Vendetta (Blood for Blood #1)(79)

“It’s difficult to persuade a drug baron, who is selfish by nature, to trade his life for another’s, even if that other is someone very dear to him. But I’m sure when he sees our video of you, he will understand the true gravity of the situation.”

“What video?”

Valentino dipped his head, turning from me. “Be brave for Calvino or he will go harder on you.”

He left, and I was alone again.





Sometime later, a door opened and closed behind me, and the sound of heavy footsteps punctuated the silence. A bald, stern-looking man with a thick black mustache stalked across the room. I remembered him from that day at the restaurant — Calvino.

He seated himself in Felice’s vacant armchair, contorting his angular features until they looked like prosthetics, and stared right through me.

“I saw you at the Eatery a few weeks ago,” I said, hoping that kindling a conversation might offer a way out of whatever he was planning to do to me. “You killed the bee.”

His smirk curled into a grimace. “And I’m still paying for it.” His voice was rasping and deep, and it occurred to me — however absurdly — that he might make a good radio announcer. If killing people didn’t work out, that is.

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Much the same.” His expression darkened and he moved his stare back to the door behind me just as it swung open.

A boy of around twelve came to stand behind Calvino, resting his hand across his shoulder like some creepy family portrait setup. The boy was obviously his son. They shared pointy chins that jutted out below thin, pale lips and hooked noses that dominated their faces. Their eyes were dark with heavy lids, and, like all of the Falcones, they shared an olive complexion.

Calvino gestured at the boy, and in response he whipped out a phone — my phone — from his pocket.

“Hey!” I yelled, startling myself. They both turned to me, identical looks of surprise making their faces seem impossibly long. “That’s my phone, you little shit. Give it back.”

“No,” the boy hissed.

“C.J.,” his father cautioned him. “I said no talking to her.”

C.J. frowned. “Tell me when you want me to start recording,” he said to his father, clicking into the camera feature on my phone and making the flash on the back of it light up.

Of course. They were going to send the video to Jack from my own phone. Calvino stood and rolled up his black shirtsleeves until the end of a tattoo peeked out on his right bicep. Instinctively I pushed back against the couch and brought my legs higher in front of my huddled frame.

“Should I start now?” C.J. was hopping from foot to foot.

“Yeah.” Calvino whipped a knife out of his pocket and flicked the blade open. I recognized it as a Falcone switchblade — it was identical to Nic’s.

“Should he be witnessing this?” I gestured at his son as he moved toward me. “He’s just a kid.”

Calvino raised his thick eyebrows — they matched his caterpillar mustache perfectly. “He is a Falcone.”

He retained his shocked expression for five full seconds, as if to indicate that great offense had been taken at my question. I used the time to grapple against the couch; I brought my legs up until they blocked the rest of my torso, and tried to push myself over the top as the knife-wielding madman and his son moved toward me.

“Do you want to introduce it?” his son asked.

Calvino seemed surprised by C.J.’s apparent ingenuity. “Good idea.”

A wide grin spread across the boy’s acne-fied face.

I pushed against the couch with my bound feet as Calvino zeroed in on me, casually, like he knew no matter how hard I tried, he would get the better of me. He stowed the blade and grabbed onto my arm. I sailed back toward the middle of the couch with one stiff yank. Then he shuffled in beside me so we were both under the phone’s lens. He dropped to his haunches and pulled me by the collar of my T-shirt so C.J. could zoom in.

The pungent smell of aftershave rolled over me. I noticed, with horror and an irrepressible sliver of intrigue, that a thick white scar rippled along where Calvino’s hairline might have been once upon a time. As he tilted closer toward me, it glowed beneath the lights, making the top of his head look like a lid.

“Jack Gracewell” — like steel claws shredding a bass drum, every syllable scraped at his throat — “I hope this video finds you gravely unwell.”

C.J. gave him a thumbs-up from behind the phone. I tried to inch away from his father’s shiny head, but he squeezed the back of my neck until he broke the skin with his fingernails, and I let out a yelp of pain.

“As you can see, we have your beloved niece, Miss Persephone Gracewell.” He patted my hair in one long sliding motion. I tried to jerk my head away again, but he grabbed my jaw and pulled me back so that it unhinged itself with a small pop. I closed my eyes and tried not to scream as I set it back into its socket in one agonizing click.

“As you are aware,” he continued to the camera, swatting my flailing hands down in a painful blow, “we were not happy with our conversation earlier and feel your hesitance should result in escalation on our side.”

Escalation? The word rang in my head like a car alarm.

Calvino grabbed my hair and twined his fingers in it, pulling roughly. I threw my arms against his chest, pummeling it as hard as I could, but he angled away from me so I was punching at the air.