Page 167 of Caught in the Crossfire

“Again, my problem, not yours.”

“What about the feds?”

I paused, raising my eyebrow. I knew he was selling guns to the CIA. Years ago, he became buried in debt from the legitimate business, and made a deal with them to bail him out. But the way he asked pulled me in like a fish on a line. “What do you mean?”

“The RICO case.”

My breath gusted out of me. “What the fuck did you say?”

He nodded. “I figured that was the last missing piece of your puzzle. RICO.”

How was hestillpulling fast ones on me? How could he still be doing shit I wasn’t aware of?

“You’re bullshitting me.”

A RICO case was the death of the mafia. The government had come up with the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to wipe out the Families in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. It was a legal framework used to dismantle criminal organizations. In the mafia, high-level bosses rarely did theactualdirty work that it took to run a Family. We had the low-level guys do our dirty work, so the Dons could never be charged and remain in power.

But in a RICO case, crimes committed by a low-level guy could be linked to the Heads of an organization, and the Dons could be convicted even if there was no actual evidence that they had committed a crime. A RICO case would not be the end of one Family, but all of them.

“I’m not,” he said with a sigh. “The feds are building a RICO case.”

My mind spun. A RICO case meant we had a turncoat in our midst. There had to be someone willing to testify that a high-level guy had ordered them to commit crimes, usually to save their own skin. My mind flipped through all the men who’d been picked up recently. Who the fuck was it?

“How do you know?” I asked.

He shook his head. “You need me if we’re going to beat this. If I die, the RICO case spreads. The feds will have more than enough evidence to come after us and the other Families.”

I pressed my gun to his temple. “How do you know?” I repeated.

His lips thinned. My mask slipped.

“Fuck, Luciano!” I shouted. “If the feds are building a RICO case, what do you think the Camorra will do when they find out?”

They would kill us. My bargain would mean nothing. The Family code,omertà, would be broken, and they’d wipe the Vero Family, possibly more, off the map. It wouldn’t matter that I’d promised them New York. They’d take it anyway and start fresh,with new Families that wouldn’t snitch to the feds or get all of us caught and locked up.

Jesus fucking Christ.

No.

I wouldn’t let Luciano do this. I wouldn’t let his words turn into another trap. I would kill him andthendeal with the RICO case. I needed time to fuckingthink.

“Put your gun down, son,” Luciano said. “Together, we can beat this. Alone, we stand no chance.”

“No,” I said while my mind raced. I tried to let the emotion bleed from me, to bring me back to my focused state, but I started pacing in front of him. “Shut up.”

What would my father say?

He’d say finish the job at hand. He’d say consider all your options. He’d tell me to play it smart.

Leaving Luciano alive was, and always would be, a bigger risk than killing him. I exhaled deeply, steeling myself again. I lifted my gun again.

“Maximiliano Volpe,” Luciano sneered, as if he still had some sort of power over me. “Stop this now.”

“Your time is done, Luciano.” I clicked back into my emotionless space. I’d worked too fucking hard for this to be ruined now. David and Elio were currently preparing to alert the other Four Families of the leadership change and threaten them to leave with no other problems.

“You don’t need to do this,” he bargained.

“You fucked up, Luciano. You’ve left me no choice.” It washischoices that had brought us here, not mine. He’d killed my father. He’d killed my mother. He’d killed his own fucking wife. There was no part of him that deserved to live.