If The Seas Catch Fire(89)

“I tracked down the man who shot him.”

Corrado and Dom glanced at each other, then back at Felice.

“Who?” Corrado asked.

Gingerly rubbing his jaw, Felice said, “It was the Georgian.”

Corrado tensed. So did Dom. The Georgian was an independent contractor who would take any hit if the price was right, and he never missed his targets. Ever. There were rumors he was actually several people working under one name, that he was a team of crack shots and psychopaths, but only a handful of people knew for sure. And like the Mafia itself, the Georgian demanded his own form of omerta—strict confidence that, if broken, meant death.

Felice dabbed blood away from his lip. “I’ve hired him before. For other contracts. I don’t know anyone else who could get that close to a house that secure and make a shot without anyone ever seeing him. Nobody else could’ve pulled off that hit and made it out.”

Dom resisted the urge to fidget. He couldn’t make himself run through the logistics of Biaggio’s death and determine if he could’ve pulled it off as cleanly as the Georgian apparently had.

“So you’ve spoken to him?” Corrado asked quietly. “Directly?”

“No. He’s got a handful of liaisons and won’t speak to anyone but them. I’m not even sure there’s anyone else in town who’s seen his face and is still alive.”

“But he killed Biaggio.”

“Yes.”

“And he did it…” Corrado hesitated. “He did it at the request of Luciano.”

Felice nodded slowly.

His father studied him, then straightened and shook his head. “There’s no way to be certain. Not unless—”

“I can show you.” Felice pulled out his phone. He tapped it a couple of times, and then turned it so Corrado and Dom could see the video.

A man knelt on pavement, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and a gun pressed against his temple. Someone held a handful of his greasy black hair so tight it stretched his facial features, and though he struggled, he couldn’t move.

Felice’s voice was tinny through the speaker as he said, “You say you’re one of the Georgian’s liaisons.”

“Y-yes, sir,” the man stammered.

“And my father’s consigliere, who hired the Georgian to kill him?”

The man grimaced. “Please, I can’t—”

“Answer my f*cking question, Baltazar,” Felice snarled. “Unless you want the Georgian to see this conversation on YouTube.”

The man’s gaze slid toward the camera, and his eyes widened. He mouthed something, a prayer maybe, and then said, “Luciano Maisano. He… he hired me. Said he’d kill my family if I didn’t take the job to the Georgian.”

“So you took the job?”

“Of… of course. I had no—”

The gun went off, and the man’s skull blew out. Dom winced and looked away, and thankfully, the video stopped a second later.

“You should’ve kept him alive,” Corrado barked. “He had a direct line to the Georgian, you f*cking idiot.”

Felice scowled. “And you wanted him to stay alive after he took the order to the Georgian to kill Biaggio?”

“If it meant he could help us find the f*cking Georgian, yes!” Corrado sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Your temper is going to get you killed, Felice.”

“I think my brother is more likely to get me killed,” Felice snapped. “If he’s willing to take out Biaggio, then he—”

“I’m aware of that.” Corrado lowered his hand. “But why? Why would Luciano do this?”

Felice shook his head. “Who knows?”

Dom chewed the inside of his cheek. This didn’t make sense. Luciano wasn’t the hothead in this family. Felice was. Luciano believed in diplomacy and resolving differences over a table, not a pile of bodies.

He cleared his throat. “Luciano loved Biaggio. I don’t—”

“You heard the video.” Felice gestured so wildly with his phone, Dom almost thought he was going to throw it in his face. “He hired the f*cking Georgian to take out Biaggio.” He laughed bitterly. “Is that what you call love?”

“Of course not,” Dom ground out. “But something isn’t adding up. Why would he do this? If we don’t know that, then we can’t assume—”

“It doesn’t matter why,” Felice said.

Dom opened his mouth to protest, but Corrado spoke first.

“I’m afraid Felice may be right.” He absently rubbed his knuckles along the edge of his jaw. “With this war brewing, we…” Sighing, he dropped his hand and shook his head. “We may not have time to question the motives of every man who fires a bullet.”

“So, what?” Dom lifted his eyebrows. “We’re going to shoot back and ask questions later?”

“We can’t show weakness,” Corrado said quietly. “And we can’t let our enemies see that there’s strife within the family.” He wrung his hands gingerly, as if the slow movements hurt his bones. “This is a battlefield now, Domenico. We can’t risk a wound becoming gangrenous. Amputate and keep fighting.”

Dom swallowed. If not for the faint note of sadness in his uncle’s voice, he wouldn’t have believed this was a man contemplating giving the order to kill his own son. In the space of a conversation, the family’s relationship with Luciano had been reduced to a metaphorical wound, a gaping invitation for gangrene, and the only solution was to slice away the rotted flesh. To cut off the once useful limb, the piece that had once helped make up the whole, and move on.