34

SLADE

Asking around, trying to find out a Don’s location was a whole lot easier when you didn’t have a price on your head. Much easier.

Still, there were people who were loyal to us, as long as we assured them that Roscano would never find out. Plus, there were a few idiots who didn’t even realize that the three of us and our Don weren’t on good terms anymore.

But mostly, the word on the street had spread.

People knew he wanted us gone.

Questions like “why” just didn’t matter. Money talks, bullshit walks, as they say.

And speaking of money, it was a joke.

That cheap son of a bitch had put on our heads. Ten grand. Each.

To a seasoned professional, this would be a joke. Hired guns were expensive. They cost a lot more than a miserable ten thousand bucks. To the average junkie or pimp, though, this was a lot of money. Which is why the ones Jumaine and I contacted sounded desperate to meet with us. Once we mentioned we were back in town, they all got super-excited. They spoke too fast. They suggested meeting places. Surprise of surprises—those places were far too secluded. I heard them talking about underground parking lots, dead-end streets and crap like that. Maybe those crackheads thought Jumaine and I were born yesterday. We weren’t going to fall for that bullshit.

And while some of them were eager to get in good with Roscano, most weren’t too motivated for that measly amount of money. Of course, if Roscano had known we were behind the destruction of his precious meth lab, the price would’ve gone up a lot. But Jumaine’s plan had worked. Roscano likely had his suspicions, but no one could prove it wasn’t an accident. Labs like that were full of dangerous chemicals. Shit happened.

Especially when the three of us were there to make it happen.

And then after days of fruitless searching, I finally caught a break, in the form of one of the bouncers at a local strip club. He shared some news that I paid handsomely for.

“Gambini and Roscano’s crew won’t shut up about this fundraiser at the Ritz, man. It’s in six days. Everybody will be in the lobby at first. Come midnight, when most people are gone, wise guys will be up on the roof, because they’re flying in some ballet troop, some dancers from Eastern Europe. Twelve of them. Roscano can’t wait for that party—those poor girls!”

We’d been searching for a time and a place where Roscano would be all alone. Instead, I’d discovered a venue where he would be surrounded by a bunch of mafia bosses and their lap dogs. Still, this was the only piece of information we had. Something told me Rocello and Jumaine wouldn’t like it. If I was being honest, I hated it, too. But it was the only lead we had.

Back at the cabin, Rocello and Jumaine had already broken out the whiskey. They were drinking on the couch with Margo perched between them. From the big smile on her face and her mussed up hair, I assumed my friends had taken good care of her while I was gone.

That had been happening a lot lately, but the freshly fucked look worked for her. It certainly always made my cock come to attention. Except not tonight. There was too much on the line and only a few days to plan.

Margo poured me a drink, but then she retired to the back bedroom. Multiple orgasms always made her sleepy.

As we drank, I shared what I’d learned.

As anticipated, Rocello wasn’t pleased. “That tip’s no good, man. We’ll be walking straight into the arms of every fucking mobster in New York. There’s no way in hell we’re getting out of the Ritz alive.”

“I don’t want to give those fucks the satisfaction, Slade,” Jumaine voiced his opinion. “They want to kill me? Let them hunt me down on the street. I won’t get caught in that mousetrap.”

“I hear you. Both,” I uttered in a calm tone, eyeing Jumaine first, and then Rocello. “You’re right. If we walk into that lobby, we’re dead in the water. Everybody knows our faces. But—and this is big but—this is the only thing we’ve got right now. I’m tired of all this back and forth out here to the middle of nowhere. We can’t keep it up. Sooner or later, we’re going to slip up, and then it’s game over.”

“So, you want to go after Roscano at that fundraiser, because you’re tired?” Rocello asked with a squint. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m sick and tired of knowing Roscano’s still alive and kicking,” I said. “And you know as well as I do that we can’t keep this up forever.”

“Then, what the hell are you suggesting?” Rocello snapped.

“We can make it work,” I insisted, turning to Jumaine. “Use that big brain of yours. There has to be some way to isolate Roscano at the party.”

“Without him seeing us,” Rocello said, but at least he wasn’t snapping at me now.

“We’ll think of something,” Jumaine finally said with a sigh.

“How do you know?” Rocello asked.

“Because we have to,” Jumaine said simply. Then he downed his whiskey, and we started planning.

31

ROCELLO

Those five days felt like a goddamn eternity…

Waiting for that fundraiser was pure agony.

Five?

No.

Scratch that.

The first two days went by pretty quicky, since we were in full-on planning mode. One of us would pose an idea, and the other two would poke holes in it until it collapsed. Then we moved on.

The remaining three days were busy as hell. We enlisted Eddie, the hacker who’d been on board with helping us break into the bank in North Haven. He could get us into a hotel room, but he also had a bigger role to play. It was his job to lure Roscano there by posing as a bellboy. He was to hand Roscano a keycard for the room and say that one of the dancers was waiting for him up there.

