Page 200 of Bitter Poetry

Dante won’t be the same.

I’ll be another notch in Leon’s vendetta post.

Make the motherfucker bleed for me, Dante.

Beyond the broken office windows, a big-assed Cadillac Escalade with blacked-out windows and two Dodge Durangos pull into the warehouse.

The work-over-Christian crew stub out their cigarettes and look alert as the vehicles unload soldiers.

Finally, the back door of the Cadillac is opened by a soldier, and Ettore steps out: sharp dark suit, and polished Italian leather shoes reflecting back the shitty fluorescent lights.

He enters through the busted door, his shoes crunching over the littering of broken glass. He looks me over.

“I’ve asked them to give me Carmela for you.”

I laugh—it hurts my ribs and makes my head feel like it might explode. “As if, motherfucker.”

Someone hits me. Jero, I think. He has big fists, and I regret opening my mouth.

Ettore smiles. “They did well with the business, I will give them that. But they should have stuck to following orders, not started thinking for themselves. But you disappoint me, Christian. And you picked the wrong side.”

I’d put a bullet to my own head before I’d pick you over my family.

“As for handing Carmela over,” Ettore continues. “You’re right. Dante will use it as an opportunity to try and take me out.I will be ready for that, which is why I have asked for Leon and Dante to be with her for the exchange.”

“Here? This isn’t your usual interview room. Downgrading, Mr. Gallo?”

He lets that slip. “This facility is on loan from my associates. It will go smoother if your brother and his party-loving cousin think this is neutral ground.”

This warehouse belongs to the Russians. Their soldiers, his soldiers, that is a lot of fucking soldiers.

He smiles like he can see my understanding bloom.

It’s going to be a slaughter.

“Did my slut wife spread her legs for him to save herself?”

The fuck?

I blink blood from my eyes. Does he think Carmela has been our prisoner… Not that it fucking helps. She’s damaged goods now and Ettore will make her pay along with anyone involved.

“Not that I know of.”

A tic thumps in his jaw. My eyes want to go to Roman to get a read, but I don’t dare. Did he tell Ettore about how he’d seen her clinging to me? Twice in the coffee shop she loves so much, and once after Cosmo tried to rape her.

Maybe he dismissed it until he learned I was the enemy.

Maybe he still didn’t tell Ettore because that would get him right next to me in the grinder given he should have reported me.

“It was you who took her from outside her father’s home,” Ettore says.

No point in lying now. “Yes.”

“After your attempted coup has been disbanded, and my soldiers have enjoyed my whore wife, I will kill you. Leon will be next. Then, when I have taken everything from Dante Barone, when he’s had time to wallow in the misery of how he failed andall the people he loved are gone, when his plans and life are in ruins, I will kill him too.”

“You must think he’s stupid.”

Don’t do it, Dante. See through this. You’re smarter than this.