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After delivering his ultimatum to Fratelli, Gennaro called Dominic and Manny and let them know where things stood.

“See, my stunt with the truck worked,” Manny said, self-satisfied.

“I told you there was nothing to worry about.”

“Only because you were lucky,” Gennaro said.

“Next time, you make sure the results are what I want them to be.”

“There’s going to be a next time?”

“Depends on Fratelli,” Gennaro said.

“If he doesn’t come through on Friday, then yeah, there’ll be a next time.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t wait until Friday and do something now,” Dominic said.

“You know, to push him over the edge.”

“Let’s not complicate things,” Gennaro said.

“We’ve got him right where we want him.”

“I don’t see how it could hurt.”

“Excuse me?” Gennaro said.

“You seem to be forgetting that I’m the one who’s put this thing together! Nobody knows how we should handle this better than me. Got it?”

“Cool by me,” Manny said.

“Dominic?” Gennaro said.

“Sure, Ricky,” Dominic said.

“Whatever you think is best.”

“That’s better.”

“What do you want us to do until the deadline?” Manny asked.

“Who am I? Your mom? Do whatever you want, just don’t stir up any trouble.”

Gennaro disconnected the call, then grabbed a beer out of the fridge.

It was a little early for a drink, even for him, but if all went as planned, he’d be a very rich man by Friday afternoon.

If that wasn’t reason to celebrate, he didn’t know what was.

Dominic was staring out the window of his hotel room, replaying the conversation with Gennaro in his mind, when Manny knocked on the door.

“Dominic, it’s me.”

They were staying in adjacent rooms at a run-down hotel in the Bronx, so it shouldn’t have been surprising that Manny had shown up so quickly.

Manny knocked again.

“Come on. Open up.”

Dominic sighed, then walked over and opened the door.

“It’s starting to feel real, huh?” Manny said, grinning from ear to ear.

Dominic grabbed him and pulled him inside.

As soon as the door was shut, he whispered, “Dammit, Manny. How many times do I have to tell you not to talk about things where someone might overhear you?”

“Relax. It’s not like I said anything important.”

“No, but you did say enough to make someone curious. The last thing we want is to blow this right before our lives are about to turn around.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll keep my lips sealed.” Manny grinned again and moved deeper into the room.

“You got any of that whiskey left? I feel like a drink.”

“You had the last of it yesterday.” There was still half a bottle’s worth, but Dominic didn’t want to deal with a drunk Manny.

“I did?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s go to Karla’s. I feel like celebrating.”

Karla’s was a dive bar down the street.

“We celebrate after we get the money,” Dominic said.

“You know that.”

“You heard Ricky. It’s as good as ours.”

“Until my share is sitting in my bank account, I’m not celebrating anything.”

“Jeez, Dom. You’re a real downer, you know? You could at least be a little happy.”

Dominic huffed and plopped on his bed.

“Ah, crap,” Manny said.

“I know that look.”

“What look?”

“The one you get when something’s bothering you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The hell you don’t.”

“Fine. What’s bothering me is that I think Ricky’s wrong.”

“Wrong about what?”

“About not keeping the pressure on Fratelli. We need to make sure he understands that he has no choice but to pay up.”

“Ricky said he will.”

“Yeah, well, Ricky’s not as smart as he thinks he is. I’ll bet you my share of the take that if we don’t do something to keep the squeeze on Fratelli, we won’t see a dime.”

“I don’t know, Dom.”

“Let me ask you this,” Dominic said.

“Do you think Fratelli is a stupid guy?”

Manny shrugged.

“I got no idea. I never met him.”

“He was smart enough to con Buono out of his share of the heist, wasn’t he? And we both know how smart Buono was.”

Manny thought for a moment and nodded.

“That’s true.”

“And once Fratelli had the money, he turned himself into this Coulter guy and disappeared from the radar for years. Do you think a stupid person could do that?”

“That’s a good point, Dom. A real good point.”

“Hell, yeah, it’s a good point. And since Fratelli’s smart, the more time Ricky gives him, the more time he has to come up with a way to get out of paying.”

“I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

“Lucky for you, I have. If we want to see that money, we need to keep tightening the screws.”

Manny nodded.

“Yeah, okay. That makes sense. So, let’s call Ricky and tell him that’s what we need to do.”

“You really think he’ll listen to us?”

“He might.”

“Whatever we say won’t change his mind, so screw Ricky,” Dominic said.

