Page 3 of The Italian Reckoning (A New York Criminal Empire #3)

ROCKY

“ L isten, I need those parts by end of day. If this shit falls off, I’m a walking ticket for the cops.” Balancing my phone between my shoulder and my ear, I crouch down and lean over my knee to reach under the chassis of my motorcycle and follow the problem cable right to the source.

“Since when did you care about the cops?” drawls the Southern twang of my mechanic.

“I don’t. But the less reason I give them to pull me over, the better. I’m not actively looking to be locked up overnight.”

“You drive a Kawasaki Ninja H2R.” He snorts. “You’re already on their radar.”

“Dude, she’s a modified Kawasaki Ninja H2R.” That correction is important. My meticulous care and modifications on my beloved Kawasaki are the only reason my baby is road legal, and I’m not looking to give that up for one broken mirror.

“Whatever. The parts won’t arrive until tomorrow. Think you can last until then?”

“Sure.” What choice do I have? “You’ll call me as soon as?”

“Yeah.”

“Cheers.” The call ends as heavy footsteps stomp through the garage toward me, signaling the arrival of one of the Barati guards. Tan boots appear on the other side of my bike, tapping one toe as they wait for me to untangle myself from my vehicle and greet them.

Maybe I should make them wait purely because I don’t want to talk to them. Eventually, curiosity gets the better of me and I pull myself out from underneath my bike and peer up at the charcoal-suited man staring down at me.

“You'd better have a good reason for interrupting quality time with my baby.”

“Belle Marino is dead.”

Coldness seeps from my skull to the back of my neck as my stomach tightens and my good mood fizzles into nothing.

Belle. The niece of one of my closest friends—his daughter, for all intents and purposes.

“When?”

“Cops found her last night.”

Climbing to my feet, my mind drifts with concern over Gio as I distantly try to clean lingering oil and black grease from my fingertips with the rag I keep tucked in my jeans’ pocket. “Does Gio know?”

“Telling him as we speak.”

“Fuck. I take it you’re here because she didn’t die naturally?”

The guard shakes his head. “Boss wants you to keep a lid on it until we know more.”

Of course he does. My father has been keeping a lid on everything ever since Noah, a rat from one of the smaller families under our control, went crazy last year and nearly ignited a catastrophic war between us and the Irish.

Any decent leader would use that to build strong alliances with some of the families around us but instead, my father chooses to shut us down.

He doesn’t really care about Gio. He just needs me to make sure he won’t be a problem.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Rocky, your father wants to make sure you understand that you’re just to keep a lid on things. Squabbles of the smaller families aren’t our business?—”

“I said I’ll take care of it.” Heat licks at my words as I shoot a piercing glare toward the guard. “And tell my father that when one of our own turns up dead, we need to look into it regardless of what family they’re from. Now run along and report back, there’s a good dog .”

My father and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but this is one instance in which we differ greatly.

If I follow his rules, taking care of Gio will mean sending him away somewhere secluded where he wouldn't cause any trouble for the family and then quietly forgetting all about Belle. That’s not how I see things.

When Noah was causing shit for the Irish, it was my hands-on approach that prevented a war between our two factions.

All my father sees is my being a nuisance and sticking my neck where it doesn’t belong.

Where he sees interference, I see connection. We can’t get by in this life by treating everyone like a commodity. Friendships are hard to come by but more rewarding when nurtured.

Gio’s house is in darkness when I arrive later that afternoon.

He lives close by, so walking gave me time to plan how to approach this.

As I stroll up the stone path lined with multicolored pansies and daffodils to the peeling front door, my final planning attempts crumble in my mind.

How do I comfort someone who's just had a loved one ripped away from them?

I’ve had similar talks before in the past, but it’s different when you’re delivering news that someone’s been gunned down in a shootout. That’s part of this life and everyone expects it. Some even find it the perfect way to die.

But Belle? She was young.

Innocent.

My stomach twists into knots when I lift my hand and knock lightly on the front door.

The peeling blue paint clings to my knuckles, so I focus on wiping it off while listening intently for any sign of movement on the other side.

