Page 13 of Unworthy Ties

Rocco

I hadn’t had time to follow up on the intel I had received from the Vipers. There had been too much going on with the Moretti family, my employer, and that was always my first priority. Finding this intel was a side project and had to come second.

But finally, a break in my schedule allowed for it. And I hated to admit it, but I couldn’t do it alone. So, much to my brother’s dismay, Felix had gotten roped into my mission.

Right now I was waiting for him in front of one of our warehouses.

The night air carried a chill that seemed to seep through my jacket.

Streetlights cast long shadows across the empty lot, their yellow glow insufficient against the darkness that pooled between buildings.

I checked my watch again. Felix was late.

“Ugh,” I muttered, rubbing my hands together for warmth.

“Waiting for Felix?”

Dino Barbato had materialized out of seemingly thin air. Or was his name Dino Barbosa? We had two Dino’s and I could never remember which was which.

“What the fuck?” I jumped back slightly, caught off guard.

“Oh, sorry—did I scare you?” he replied airily.

There was something deeply unsettling about Dino.

I knew he was fiercely loyal to Ettore, but there was something about him that was just off.

Perhaps it was his unserious personality, which seemed to contrast sharply with the nature of his work.

Or perhaps it was the way his eyes never quite reflected his smile.

Or maybe it was how he knew everything that went on. Which was why he was standing next to me right now.

“Out with it, Dino,” I said.

“I just heard you were going to see the Vipers tonight. Thought I’d tag along.”

“No.” Bringing Dino along wouldn’t be subtle. The man was 6’5” and always dressed like he stepped out of a fashion magazine.

“Why not?” he asked, feigning hurt. “I’m excellent company.”

“This requires discretion.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And Felix is discreet?”

I sighed. He had a point. My brother was many things, but subtle wasn’t one of them.

“Fine. But you keep this to yourself.”

If I turned Dino away and upset him, who knew what he might do with the information. It would be best just to take him along.

Felix’s car turned into the lot, headlights sweeping across us as he pulled up. He rolled down the window, his expression shifting from surprise to annoyance when he spotted Dino beside me.

“What’s he doing here?” Felix asked, not bothering with pleasantries. “Didn’t you want to keep this a secret?”

“Nothing is a secret to him,” I muttered, walking towards the passenger door.

We headed towards The Rusty Nail, a decrepit bar on the edge of town where the Vipers liked to congregate.

The place was a dump—all peeling paint and neon signs with missing letters—but it served its purpose.

The kind of establishment where people minded their own business, especially when money exchanged hands.

The drive was uncomfortably silent. Felix white-knuckled the steering wheel, clearly unhappy about our unexpected plus one.

Dino lounged in the back seat, looking utterly at ease as he scrolled through his phone.

Every few minutes, he’d chuckle at something, the sound grating on my already frayed nerves.

“So, what’s the plan?” Dino finally asked, leaning forward between the seats. “We just waltz in, ask questions about their boss, and hope we don’t get stabbed?”

“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t be here,” Felix muttered. “We need an asset, not a liability.”

From what I knew about Dino, all of his talents were in information gathering. I assumed that Dino’s close friend, who shared the same name, handled all the killings for him. He wouldn’t exactly be helpful if a brawl broke out.

“I’m not here for a fight,” Dino replied, sounding almost bored. “I’m here because I’m curious. And because I have something you don’t.”

“And what’s that?” Felix snapped.

Dino leaned back, a smug smile playing on his lips. “I know Ramirez, the bartender. He owes me a favor.”

That caught my attention. “What kind of favor?”

Dino’s eyes gleamed in the dim light reflected from passing streetlamps.

“Let’s just say I helped him with a rather delicate situation involving his daughter and a member of the Scorpions.

” He tapped his fingers against the leather seat.

“The kind of help that creates the sort of gratitude that doesn’t expire. ”

Felix shot me a sideways glance, his jaw clenched. I knew that look—the reluctant admission that maybe Dino’s presence wasn’t entirely unwelcome after all.

“Fine,” I conceded. “But you follow our lead. No improvising.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dino replied, though his tone suggested otherwise.

As we pulled into the gravel lot of The Rusty Nail, I could already feel the tension coiling in my stomach.

The place looked exactly like the kind of dive where bodies disappeared and questions went unanswered.

A neon sign buzzed and flickered, casting an eerie red glow over the handful of motorcycles and beat-up trucks parked outside.

“Let’s keep this to information only,” I said as Felix cut the engine. “There are way more Vipers than there are of us.”

“My specialty,” Dino said, straightening his tie as if we were headed to a business meeting rather than a potential death trap. “And to think you didn’t want me here.”

The smell hit me first when we walked in—stale beer, cigarette smoke, and something else I couldn’t quite place but reminded me of desperation.

The Rusty Nail was fuller than I expected for a Tuesday night, filled with the kind of people who didn’t have jobs to wake up for or didn’t care if they showed up hungover.

Felix moved ahead, creating a path through the crowd with his broad shoulders. I stayed close behind him, feeling eyes track our movement across the room. These weren’t casual glances—they were assessments, calculations of threat level.

Dino, meanwhile, moved with surprising ease. Where Felix pushed through the crowd like a battering ram, Dino slipped between bodies like water, somehow avoiding contact entirely.

