Nico (Ruin & Revenge #1)(100)

Mia gasped for breath as she took in the scene in front of her. Nico on the floor with Luca on top of him. And blood. So much blood.

“I was too late. I want to die,” she whispered into the phone, staring in disbelief at Dante with a gun in his hand and Vito standing only a short distance away.

“Don’t go all Romeo and Juliet on me,” Jules warned. Mia had called her after they left the control room to check that Nico was still in the building. The security monitors had shown bodies on the floor, but she couldn’t make out faces. “Are you safe? If not get out of there.”

Mia dropped the phone and took a step toward Nico, but Kat’s firm hands pulled her back.

“Dante!” Kat turned on their brother, her face a mask of rage. “How could you do this?”

“The same way I did it to his father. The same way I hurt you.” Dante’s voice was thick with self-loathing. “My fate was sealed the first time I pulled the trigger. I wanted Papà to be proud of me, but I didn’t realize the cost was going to be my soul. Once you cross that line, there’s no going back. Once you make a wrong choice, you just keep sinking until you are in the pit of Hell.”

Mia caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Nico’s hand slid beneath his jacket. Relief flooded through her. She shoved Kat behind her and took a step back.

“Don’t move.” Dante lifted his gun and pointed at Mia. “Nico wasn’t the only problem Papà asked us to take care of tonight.”

“Us?”

“Vito, Rev, and me. He didn’t trust me to handle it alone. He didn’t trust me with anything. He said you would have made a better son.” He spat on the floor, his nose wrinkled in disgust. “You were supposed to be waiting for me in his office, handcuffed to a chair so you couldn’t get away. After you challenged him tonight, he decided Kat would be a better choice to marry Tony. She’s does what she’s told. She knows how to behave. You just cause too many problems. You never fucking listen. You never do what you’re told. You would have been one hell of a hard wife to manage.” He squeezed his eyes shut, his face contorted in agony. “Addio, mia sorella.”

“No.” Nico rolled and fired his gun.

Kat screamed. Dante staggered back, his hand to his chest. Vito pulled the trigger, his bullet missing Nico by only an inch. Big Joe burst into the room and fired, dropping Vito to the floor with one clean shot to the head.

“Mia!” Jules shouted over the phone. “Mia!”

Mia dropped to her knees and picked up the phone. “I’m okay. Kat’s okay, and Nico, too. But Dante … Oh God, Jules. Dante is dead.”

*

“Park over there.” Nico leaned over the seat and directed Big Joe down a dusty road on the Nevada border. “Turn off the lights.”

Big Joe pulled the car to a stop. A full moon had risen behind them as they drove out of Vegas, casting a faint silvery glow through the ebony night. Beautiful. Nico made a mental note to come to the desert at night some-time when he wasn’t planning to whack someone or dump a body.

Mikey Muscles turned on his powerful torch and placed it on the hood of the vehicle as Nico and Frankie exited the car. Frankie opened Big Joe’s door and ushered him out with a wave of his gun.

“On your knees.” Nico rounded the car and motioned Big Joe down. “Hands behind your head.”

Big Joe dropped to his knees in front of Nico. He appeared neither afraid nor angry, but calm and resigned. Nico cursed the fates that had put this man he admired and respected on the wrong side of the law.

“Three years you were with me. Ten with my family.” Nico gritted his teeth, his emotions still raw from finding out the truth. “I gave you my friendship. My trust. My respect. And you betrayed me. You would have known this day was coming.”

“I did.”

“You got anything to say?” He hoped Big Joe had something to say. Betraying Cosa Nostra was one of the most grievous of crimes, punishable by the harshest of punishments to deter anyone who thought of betraying the mob.

“Yeah.” Big Joe swallowed hard. “It has been an honor. If there is another life after this one, I hope we meet again as friends.”

“You’re not gonna beg for mercy?” Frankie asked.

“No. I did you wrong,” Big Joe said, directing his words to Nico. “I may not have given up any information about you or the closest members of your crew—and the bosses we were really after were killed by an unknown assailant at Vincenzo’s—but there will still be a lot of people going to jail because of me.”

“Including a few Cordanos.” Mikey Muscles—now a Big Joe supporter after Big Joe saved his life in the control room—shot Nico a pleading look. “Don’t forget that. The Cordanos are gonna be no more because of him.”

Big Joe had been instrumental in the arrest of Don Cordano, and many of his capos and crew. Although the don was still nominal boss of the Cordano family, running his operations from his jail cell, his power was greatly diminished. Because of Mia’s quick thinking, he had been unable to hide his money when he got wind of his impending arrest for his involvement with the drug trafficking operation he operated with the help of Rev and Vito. Nor was he able to make bail. Now, the remaining Cordano capos were fighting among themselves over who should take his place if he was slapped with a lifelong sentence, and the family was tearing itself apart.