If The Seas Catch Fire(79)

“I know you do.” He forced a smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’ll, um, let you get back to work.”

“Okay. See you next week.”

“Yeah. See you next week.” And the week after. And the one after that. How long did something like this go on?

Hands stuffed in his pockets, gaze fixed on the ground, he wondered how the Catholics in town explained situations like Mama’s. What exactly their god’s “plan” was when it came to a woman traumatized within an inch of her life and left to stare at windows and walls until some ailment finally came along and silenced the nightmares she didn’t understand.

He wasn’t even out to the car yet before he had to wipe his eyes. He slid into the driver seat but didn’t start the engine. Instead, he covered his face with a shaking hand and tried to compose himself. He never fell apart here. Not while he was still out in front of the home. He could always make it somewhere—a beach, an abandoned lot, somewhere—before it all came crashing down, but not today.

And he didn’t really care. If people saw him, then they saw him. He doubted he was the first person to cry in this parking lot, and he doubted he’d be the last.

He wasn’t surprised Mama had nightmares. He’d just hoped for all these years that she didn’t. There was a reason it had taken him this long to ask for confirmation, and he wished he’d waited longer.

Mama probably dreamed of the same things he did, though hers would be worse because she’d seen more that night than he had, but she wasn’t lucid enough now to know why. To know that the dreams were memories. When she woke up, the fear probably lingered, and then it was gone and so were the things she’d seen and felt in her sleep.

For that, Sergei envied her. He knew what the dreams were, what was real and what wasn’t, and woke up every day with renewed rage toward the men who’d destroyed his family. Teeth clenched, he balled his fists at his sides. Maybe his encounters with Dom softened him toward Dom himself, but the Maisanos? The families in Cape Swan? The f*cking Mafia?

Not a chance.

They were going down.

All of them.



*



It took a few hours, but Sergei collected himself enough to go the club. Though he didn’t really need the money from this job—it was peanuts compared to what every bullet earned him—this was where his contacts came to find him.

Which one of them did, not two hours into his shift.

It wasn’t Baltazar this time. It was Lorenzo, a goon directly connected to some of the most powerful men in town, which meant this was a big job.

On the one hand, great—a big job meant a lot of money, and it also meant removing a key player. A huge step toward completing his grand plan.

On the other, he hated this motherf*cker, because although their meetings were always quick, they were anything but painless. They didn’t even bother going back into the booth because the conversations didn’t require much time. That, and Lorenzo could barely handle coming into the club—going back into a private booth was enough to make him break out in homophobic little hives.

When this * showed up, it meant Santo Tumino wanted to arrange a meeting with Sergei. Tumino was a Maisano underboss, nearly as powerful as Luciano or Felice Maisano themselves, and he was the only wise guy who Sergei would meet outside this club. It meant he had a contract for him. Usually a lucrative one—Sergei charged him an extra ten large just for making him come to him, and he gladly paid it.

Tumino never came to see Sergei directly. From what Sergei had heard, he never really left his house for more than an hour or two at a stretch. Even bosses and underbosses came to him instead of the other way around. Rumor had it that it was because he had one of the worst cases of Irritable Bowel Syndrome any doctor in this town had ever seen. Fucker was so vile and miserable, even his own shit couldn’t stand to be around him.

Much as Sergei didn’t want to face him or his condition tonight, he didn’t expect he had a lot of choice.

After he’d wrapped up a stage dance and a private lap dance, he came back out to the bar and found Lorenzo clinging to a bottle of Coke.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Sergei said.

Lorenzo glared at him.

“I assume you’re not here for a dance.”

The man gulped like he was trying not to retch. “Of course not.” He reached into his pocket and handed Sergei a card. “The boss wants to see you.”

Sergei looked at the card, on which someone had handwritten: $5M.

Whoa. This was big. Fucking huge.

His pulse shot upward. Things were really about to get crazy, weren’t they? All that patience was about to pay off, wasn’t it?

Keeping his excitement and nerves beneath the surface, he met Lorenzo’s gaze. “Tonight?”

“Yes. As soon as possible. Don’t keep him waiting.”

Sergei nodded. “Tell him to give me two hours.”

Lorenzo scowled.

“Two hours,” Sergei said through gritted teeth.

The man tried to stare him down, but finally grumbled, “I’ll let him know.”



*




Tumino always waited for him in the guest house behind his massive estate, and Sergei never entered through the front door. It was understood that Sergei would do a perimeter check first, ensuring none of Tumino’s goons—especially the security *s—were anywhere near the place.