I’ve known Gio for years. We drink and play cards together almost every week at The Black Ox, and he talks about Belle like she’s his only reason for living.

A hundred possibilities race through my mind as the silence drags on, but just as I lift my hand to knock again, movement sounds beyond the door. The heavy trudge of footsteps precedes the clatter of a metal chain and a lock sliding open.

“Gio?”

His tired, drawn face peers out through an inch gap in the door. Darkness clings under his eyes where the skin is red from tears he’ll never admit to shedding.

My heart immediately squeezes at the sight and a heavy, grim weight settles across my brow. I press my lips together, giving quiet sympathy with just a look. It takes a few seconds for Gio to really look at me, but when he does, his face relaxes a fraction.

“Rocky.” His voice is rough with emotion and remains that way even after he clears his throat. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard about Belle. What do you need?”

Gio holds my gaze for a few long seconds, then he steps back from the door and vanishes into the dullness of his home. I take this as my invitation and step inside, closing the door behind me.

The house is cold despite the warmth radiating outside.

With the curtains drawn shut and all the lights off, darkness clings to the corners of every room and haunts every door that isn’t fully closed.

A threadbare carpet shifts and slides under my feet as I follow Gio through to his kitchen, trying not to focus on the faint, painful sobbing drifting from one closed door at the end of the hall.

“Coffee?” Gio’s already in the process of making it when I enter, so I simply grunt in agreement.

“How is Mia?”

“Devastated.” Gio busies himself with coffee grounds and hot water while I keep my distance.

“Belle was… she was going to college. She was going to be better than all of us. Her entire future was out there, waiting for her, and now she’s just…

” The clatter of his spoon slipping from his rigid fingers cuts him off and he stands there, half hunched over.

I don’t need to see his face to know he’s fighting his own devastation.

“Gio, if I’d known she was missing?—”

“What?” He spins to face me, anger blazing in his tear-filled, sunken eyes. “You would have gone out to find her? Brought her back home safe? Like you would have given her the fucking time of day!”

My heart aches harder and as Gio glares at me, my anxiety rises but I don’t take his words to heart. He needs to let something out and I’m here for him. I settle on toying with a loose thread trailing from my jeans and nod slowly. “I would have tried, yes.”

“Tried.” Gio spits, then he turns to the counter and slams his hands down on it. “We all tried and I… I failed. I didn’t even…” His head shakes, and he returns to the coffee, loading several heaped teaspoons into two mugs.

“What was she going to college for?”

Gio doesn’t respond. He stands with his back to me and stares at the kettle for what feels like an eternity. When he speaks, his voice is softer.

“Agriculture. She wanted to revitalize farming. Had all these bright ideas about crops and food growth and how she could save the world and make sure no one ever went hungry again. You know how kids are. Big ideas.”

Gio turns to face me and indicates to the rickety chairs surrounding the single white table in the kitchen. I sit to be polite, pouring all my nervous energy into bouncing my knee. “She was bright.”

“So bright.” For a moment, Gio’s eyes light up.

“After her parents died, Mia refused to let her go anywhere else but here, and we saw straight away how smart she was. She wasn’t cut out for this life and we didn’t want it for her.

Crime got her parents killed. She was meant for better things and she worked so hard.

She…” Emotion clogs his voice. He falls silent until both coffees are set on the table and he sits across from me.

“The cops say she was found out near the old textile factory. I thought… When she didn’t come home, I thought she was out partying.

She’s twenty-one… Was twenty-one. She’d been out for days before, so I didn’t think anything of it. ”

“Gio, this isn’t your fault.”

“But if I’d looked for her sooner, maybe it could have been different.” He looks at me earnestly, as if the truth of his indecisions lies hidden in my eyes. “If Mia had reported her missing earlier, then maybe the cops?—”

“Fuck the cops,” I mutter. “You know how they feel about shit to do with us. They would have milked you dry before looking for her.” An unfortunate downside of my father’s desire to own as many cops in this city as possible.

So many of them have witnessed or caused corruption that they’ve grown cocky and will drain someone’s bank account before they help them.