“We don’t need him for this anyway. We pressure Fratelli ourselves.”

“We can?”

“Manny, how many times have we been hired to rough someone up who was late paying their bill?”

“More than I can count.”

“This is no different, except this time we’re working for ourselves.”

Manny thought about it, and then nodded.

“You always were a smart one, Dom. So, what are we going to do?”

A short time earlier, right after Gennaro ended his call with Dominic and Manny, Rosa placed the receiver of her bedroom extension back in its cradle.

She’d had it on mute, so her brother and his two stooges hadn’t a clue she’d been listening in.

Contrary to what dear old Ricky thought, she had not forgiven him for killing her fiancé, years earlier, and never would.

But instead of moving away and cutting contact, she had taken to heart the adage revenge is a dish best served cold , and had stayed in his employ.

In addition to eavesdropping on his calls for years, she’d long since gained access to his computer files and email account.

She’d even had made a clone of his cell phone that allowed her to check his text messages, voicemails, notes, and anything else he saved on his device.

Though her brother would never admit it, she was the smarter of the two.

To him, she was “just a woman” and should stick to “woman things.”

She’d bypassed many opportunities to get back at him, choosing instead to wait for something that would completely destroy him.

And boy, was she glad she had.

His fixation with recovering Eduardo Buono’s money from Johnny Fratelli had gifted her the mother lode of payback chances.

She pulled on a cardigan, grabbed her purse, and slipped out of her bedroom.

Her brother was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, drinking a beer.

When she rapped a knuckle against the doorway, he jerked in surprise and sloshed some of his drink onto his shirt.

“Dammit, Rosa! I told you never to sneak up on me.”

It was all she could do not to smile.

“I’m going to the market. Is there anything you want?”

“An apology maybe?”

“So that’s a no?”

“More beer. And not the cheap stuff. Something good.”

Knowing it would anger him, she tsked and shook her head.

“A bit early for that, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion!”

With a shrug, she turned to leave.

“Hey,” he called.

“Get some pierogies from Donatello’s, too.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. A better attitude?”

She headed out without responding.

Three blocks from the house, she entered a park and sat on a bench far from the few others who were there, and retrieved a never-used throwaway phone from her bag.

Utilizing the same voice-altering app her brother had when talking to Johnny Fratelli, she called Pinkie Ramirez’s right-hand man, Miguel Montes.

“Who is this?” he answered.

“I have a message for your boss,” she said.

“I asked you a question.”

“Tell him his cousin has a big score going down on Friday that he doesn’t want Pinkie to know about.”

“My boss has lots of cousins.”

“I’m sure he can figure out which one.”

“What kind of score?”

“A big one.”

“Either you give me something concrete or I’m hanging up and forgetting you called.”

Rosa paused, then said, “Eduardo Buono.”

“Who?”

She hung up and sat there for a moment, hardly believing she’d finally set into motion her longed-for revenge.

She then strolled out of the park in the direction of the grocery store.

Stefan might not have been great at following people in a car, but he was an expert at trailing someone on foot.

Not sure how he was going to get his revenge on Gennaro, he’d been watching the man’s house from down the street, hoping doing so would spark an idea, when a woman who looked to be in her forties exited Gennaro’s place.

If not for the frown on her face and the severe way her hair was pulled into a bun, some might have considered her to be pretty.

Not Stefan, of course.

She was way too old for his tastes.

Besides, someone really needed to tell her to smile more.

As she neared him, he picked up a vibe of nervous excitement, like she was up to something secret.

Intrigued, he decided to follow her.

When she turned into a park a few minutes later, Stefan did the same, but on a path parallel to her that circled around on the opposite side of a playground.

The choice turned out to be perfect, because she soon sat on a bench that put her back to him.

This allowed him to sneak in close and overhear her make a phone call.

As soon as she started talking, he recognized her voice as that of the woman who sometimes answered Gennaro’s phone.

The conversation was short, but fascinating.

After it was done, she got up to leave.

This time, he did not follow her.

The woman was a sneaky one.

He had no doubt that the “cousin” she’d just ratted out was Gennaro.

Why else leave the house to make a call like that?

“A big score on Friday, huh?” Stefan whispered to himself.

It sounded like an excellent opportunity to make Gennaro pay for his disrespect.

All Stefan had to do was figure out a way to throw a wrench into the works.

He smiled, knowing something would come to him.