Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72325 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72325 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
“Looks like Baxter’s more valuable to Gambini than we thought,” I said, putting the pieces together.
“Yep,” Julian said curtly. “We need to get out of here. This place is going to be crawling with cops soon.”
I nodded even though I wanted to punch and kick everything and everyone around me. I’d had that little piece of shit. I was just about to bust him up, but he managed to slip away.
And now we had bigger problems. Roselli would hear about this. Maybe it wouldn’t be tomorrow. Maybe it wouldn’t be the day after, but he would definitely know about it. He wouldn’t like our little stunt one bit. His orders had been clear. Baxter was off limits. We had to find a very good explanation for going after him, or there would be hell to pay.
8
JULIAN
I lost count of all the “fucks” the three of us said before parting ways.
We were in deep shit.
The guy who’d tried to blow us to hell was still breathing. Worse than that, Roselli would be pissed. We knew we were valuable to him, but we couldn’t lie to ourselves. Going against a Don’s will was perhaps the worst mistake one could make. A mistake that could cost us our lives.
With Rocco and Slater preferring to lie low for a couple of days, I sensed that doing something was up to me. That was how it worked sometimes. Rock and Slater took over when hotter heads were needed. I was the one they counted on when a more subtle strategy was needed.
Not that that was ever a satisfying route. If it were up to me, I’d go over and shoot Nick Roselli in his fat head. He wasn’t even a tenth of the man his father had been. But if I did that, every single family in New York would soon go after me. I’d be dead in a matter of days, if not hours. Nick Roselli was a made man. To whack someone like him, one had to get permission from another Don first. They had to have a serious reason to grant that permission, otherwise, whoever asked for it would get a bullet to the head instead. Those were the rules.
On the other hand, Sean Baxter wasn’t a made man. Only Sicilians could have that honor. Guys like Slater and me would never be made. Of the three of us, the organization could only make Rocco, due to his Sicilian blood. And that wouldn’t happen if he was dead.
I just had to find Baxter.
The Gambini family owned several buildings in all five burrows, but their favorite hangout was in Brooklyn. It was called Pietro’s, an Italian restaurant on Jamison Avenue. Named after Michael Gambini’s grandfather as a tribute to him, it was almost always packed with members of his crew. My plan was simple.
Getting there and keeping my eyes open for my target.
There was just one issue—I was between cars at the moment. Luckily, I found a Honda to borrow. Of course, the owner didn’t know I borrowed it, but I’d return it before morning. If this one didn’t blow up, that was.
Long rows of parked cars on either side of Pietro’s confirmed what I already knew. That restaurant would be full of burly men in fifty-dollar suits. I could even see some of them near the glass façade, laughing and teasing each other. An outsider would think this was one big, happy family. To me, that was a joke. There was no such thing in my world. One bad mistake was enough for someone to never see the light of day again. It was amazing that those assholes in there didn’t seem to know that.
I caught a break, just after nine-thirty. Sean Baxter walked right out of that restaurant with one of his buddies, all smiles and happy. Seriously, this guy didn’t have an ounce of self-preservation. Guess he thought that being associated with the Gambini family would protect him. And it would—up to a point.
He got into a white BMW and drove off. For all my desire to beat his head into a spiky blond pulp, I hadn’t actually decided what to do with him yet. So much for being the one who planned. But Baxter was just a lapdog. He was Gambini’s errand boy. He was too low on the food chain to have decided to go after me and my boys. If Don Gambini really had decided the three of us needed to go, I wanted to know why.
I followed him through the narrow streets of Brooklyn, making sure to stay well away from him. He wasn’t completely dumb, and looking for a tail was second nature to guys like us. About fifteen minutes later, I realized I was on familiar grounds. I could see old, small houses around me. Down the road and to the road, I noticed the incomplete frame of a building. I had seen that scaffolding so many times that I could remember which parts of it were rusty and which ones weren’t. The Rusty Bucket was just a block away from that unfinished building.