Ghost Soldiers (27 page)

John came around the side of the house wearing a flannel robe and striped pajama pants. No pistol. His dark hair, so carefully arranged every time she'd ever seen him, stood up in crazy tufts. He leaned against the rail across from her, put his hands in his robe pockets and stared at her with wary, intense eyes. “It's a little late.”

“We need to talk, John.”

He nodded and waited. John rarely gestured—strange enough for an Italian—his hands always unusually still, as if they lay in wait like two predators. In fact, it reminded her of Karl. She stared at him and he stared back. He didn't smell of fear, and he should have.

“You know why I'm here?”

“I have a good idea.”

“Why'd you let me get made before you moved against me?”

He took his time answering, watching her with his shark eyes. “You moved too fast, and I couldn't put you off any longer. Had to go through with it since I didn't have all my pieces in place. The last was Davey Abello. He finally swore his loyalty to me.” He hesitated. “How did you find out?”

“I asked around. The window racket—that was my baby start to finish, and only you and Danny knew about it.” She leaned toward him. “So tell me, you feel the slightest regret running around stabbing me in the back, taking everything over?”

“I warned you a long time ago. You refused to listen.”

“And those ghost soldiers. You brought them in to kill me, didn't you?”

“I brought them in, yeah. To kill you? No.” He reached into the pocket of his flannel robe and set a single silver bullet on the wooden railing. Brass casing, silver-coated hollow point 9mm. “If I wanted you dead, I'd have given them these.”

She held his gaze. “You know.”

“You were just hanging outside my second-story window. Yeah. I know.”

“When'd you figure it out?”

He shrugged. “I knew something happened after you dropped off the radar last winter. That fucking war…” He shook his head. “A mistake from the beginning.”

“War's over. Tell me how you found out about me.”

“Give me a fucking break. I started fitting the pieces in place the day you showed up again to pull the
borgata
back together. How come nobody ever sees Maria during the day? How come she wants to do all her own goddamn wet work? What boss does that shit? And you were good too. All the people who crossed you and anyone who tried to grab the reins ended up dead. Something was off.”

“Long jump in logic.” She looked at the silvered bullet.

“There were stories about that hit man, Vance. Weird stuff. Most people don't believe that shit, but I take nothing for granted. Not even the
fact
that vampires don't exist.”

“So why didn't you have those Zips use silver? I would've been pretty fucking surprised. Doesn't make sense you'd risk me showing up hungry, tapping on your window in the middle of the night.”

He gave her a smile as thin as a scalpel cut. “I respect you, Maria.”

She watched him, waiting for more.

“Look at you,” he continued. “You don't even breathe unless you're about to talk. You think I wouldn't notice that? And remember when I told you about Frank Cavallo claiming your father's spot? Your eyes glowed red. Just for a moment.”

“So I was sloppy. And I don't see how your respect means you don't bump me off the top of the pile when you had the chance instead of risking me showing up and killing you.”

“You won't kill me, but we'll get to that in a second. I watched you grow up, kid. I saw your fire. You wanted to be just like your dad, even more than your brother did. When your brother hit that fucking pylon, something died inside your father. First your mother gone, then your brother.” He frowned at her. “God, what a fierce little thing you were.”

She said nothing.

“I never wanted you in the game, but you never listened to me. Neither did your father. It almost killed him when you disappeared. And then he ended up dead.” He looked away, off into the shivering leaves. “Right or wrong, you could no more run the family than you could walk in the sun now. It was impossible, no matter how you appealed to a wiseguy's bottom line, no matter how many enemies you killed, our thing doesn't include women. Hell, the Commission would never recognize you. You
couldn't
win. And yet you tried anyway. That's fucking Sicilian to the core. How could I not respect that?”

“But you betrayed me all the same.”

“This is business, not personal. The Commission approached me, gave me a seat at the table, made me boss of the Ricardi
borgata
. We got Boston. Just like you always wanted.”

