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“I followed you and your son to the mall that day. When I saw Robby show up with force, I knew something was going down. So while Robby went inside that Foot Locker to get you, I called around town to find out what could be happening. That’s when I was told Big Dan was in town and he wanted to meet with you.

They didn’t know what the meeting was about, but that didn’t matter to me.

They knew that Big Dan was at his club. So I got my ass over there ahead of you to scope it out.

And I saw he had more than usual force there too.

So I waited. When you showed up, I continued to wait.

I didn’t have a game plan. I didn’t even know Lucky had gone in that club with you or however he got in there. I didn’t know that.”

“Would it have mattered?” asked Sal.

Dickie was deadly serious. “Not in the least,” he said.

“I wanted you by hook or by crook. And that’s when it hit me.

If I did a drive by and shot the guys Big Dan had up front, they would view it as an ambush coming their way from you and your guys and start shooting first and asking questions later. ”

Then he smiled. “And that’s exactly what happened. I shot and ran, and your guys shot back, but I was too fast. They missed. And then, from what I heard, Big Dan’s guys started shooting your guys and your guys started shooting Big Dan’s guys and they killed off each other.”

Then his narrow face frowned. “But when I heard you survived it, I was devastated. It didn’t work. You made it through that too. You have more lives than a fucking cat.”

“Why did you come for Big Dan later? How did Big Dan figure into your scheme to take me out?”

But Dickie shook his head. “That wasn’t me,” he said. “That was Paulie.”

That was news to Mick. Sal and Reno both frowned. “Paulie Testa?” asked Reno.

“Why would Paulie take his own brother out?” asked Sal.

“Because he wasn’t in the line of succession. Big Dan didn’t think he had the stuff to take over. But Paulie figured he did have what it took and needed to ice his own brother before he merged with you.”

“Why before the merger?”

“Because he knew if his own brother decided he didn’t measure up, he knew you weren’t going to promote him to anything. He figured you just might throw him out of the organization altogether.”

Another break of deep breaths and agony for Dickie. “So he went to that fishing hole looking for Big Dan too. He had no beef with anybody else, he told me. That’s why he took Big Dan out only. He hit his target and left.”

Sal exhaled. This shit had more tentacles than a jellyfish. But then he thought of one tentacle he knew shouldn’t be there. “Why did Big Dan lie and claim Robby Yale was behind that ambush?”

Dickie held onto his stomach as the pain intensified.

But he still seemed resigned to his fate.

“He threw out Robby’s name because he thought his baby brother was behind that ambush.

He was protecting Paulie from your wrath when he probably knew his goose was cooked.

And he was going to take the fall for what happened.

He lied if he said anybody else was responsible for that ambush, including himself.

He loved his brother. His brother didn’t give a damn about him.

” Then he looked at Sal. “Just like you and Bianca.”

Sal leaned his head back. Danny took the blame for Paulie. He’d never even considered that option. Not once.

“Why did Bianca break into Robby’s house?” Mick asked as he drove, and as he looked at Dickie through the rearview.

But Dickie was shaking his head and grimacing at the same time.

“It wasn’t her. It was me. I put on a ski mask, disguised my voice, and planted that bomb.

I left her car on the driveway to keep you off my tail.

I didn’t know you had already put two and two together and figured I had hooked up with Bianca. ”

“But how did you get out of there if you came in her car and left it?”

“I had a getaway driver around the block waiting for me. After I planted that explosive, I got out of the area. I had the detonation switch set for an hour. I didn’t want to be caught anywhere near that area when it went up.”

“But why would you try to kill Robby?”

“Because he was the one who turned Bianca over to you,” he said. “He’s the one who picked her up and took her to you.”

“He didn’t take her anywhere near me. I had one meeting with her after she got out of the joint, and that was it. I wasn’t thinking about her like that.”

“I know that. But I couldn’t convince her of that!” Then he began to cry like a baby. “I tried to convince her. I tried to make her see. But she wouldn’t see it. I tried to convince her, but I couldn’t.”

Then Sal got a sinking feeling. “If she wasn’t at Robby’s house and didn’t die in that fire, where is she? Where’s Bianca?”

They all looked at Dickie. But Dickie started crying even more.

They were all so distracted by that grown man sobbing that Sal didn’t at first realize that Dickie had grabbed his gun. By the time he had placed it to his heart and fired, it was too late for Sal or anybody else to react.

Dickie was gone. Mick stopped, Reno got out and jettisoned Dickie’s body, and got back in.

And suddenly a terrible silence filled the space.

“Go back to his house,” Sal said to Mick.

Mick looked at Sal through the rearview, but he agreed with his assessment. And Mick sped back to Dickie’s house. Only this time, he found a road out of the bush and doubled back to pick up his stranded surveillance crew, who got bogged down at the very beginning of their offroad chase.

When they all got to his house, they busted in and hurried inside. But they realized almost immediately that they were way too late. Bianca was dead of what appeared to be over a hundred stab wounds. A rage killing if they’d ever seen one – and they’d seen hundreds.

“That was why his ass was so resigned to his fate,” said Mick.

“He probably killed her before he even set up that explosion,” said Reno. “He had already killed the one person he was doing all that dirt to secure. He had already murdered her.”

Sal exhaled, and then shook his head. “Poor kid,” he said, watching Bianca. “But she brought this shit on herself. Wanting what she couldn’t have. Just like him. Spent all that time in prison to end up like this?” He shook his head. “What a waste.”

“And here we were thinking she was the one acting like a woman scorned,” said Reno. “And she was. But Dickie’s ass was too!”

They all just stood there. To them, it was a cautionary tale on how something so simple could veer so out of control.

Bianca agreed to do time for one of Sal’s guys because she loved Sal.

Sal paid her dearly because he appreciated her sacrifice.

But she wanted more. They always wanted more.

And each and every one of the men in that house could attest to that fact.

It was better not to give them anything because they always wanted more.

After several minutes of pure reflection, Mick Sinatra exhaled. “I’m out,” he said as he began leaving. “I’m ready to drop your asses off and get out of Dodge.”

“What are you talking Dodge?” asked Reno as he followed him. “This is Vegas. This is the big time. Philly’s ass is Dodge.”

But as they were leaving, Sal glanced back at Bianca.

He thought about how easy street her life would have been had she done the time and went on with that life.

But no. She wanted a man already taken.

Like so many other women he’d met in his life, they underestimated his love for Gemma.

They underestimated that love, each and every time, to their own detriment.

He stared a few seconds longer, and then he walked out and closed the door on her, and on all the rest of that drama, once and for all.