Johnny has told the Family but no one else, and he won’t go into hospice. Although he’ll be buried in Chicago, the place he considers his real home, he wants to die in New York to be close to his mother, who has been on her deathbed for the last six years. Considering the woman is ninety-two, no one is willing to call the tiny old woman a liar. The way things are now, she’ll bury her son.
Francis is waiting outside the door of what a gold plaque says is an import and export business. “Dom, it’s good to see you. How is your father?”
“Good, you look good. You lost weight.”
Francis nods as he runs a hand over his stomach. “Had a heart attack, the wife put me on one of them low-carb diets. The only problem is I can’t cheat on it, the minute I eat a plate of pasta I blow up. It’s not easy, I miss bread.”
“Better you than me. I’m not going without Pop’s gnocchi.”
“Ah, your father’s gnocchi.” He sighs. “I miss it. Go on in, Johnny is waiting for you.”
I open the door to the office. It’s been two years since I last saw Johnny. It was in Chicago right before he found out about the cancer and moved to New York. It was a meeting like most we had. He gave me the name of a guy to kill. That’s pretty much how meetings with Johnny went: it was either a money discussion or getting the order to take care of someone.
It’s not that he hasn’t needed me to kill anyone in the last two years. I got the orders and made my payment through his underboss Carlo, who ran Chicago on his behalf.
I take in Johnny for a minute, damn, he looks awful. The once large man has been whittled down to half of what he used to be by the cancer treatments.
“Dom, thank you for coming.” He rises to shake my hand.
I return the shake. “No problem.” I sit down across from him, as he indicates, unbuttoning my jacket as I do. “I hear you’re having a problem with your daughter. I’m happy to help, I’m just not sure how I can.”
He laughs. “Come on, Dom, you look in the mirror every day. I need you to do whatever it is you do to make women fall for you and forget everything else. She thinks she’s marrying a white knight but she’s getting a bum. The guy is an associate of the Bruno family. Alonzo’s son, Benny, brought him in.”
Alonzo Bruno is the head of the family here in New York. He’s also fucking psychotic. The man has killed one of his sons already when the kid pulled a dumbass move. Word is he’s warned Benny he has no problem doing it again.
“Benny has the guy, Richard Taylor, cleaning money for him and Alonzo. This bum, he thinks he’s a made guy, some fucking big shot. He’s sniffing up enough coke a night to kill a fucking horse. He’s fucking strippers and is a damn mess. He thinks if he marries Gina I’ll bail him out of the hole he’s in. Him and Gina think they’re getting married at the courthouse tomorrow. I need you to make sure that doesn’t happen and she forgets he ever existed.”
“How did you find all of this out? Can you show her what you found?”
“There’s nothing I can show her. It’s all from digging into him through my people. I didn’t know about any of this until a few days ago. Danny was supposed to be keeping an eye on her to keep men away from her. Instead the little fucker has been helping them. She thinks I don’t know it was Danny—he’ll pay for it, but not yet. I got her in her room, she doesn’t know I know about tomorrow. Danny is trying to save his skin by telling me about the eloping thing.” He sighs. “We don’t have the best relationship. Regina wouldn’t want to hear anything I have to say. I’m afraid to push her too much.”
I’m confused, Johnny isn’t known for delicate sensibilities.
Running a hand over his face. “She went mute for like four years when she was little. Stress, the psychiatrist said, the school tried everything. I had to send in someone here from the States, and it still took over a year of working with Gina before she started talking again. The lady ended up staying—she was too worried Gina would lapse again to leave.”
Going mute for four years? That’s some fucking stress and now Johnny’s desire for a softer touch makes more sense. “I’m not sure how to make this happen in just one day. If she thinks she’s getting a white knight, those stars in her eyes aren’t going to disappear overnight.”
He leans back. “I need you to do whatever it is you need to do, while not killing the bum or hurting my daughter. I know she thinks I don’t care about her, and it’s my fault. Her mother died. I couldn’t take her home to my wife, my mother didn’t want anything to do with her. So I sent her off to school overseas, best school I could find. I’m not gonna lie. It was too damn easy to forget she was even there. I got two updates a year, I figured it was better than anything I could do.”
His eyes go down, he clears his throat. “Then she turned thirteen, and Sandra died. I went to go get her, thinking, you know, I could do it right. She didn’t want anything to do with me, wouldn’t come with me. When she graduated from school, she still wouldn’t come back to me, to Chicago. Told me her life was in Italy. I had to beg like a fucking dog to get her here. Had to use cancer as a way to see my only daughter before I die.”
In all the years I’ve known Johnny, I’ve never seen his look of anguish as he talks about Regina.
A heavy sigh as he looks up at me. “She’s my daughter. I don’t want anything to happen to her or hurt her bad enough for her to do the mute thing again. If I kill him like I want, she’ll never speak to me again for sure, and she might shut down completely. I’m also on unsteady ground with Alonzo, he thinks I’m not paying him enough to operate here. I don’t want to have to ask permission to kill Taylor. I’m trusting you, whatever you think you need to do, I’m giving you permission.”
Fucking hell.
“Dinner tonight, be there. I’m getting a new lawyer. I want to make sure he can handle business. You meet Gina and see what it is you can do.”
I nod, without any idea what the hell is possible in a single night.
“Dinner is at eight, come early.”
“I’ll be there.” I’m about to leave when I wonder if I can do this another way. “Can I get his details? DOB, address, any other particulars you have on him?”
Johnny smiles, he opens a drawer and hands me a single sheet of paper. It has everything I need, address, company he works for and the times he’s there. “This right here is why I picked you to handle this.”
Another nod is my only answer. I don’t want to disappoint him, but I have no idea how to do it.