She closed her eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

“I know you always wanted what was best for the family. We're gonna stay the Ricardi family, in honor of your father.”

“Is that supposed to make me fucking
feel
better?”

It was his turn to stay silent.

She waved a hand at the bullet on the railing. “Those ghost soldiers had crucifixes though…so you weren't playing entirely nice.”

“I didn't want to send back a bunch of body bags to Palermo. As it was, you killed two of them anyway.”

“So what was the fucking point of it? Setting up an ambush, but knowing I wouldn't end up hit?”

“The point? The point was
this
moment. When you figured out I was behind it all, that I could've had you clipped but didn't. That I
allowed
you to be made. No woman's ever been made. You should've heard the shitstorm. The Commission—I've never seen a bunch of angrier guys. Your father always took flak for allowing you to run around and do the books. But when you took over, no one respected us anymore. Those Providence boys started making noises like they were gonna come back into Boston and plant some flags. This had to be done, Maria.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She lifted her right hand, curled one finger and let her nail push out until it became a talon. “But I still don't understand how you knew about the silver—how you knew the word vampire applied.”

He glanced at her claw and back to her face. No scent of fear, even now. The guy was a fucking cadaver.

“Some guy showed up, not long ago, wearing a goddamn mask. I kid you not, Phantom of the Opera. Claiming to represent some foreigner. Wanted to know where you were. I told him, politely, to fuck off. Guy said he was part of some secret organization, had interests here. I told him to fuck off again.”

The Nassid. The one with the bone flute who'd tried to recruit her, then made threats when she wouldn't flip. Had to be. “Secret organization? I'd think a person like that was crazy. Or a Fed.”

“Yeah. But this guy…something about him… He had hungry eyes. Like I was a walking, talking cut of prime beef.” He frowned. “It was dark, yeah, and even with the stupid mask I wasn't fooled. That guy wasn't human. Not at all. Certainly not any
Fed
.”

“So what'd this hungry guy tell you?”

“He asked me a bunch of questions. How well I knew you, if you'd changed after you disappeared. If I'd seen you eat since you came back. If I believed in vampires.”

“What'd you say?”

“I told him, politely, to fuck off.”

She laughed without humor.

“And then he asks me if I have a crucifix and tosses me this silver bullet, right out of a goddamn werewolf movie. Tells me if I don't know what the bullet's for, maybe his foreigner boss could explain it to me when he rolled into town. A goddamn threat if I ever heard one.”

She fought to conceal her dismay. Cojocaru coming here? What did that mean? Had Karl slipped away from Romania? She closed her eyes for a second, got a firm grip and looked at John again. “Hard for me to buy you just up and believed in vampires that quickly. I had to see one feeding to believe something that…insane.”

“Karl Vance?”

She stared at him hard and didn't answer. He was too goddamn quick for his own good.

John shrugged. “My grandmother believed in them. She said her uncle was found dead, drained of blood near Trapani, in the olive groves. Nothing in this world surprises me.”

Silence spread between them, smooth as a pool in moonlight. They stared at one another in the darkness.

“So we come full circle,” Maria said. “You're dangerous to me and within biting distance.”

“It's simple. You step aside peacefully, and I'll take the reins.”

“And if I say no? What if I just kill you right here?”

He gave her a tired smile. “You could, but it won't gain you anything. You have no people. You never did. Nobody's going to serve a woman, even one as bright, fierce and goddamn determined as you.”

“I'm blushing, John, honest to God.” She couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice.

“I don't say that shit lightly. But a boss with no crews has nothing. I have other plans, if you'll hear me out.”

She locked eyes with him and nodded.

He took a deep breath and rubbed his lips. “I could use a goddamn cigarette. Wish I'd never quit.” He stared off into the deeper darkness beneath the trees. “You made some history, not that anybody in the Office is gonna be proud of that. Except me, maybe, because I knew your father better than anyone else. You want what's best for this family? You step down and you work for me. You do contract work, you and Vance. Be my ghost soldiers.”

