seemed to have a
look remotely resembling one of satisfaction.
“Gia, I was just keeping with tradition
here,” Al said. “This has never been women’s work, and I think I
would be Uncle Gino’s natural choice to take over the
business—”
“You can shove this ‘tradition’ up your back
exit!” the plucky women exclaimed, startling Al with her level of
sass. “I’m Papa’s only child, you weren’t close enough to him to be
considered like a son, and it wouldn’t matter if you were. I owe a
lot to my Papa, including payback on the Buffalo Gambino Family.
And I’m gonna make sure his business is done
right
!”
“Gia, Gia,” Al said, visibly beginning to
lose his patience as he started inching closer to her. “Let’s be
reasonable here! The work I did in New York over the years more
than justifies—”
Ira suddenly interjected as he pulled his
Colt on Al with his good hand, halting the young gangster in his
tracks. “Do not take another step, Al. I was present at the meeting
where Uncle Gino was killed, and Gia did a mighty impressive job of
taking down not only the girl who stabbed him, but also two of the
three armed body guards who were there. She also got a little piece
of Vito, even though he did get away. On top of all that, she not
only saved my life, but she saved Fido’s life too. Isn’t that
right, Fido?”
Fido at first looked distressed at being put
on the spot. But he knew what he owed to both Gia, for saving his
life, and to the legacy of Papa Gino, for taking him off the
streets and making him what he was now.
“Y-yeah, true,” Fido said in a low tone.
“Can you speak up a bit please, Fido?” Gia
asked. “Some of the gentlemen here may not have heard you.”