He doesn’t disagree. He knows the score. He’d probably do the same to me if this trip were the other way round. So much for trust. I smile and stuff my hands in my pockets, high-end shoes walking us along the long roads. I stop outside a particular brownstone, looking up through the trees at the window on the top floor. It’ll give time for old Gorgio Consetti to see me from his opposite window. Should set the drums going quickly enough for cover to come follow my ass around.
“Got my dick in something for the first time up there,” I mutter. Fuck knows who to. Maybe myself. Or Quinn. It’s evocative down here, though, reminding me of things I’d forgotten. Friendship. Camaraderie. “Amelia. Her mother was one of my father’s whores.” Quinn chuckles. “What?”
“Seems like we both got our dicks off in the same way first time round.” Did we? I smirk at him. “Maybe that’s just the way it is in our world,” he says, walking onwards with a scowl and dragging out his phone.
Another few turns and the smell of Mama’s hits us both in the face. Donuts, pastries—nothing fancy, just all the old Italian goods baked fresh every day. She’s been here for so long I don’t remember the place without her in it. Her old man’s gone, died about the same time mine did, but what Mama doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing. Still.
I push on the door, the old bell ringing like it always did, and walk into the run-down place.
“Help ya, sir?” a woman says instantly. I look her over, noting the dirty apron and tired eyes, then glance around the interior and gesture for Quinn to sit in the back-corner booth. Same everything, even down to the stains on the wall.
“Two plates of cannoli.”
She nods slowly, her eyes tracing the ink climbing out of my shirt collar, and eventually hurries to the counter, fingers fumbling for plates as she blushes. It amuses me. Stupid women. False smiles and some ink, and they all come begging. “And tell Mama Benjamin’s here,” I call back, heading for Quinn to sit beside him.
“The fuck is this, Vico?” he says, removing his coat.
“Bonding.”
“What?”
“Trust, Cane. That’s what you wanted from me, wasn’t it?” The waitress comes over and dumps two full plates of cannoli in front of us. It’s the most food I’ve seen on a plate in years. I dive in, mouth salivating around the cream that oozes out. “This is home for me, Quinn. I don’t bring just anyone home.” He nods and looks at his plate, probably unsure if he should eat the mess. “It’s good. Trust me.”
I stare out at the road as we eat, watching as three cars turn up. I don’t know any of them, but I do know the first man who steps out of another one. Ferdinand Consetti. That’s old school. Gorgio's eldest grandson. I smirk at them all filtering out of their cars, lining up and lighting smokes. No one even thinks about coming over to us.
“Your boys?” Quinn asks.
“Mmm.”
He takes a bite of cannoli and points behind them. “That other car coming in is Denago’s. You met the cousins at my wedding. They'll lead it from out there, but Ricardo is New York's contact.” I gaze at the black Lincoln pulling over, wondering how much he’s organised without me. “I met with them yesterday while you were with Nate, put the odds on the table. Nothing’s set fast.” He takes another cannoli with his fingers this time. “This is good.”
Mama comes into the room, breaking the quiet. Her hands are wide as she approaches the table, eyes firmly directed at the little shit she knew all those years ago. Me.
“Benjamin Vico,” she says, waving me into her. I stand, respect pushing me into her embrace. “What business have you here?” I nod out of the window, showing her what business is coming my way. She glares, hands wringing her apron. “Columbians?” she says, Italian mutterings getting louder in her audacity. “You bring de Columbians to me?”
“He brought them,” I reply, tilting my head towards Quinn and sucking my spoon.
She tuts at him with more hand gestures, then more Italian, and then reaches over and fusses his hair. He smiles the whole goddamn time. Seems even Mama's not immune to his charms. I chuckle and eat more cannoli, remembering her doing the same to Tony when we were kids. It tells me she likes him, and if Mama likes someone, they’re normally worth liking. She’s got an inbuilt detector, something that gives her the ability to see through false honour.
“Your company has improved, no? But Italiano, Benjamin, per favore.” Mmm. Well, I’m the only Italian worth a shit in New York anymore. There’s no one left to fuck around with now. The last one, Sergio Angelo, got killed in a raid years back, as she well knows. He was her son after all.
Fucking FBI scum.
That was the year I changed everything about how this town was run. No small organisations running alongside each other anymore, just one. Mine. They worked for me, or they ended up dead in a warehouse somewhere. I didn’t give a fuck which one at the time. One of my only friends had been killed because of complacency and arrogance. Everyone deserved my goddamn wrath for those eighteen months. Tony and I provided it, building an empire at the same time that no one fucks with now.
“You go lock yourself in, Mama,” I mutter, nodding her to the back and waving the waitress there, too. “Stay down.”
She grumbles off as the two guys Quinn’s brought in cross the road, both of them dressed as we are. That’s what this world is now—a facade around what used to be, no matter the intent still hiding beneath clothing. The Consetti boys hover in the background, three of them wandering across the road as the door pushes inwards. I take another cannoli as Quinn nods at them, his frown focused on the guns under their jackets.
“You leave that shit outside,” he growls. “And be slow, boys.” I don’t know why he’s said it. They don’t bother me. Both these fucks will be dead in an instant if they even think about pulling, but I stare at the pair of them over my food anyway, waiting to see if they do what he says. It’ll help prove this thing he’s got going on, give me some of that trust he’s offering. One of them mutters to the other, handing his Glock over and watching it being taken out to one of the Consettis to hold. “Good,” Quinn says as he walks back in. “Don’t ever bring guns to my family again.” I frown slightly at the word, my eyes still looking at the Columbians. I’m no family of his. “Negotiations don’t involve goddamn threats, Ricardo.”
Family. I watch the two of them talking for a while, watch the way this Ricardo defers to Quinn each time a trade is discussed. He’s good at it. Cool. Agile in the way he’s getting what he wants out of these boys without too many threats. It doesn’t stop me noting that nothing is coming from the other one, though. He’s nervous of something, twitching, regardless of his slight sneer. My ears quiet the sounds of Quinn talking, my eyes focusing in on this other one. He shifts in his seat, his own eyes trying to evade mine. I can almost hear that heartbeat quickening with every word. I don’t like it.
Something’s off.
I glance at the boys outside and lean back.
“I don’t negotiate,” I cut in, eating the last of my cannoli off my fingers. “There is no negotiation.”
