Page 29

Mick stopped his black Escalade in front of the mob diner Denardo owned. Mick, Teddy, and Sal got out. Nikki got on the seat Mick vacated and got behind the wheel. She watched through the diner’s full-front window as the three men went inside.

Inside, Jace Denardo was seated all the way down the aisle at the last table in the small, sparsely populated place. When they walked up to him, he continued to eat his massive bowl of spaghetti and ignored their presence.

Teddy, impatient and angry just knowing Denardo might be involved, flipped the bowl of pasta onto Denardo’s shirt, causing him to slide his chair back and knock the hot food off of him. “What the fuck?” he said, finally looking up at Teddy.

“You see us now, motherfucker?” Teddy angrily asked.

Denardo was about to respond angrily too, but he realized it wasn’t just Teddy T, but his father and Sal Gabrini standing at his table. “Mick the Tick? And Sal Gabrini? I’m not used to seeing heavy-hitters like the two of you in my midst. I thought Teddy T was the biggest asshole I’d ever have the pleasure of pissing off. But you two? I have arrived,” he said with a smile so fake it fooled none of them.

“Who attacked my children?” Mick asked him.

“I have no idea.”

“Who fake-suicide our three men?” Teddy asked him.

“No idea.”

“Who planted those explosives at the docks?”

“No idea.”

“Who breached our safe house and tried to kill Potter Rarsi?”

“Who’s that?”

Teddy grabbed his shirt. “Why you!” he yelled out as Sal grabbed Teddy to stop him from going too far with the guy.

But from outside looking in, Nikki saw two men in the front of the aisle get up from their tables and began hurrying for the back. When they pulled out guns and were about to aim and fire at Teddy and the others, Nikki didn’t hesitate. She slung that gear into Drive, pressed on that gas petal and jumped the curb, sped across the sidewalk, and sped up even faster as she rammed Mick’s SUV through the glass window, shattering it to pieces and knocking both men off of their feet and trapping them against the wall.

When Teddy, Mick, and Sal saw the destruction, Sal hurried over to make sure the men weren’t still breathing. Teddy grabbed Denardo’s shirt again, but this time he put his own gun to Denardo’s head. “Got an idea now?” he asked him.

Denardo was stunned by the SUV’s checkmate move, and lifted his hands in surrender. “I was hired to do a job, that’s all,” he said quickly.

“What job? To blow up our ship?”

“No. Your dock supervisor, that Renardo guy, handled that. He needed me to handle the other thing.”

“What other thing?” Teddy asked.

Denardo didn’t want to say it.

“What other thing?” Mick asked.

“To pull a team together to take out your children,” Denardo admitted.

Mick was ready to skin him alive, but Teddy quickly asked another question while he could. “Who did you pull together?”

“Denny Bengino provided Hal Janantoni and Vivian. And I provided the rest of the guys.”

“Your capos?”

Denardo nodded. “Yes.”

They had the guy that facilitated the ambush. They’d get the others later, but they had one of the main links right in front of them. And that was all Mick needed to know. Teddy too.

But before Teddy could make another move, Mick moved past him, grabbed up Denardo, and began punching him with such force that his big, hard fist sounded like a mallet to meat. He punched him and punched him as blood spewed from Denardo’s face and flew up onto the shards of window next to his table. He punched and punched him as he thought about the horrors his children went through because of this asshole. He punched and punched until his arms were as heavy as lead. And Jace Denardo, unrecognizable, was no longer a viable human being.

But when sirens were heard in the distance, it still took Teddy to pull his father away from Denardo. Mick, breathing heavily, walked over to his SUV and got inside.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sal said to a stunned Teddy, who was still standing there amazed. Seeing his father’s rage was a scary sight to behold. Did he have that kind of rage in him too? And then Teddy got in the SUV as well.

Sal looked at the only other person in the joint: the bartender. “Kill the video,” he said to him.

“What video?” the bartender said. “Ain’t no video around here.”

Sal nodded to the bartender that he was satisfied with that answer, got in quickly, and Nikki sped backwards out of the diner, swerved around, and took off.