Dark Heart (Dark Heart 1)

“That doesn’t sound foreboding.”

She gives a small shrug, and then curls her fingers, beckoning me to stand. “Everyone has secrets, shona.”

“Secrets? Like…Dad is Italian?” I’m clearly joking.

When I notice my mom hasn’t replied, my jaw drops. “Mom! What?”

She holds the gown open, and I step carefully into it, meeting her eyes as she moves around behind me to fasten me in.

“Elise, ask your father why he calls you cara. And get into this pretty ruby gown. For tonight, you get to be a princess, free of all responsibility. Enjoy it, shona,” she says, smiling softly. “It will be one of the last times.”Chapter FifteenLuca“Dude, this was a big mistake,” Alesso says.

Leo grips the wheel of the Cutlass, and I watch his jaw tick before he glares at Alesso via rearview mirror.

“It’s not so bad,” I say. “We’re going slow, and Leo knows what’s what.”

“I hate the tunnel,” Alesso mutters.

“Everybody hates the fucking tunnel.” Leo lets a breath out, braking as the car in front of us slows.

“I don’t hate it that much,” I offer. “It’s like the subway, but at least you’re going slower than those damn trains.”

I’ve traveled from Brooklyn to lower Manhattan through the Battery Tunnel a handful of times, and it’s never made me feel sick like a train or helicopter does. Alesso, however, feels differently.

Motherfucking Diamond. It’s his fault we’re piled into the Cutlass Alesso stole from his uncle—again. Earlier this afternoon, when I was trying to figure out the train schedule, Diamond called. He told me that before he loaned me the tux he promised, he needed a favor. If I did it, he’d get me to the prom on time—since doing this favor for him would make it impossible for me to catch the train.

“Fuck Tony,” Alesso says, reading my mind. “Ten bucks says he thinks that since he loaned you the tux, he already thanked you for that shit you did this afternoon.”

I shake my head. “Shit is right.”

This time Diamond’s favor was…different. He had me go over to some old rich guy’s house and help him bake some fucking panettone. Dude was like half dead, and I was surprised he lived by himself.

“He kept blowing holes in his pants like he couldn’t even help it.”

Alesso groans. “That’s disgusting.”

“How old is he anyway?” Leo asks.

“Older than the world, dude,” I say. “And obsessed with panettone. And loaded. After we finished baking the three loaves, he put his bony hand on my back and said thank you in this old-ass, wheezy voice, and then he gave me five one hundred dollar bills. Pulled them out of the pocket of his lounge pants like it was nothing!”

“What did you expect from old Lamberto?” Leo asks me.

For a moment, I can’t speak. My eyes focus on the tunnel’s dark walls, sliding by too quickly, and that makes me feel sick. “Old man—Arnoldi? That was him?”

“Yeah man,” Alesso says. “How did you miss that?”

“Tony didn’t fucking tell me is how! Why the fuck was I there?””

“Tony said old man Lambo requested you by name, Luca.”

“What the fuck?”

“You didn’t know that was his house?”

“I thought he lived near Carnegie Hill.”

“That’s one of his places,” Alesso tells me. “But he likes his place in old Red Hook. That’s where they came from, after all.”

“It was an apartment! And he called himself Bert!”

Leo looks at me aghast. “Focus on the road, man.”

“Or we’ll be deader than Arnoldi’s Massacre,” Alesso adds.

My stomach knots up. “What the fuck’s Arnoldi’s Massacre?”

“It happened right around the time Roberto Arnoldi was shaking down your dad. You remember that?”

“Not at all.”

He rolls his eyes. “Old Lambo was getting up there. Tony said there was a lot of shit spewing, especially after he had a heart attack. Roberto had been ready to move up for years, but Lambo wouldn’t give the crown up. People talked like he was getting frail. That pissed him off.

“So the Bellini family was run by the young guy, Noah Bellini—still is—but Noah’s always been in bed with the Russians or some shit. That’s what my brother says. So anyway, Lambo—your old fart—he figured out where they were meeting. It was in this very tunnel.” Alesso’s lips twitch. “I’m just fucking with you. It was over there somewhere in Bath Beach.”

“Fuck you,” Leo mutters.

“They were meeting sometime in the night, in a warehouse with garage doors. Our guys shot out the windows, and then the Russians opened up the doors already shooting—AKs, cause they’re fucking crazy—but our people didn’t give a shit. And…everyone died. I’m talking every single one of them. I think Tony said it was seventeen bodies in total.

“And the head of the Russians—I forgot his name, I think like Casper or something weird like that— He wanted revenge. Sick shit. So he set up a hit on Lambo’s wife. Her name was Bella, and she was supposed to be some kind of angel lady, putting up with Lambo F.—for fucking—” he smirks— “Arnoldi for so long. Anyway—” Alesso shrugs. “They got her. She was at a hair salon. Do you remember someone getting offed at a hair place when we were like eleven?”