And there, at last, was John's play. She should kill him for it. He'd betrayed her, had stolen everything she'd fought for, and now he wanted her to
work
for him,
watch
as he took her father's place?

But if her capos had lined up behind John, then she had nothing. She couldn't rule without a loyal
borgata
. She could kill John, make his kids grow up fatherless. She could kill every man who'd betrayed her. It wouldn't matter. She'd have nothing left to run. The FBI closing in. The Thorn and this Cojocaru guy hunting her, hunting Karl, everyone pushing to take over or take her down. She was just so fucking
tired
of everyone hating her, of betrayal, of being hunted.

Being hunted most of all.

She looked John in the eye, tried to speak and couldn't. Her diaphragm wouldn't expand—she couldn't draw in air, and when she finally forced it to obey, the words didn't want to cut out of her mouth. It was like spitting rusted screws.

“All right. You win.”

With those four words she tossed away every dream she'd ever nurtured of taking her father's place, of owning Boston, of earning respect and planting a flag and fucking doing what she wanted. She set flame to those dreams with four words, and they burned in her heart until only ashes remained.

“I get no joy from this, Maria. If you'd been born with a cock instead of a cunt, you'd be running things, no doubt about it.”

“It feels so much better to hear you say that.” Her bitter sarcasm stained the air. “Jesus.”

She wouldn't cry. She'd promised herself never again. Never again, God damn everything.
Never
. No man would ever make her cry again. She kept her eyes dry, though a deep ache burned in her throat—a red-hot poker shoved between the muscle and her air pipe.

“I want the same as you want,” he said. “Bring peace back to Beantown. Goodwill with New York and Providence. Bring in the money. Get rid of some of the heat the war brought down… Your father wanted it this way.”

She flinched at that one. She couldn't help it. “So Karl and I get to kill the people you finger. Busted down to contract killer. How the mighty have fallen.”

“You stay in the life, but out of sight. The family shields you from whoever the fuck that guy was, the one looking for you. You stay a man of honor…” a wry smile quirked his lips, “…or woman of honor, whatever—but from the shadows. And you do what you gotta do to get by. Just like the rest of us.”

She lifted her hand and stared at her palm, the lines crisscrossing her pale skin, the fading silver scars, and she fought against all the loss and despair that crushed down like rocks piled on her chest. Things changed so very fast. When she'd come here, she'd thought she'd been the one in charge. She laughed, but it sounded more like a sob of pain so she stopped.

“How many times do I have to say you won?” Her voice was low and vicious. “Don't beat me to death with this. I swear to God I can't take it.”

John stared at her, unblinking. Then he nodded. “You made the right choice.”

But she turned away and walked into the darkness without answering. She left her former underboss—now her boss—standing on his porch in his flannel robe and pajama pants. Her hands trembled. Her fangs ached as she forced in a breath of the night, sipping in the shadows that flowed inside quickly enough but never seemed to fill her.

It was over.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Take a Ride

Maria found Xiesha busy at her workbenches, the series of flat plywood panels set on sawhorses and the large steel graffiti-etched worktable they'd found in the mezzanine. The worktable now had a vise on one end and a reloading press on the other. The rest of Xiesha's work area was filled with equipment brought from Karl's safe house in Cambridge: a ChargeMaster powder scale and dispenser, neatly arranged dies and high-end tools, laser and bubble levels, electronic calipers, funnels, and a Carl Zeiss stereo microscope. An acetylene torch and tank sat off to the side near the wall. Xiesha bent over the microscope plugged into a power outlet dangling from the ceiling and examined a freshly molded 9mm silver-jacketed bullet under high-power magnification.

Maria gave the silver a wide berth as she walked up. She'd come straight here after her little tête-à-tête with John, and the night was growing old. Still, she had enough time before sunrise. “Hey, Xiesha. Let's go for a ride.”

Xiesha looked up from her scope and arched an eyebrow. “Should I be concerned?”