The three of us made our way to the bar, where an older Mexican man was polishing glasses. The bartender didn’t look up as we approached, continuing his methodical polishing as if we were just more scenery in his dingy kingdom.

“Long time no see, Ramirez,” Dino said breezily, as if he was greeting an old friend at a coffee shop rather than a known Viper associate in the heart of their territory.

“Dino,” he responded, not looking up. “I figured you’d come to collect sooner rather than later.”

“What can I say?” Dino said, letting out a chuckle. “I’ve always been punctual.”

“Out with it, then.”

Dino nodded in my direction, and I stepped forward, close enough to speak without being overheard by the curious eyes that had followed us through the bar.

“I need to speak to Sully. Without getting in a shootout or burning this place to the ground,” I said, keeping my voice low but firm.

Ramirez finally looked up, his dark eyes assessing me with the kind of stare that would make most men flinch. I held his gaze, refusing to blink first.

“I suppose that can be arranged,” he said, setting the glass down. “We wouldn’t want to strain relations between the Vipers and the Mafia.”

“Depends on your definition of ‘strain.’ But we appreciate the cooperation.”

Ramirez’s eyes narrowed slightly before he nodded to a door behind the bar. “Wait in the back. I’ll send word to Sully.”

“There are seven of them,” Felix said to me quietly. “Three by the pool tables, two at the bar, two by the front door.”

We didn’t want to get into a confrontation; but we had to deal with the possibility. I nodded at Felix’s assessment, quietly taking stock of our situation. The odds weren’t great, but they weren’t terrible either.

“Keep your eyes open,” I muttered to Felix as we followed Ramirez through the door. “First sign of trouble...”

“I know,” he replied. “And I swear to fucking god, I’m leaving Dino behind.”

I snorted. Dino shot Felix a wounded look, pressing a hand to his chest as if physically hurt.

“After all we’ve been through?” Dino whispered dramatically.

The back room was exactly what I expected—dimly lit, with stained walls that had absorbed decades of cigarette smoke, and a scarred wooden table surrounded by mismatched chairs. A single bulb hung from a chain, casting shadows that made the place feel smaller than it was.

Sully sat at the far end of the table, cigarette smoke curling around his weathered face like a ghostly halo.

The years hadn’t been kind to him—his once-black hair was now salted with gray, deep lines etched around his mouth from decades of scowling.

But his eyes were still sharp, calculating as they tracked our movement into the room.

“Rocco Marchioni,” he said, not breaking eye contact with me. “I heard you and your brother made quite the mess of my men.”

“Seems like they needed a bit of extra training,” I responded, keeping my voice even. “You’re welcome.”

Sully barked out a laugh, but there was no humor in his eyes. “Didn’t know you were a comedian. I heard you always had a stick up your ass.”

“I save my jokes for special occasions.”

Felix shifted slightly behind me, his stance casual but ready. I knew without looking that his hand was inches from his piece. Dino, for once, had dropped the dramatics. His eyes were doing that unsettling thing, scanning the room methodically, missing nothing.

“What do you know about the Salvaggio’s missing shipments?” I asked.

“Direct. I like that.” He tapped his cigarette into a dented metal tray.

“Direct gets me what I want,” I said flatly. “And right now, what I want is information.”

Sully leaned back in his chair, the aged wood creaking under his weight. The ember of his cigarette flared bright as he took a long drag, exhaling a plume of smoke that drifted lazily between us.

“What makes you think I know anything about that?” His voice was sand and gravel, worn down by years of whiskey and Marlboros.

“I know how the Vipers work, Sully. They don’t make a move without knowing who’s pulling the strings.”

“You give me too much credit. Some people? They don’t need to pull strings. They are the strings.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And what the hell does that mean?”

Sully’s lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile. He took another drag, letting the silence stretch between us.

“It means, Marchioni, that you’re looking at shadows when you should be watching the light.”

“I don’t want any riddl—”

Before I could finish, the door to the back room slammed open. Three men strode in, each with the unmistakable bulge of a shoulder holster beneath their jackets. The tallest one, a man with a face like crumpled paper and cold eyes, nodded at Sully.

“Boss, we got trouble outside.”

Sully’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered behind his eyes. Interest. Calculation.

“Excuse me, Marchioni. Business calls.” He crushed his cigarette with deliberate pressure.

As Sully stood up from his chair, his movements were deliberate and controlled. He nodded at the men and gestured for them to lead the way. Without a backward glance, he followed them out of the room, leaving us alone with the fading tendrils of smoke hanging in the air.

“How anti-climatic,” Dino complained. He leaned against the doorframe, his lanky frame casting a long shadow across the floor. “All that build up for nothing.”

“I’m leaving him behind, Rocco,” Felix said, striding towards the door.

I sighed and followed the two men to the car. Felix slammed the car door shut as we drove away from the desolate warehouse where our meeting with Sully had taken place. The tension inside the vehicle was palpable, the weight of the unfinished business looming heavy in the air.

As we arrived back at the dimly lit warehouse, I couldn’t help but wonder what my next move would be. Sully’s clue hadn’t given me much, if anything, to go on. The investigation was far from over, and my gut told me I was still missing something crucial.