There was no doubting Eddie’s loyalty, but that didn’t mean he was ready to do that. That kid was just twenty-two. He’d just graduated from college, but that was not really an issue.

His awkwardness? Yeah, it was.

Six feet tall, messy, blond hair, a few pimples scattered across his face, and a typical geek behavior would make him stand out. Even to an average onlooker, he would seem out of place. Eddie was one hundred-percent nerd.

Shy.

Withdrawn.

Stuttering, every time someone attractive addressed him.

The first couple of times he spoke with Margo up at the cabin, it was fucking hilarious. And tragic. The whole plan would fall apart if he went weak at the knees every time he saw one of those dancers.

But Margo was also the solution. While we coached him on the elements of the con, she teased him. Flirted, even. Eventually, he got more used to being around a beautiful woman. Or at least it cut down on his blushing by quite a bit.

Jumaine joked that she was giving him person-lessons, and that was more or less accurate. She got on him for staring and slouching. She made him speak up, loudly and clearly. We were paying him a small fortune for his role in the con, but he probably should’ve given her a big cut for making him into an actual human being.

She even made him look like one, too. He couldn’t turn up looking like he'd just gotten out of bed. He had to look after himself, which meant brushing his hair and shaving off the ragged patches of hair on his face that he’d laughingly called a beard.

He looked like a completely different person an hour before the fundraiser started. Slade, Jumaine, and I were in the basement of the Ritz. Eddie’s uniform, and his much-improved appearance, made him look like a convincing bellhop. As he paced and fidgeted with his bowtie, we went over the plan one more time.

“We know Roscano’s going to have someone on the floor,” I began. The room where the dancer was supposedly waiting was on the seventh floor. “I’ll take him out when he comes in. Make sure you all stay away from the lobby, or you’ll run into wise guys.”

“I’ll guard the door,” Slade said, Eddie shuffling away from the mirror. “That fuckwad will definitely try to escape when he sees us in that room.”

“Please, don’t tell me you want me to chase after him,” Eddie interjected. “I’m not fit enough for that.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I rolled my eyes. “How many times do we have to repeat this? All you have to do is get on the fucking walkie and tell us when he’s on his way. Got it?”

“Yeah,” he said on an exhale. “I really hope I don’t mess this up.”

“You’d better not.” Jumaine barely held onto his temper.

I sighed. If Margo were here, I knew what she’d want us to do. “You can do it,” I told the boy. “You’re ready, and you know what to do.” Then I kicked Slade in the shin before he could say anything negative.

“All right, boys,” I said, clapping my hands to get their attention like a damned schoolteacher. “I’ll be waiting outside the room, just in case the little prick manages to shake you. Let’s do this.”

Tension building within, I moved away from them.

The lobby was already bustling once I’d climbed the stairs. There were some really nice smells in the air, like molten cheese and bacon. Two waiters rushed past me, talking over each other. The red carpet underneath my feet was spotless. I couldn’t even make out a speck of dust. The hotel workers had to have been working overtime, in order to welcome some of the worst criminals in New York.

In the elevator, I couldn’t help smiling at the irony of what was going to go down tonight. Most of the men attending this party belonged in prison. I had a lot of respect for Gambini, but he wasn’t all that much better than Roscano. Gambini just treated his crew better, by handing out bonuses every once in a while. He was also much more polite to them.

Had he sanctioned murder?

Yep.

Had he been dealing drugs?

Of course.

Had he broken people’s fingers and legs for failing to pay their loans in time?

Sure he had—or more likely, he’d made his men do it.

And those were just his lesser crimes. Soon, the party would be filled with dozens of men exactly like him.

But I couldn’t dwell on that stuff. I had to focus on the immediate, which was Nick Roscano. I wasn’t going to be the one to purge New York. I had no interest in becoming a vigilante. All I wanted tonight was to remove the man who had double-crossed me and my friends. The man who was determined to end the most amazing woman I knew.

I stopped at the eighth floor and rolled a cart out of the elevator, dressed as a maintenance worker. Jumaine and Slade should already be in the hotel room one flight down, waiting for Roscano. An elderly couple exited their room on my left, so I pulled out a screwdriver and pretended like I was fixing a light high up on the wall. The people who could afford to stay here would never notice a lowly maintenance worker.

After what felt like an eternity, Eddie’s thin voice in my earpiece made me stop moving altogether.

“Guys, are you there?” He asked, the noise from the lobby faint in the background.

“Talk to me, Eddie. Where’s Roscano? In the elevator?”

“No. I had to come to the men’s room, because the lobby’s just too crowded. The strangest thing happened when I told him that one of the dancers was waiting for him on the seventh floor.”

My stomach did a painful flip flop. “What’s that?”