Chapter 56 Chapter 56 - Pigs Have Big Families
Gianni’s POV
Cedric’s small, frightened cut through Gianni’s rage so that some of the rage cleared out of his eyes long enough for him to think.
“Gianni? What’s going on out there? I’m scared.”
His fingers loosened a little bit on Salvatore’s throat. Not releasing entirely, not yet, but the killing pressure eased just enough to let the fat bastard drag in a desperate, wheezing breath that sounded like a dying cow.
As expected, the guns were still pointed straight at his head. Three men at the top of the stairs holding weapons steady in their hands, with their fingers on the triggers. More boots thundering up from below. The woman was still sobbing in her corner, shivering uncontrollably with mascara running in black rivers down her face.
And Cedric, behind that door, tied and blindfolded and asking what was happening with genuine fear in his voice.
Gianni’s jaw clenched so hard he tasted copper on his tongue.
“Call them off,” he said quietly, “Your men. Tell them to lower their weapons. Now.”
Salvatore’s eyes were watering, his face still that alarming purple-red colour that suggested he was running out of oxygen. He managed a jerky nod, then croaked out hoarsely, “Abbassate le armi. Lower… lower the fucking guns.”
The men on the stairs hesitated first. The lead shooter, a scarred Serbian mercenary with dead eyes, didn’t move his aim from Gianni’s forehead. His finger stayed on the trigger, steady as a rock.
Gianni wondered for a brief second if any of these guys had the balls to shoot him. He scoffed at the thought, there was no way in hell all of them could be so reckless, even if their leader was a fucking airhead.
“Boss…” he started, his accent thick.
“I said lower them!” Salvatore’s voice cracked with desperation and humiliation. “Do it, cazzo! Now!”
Slowly, the weapons lowered. They weren’t put back in their holsters or put away, but now they were at least no longer pointed directly at Gianni’s skull.
The threat was still there though, hovering in the air between them, electrified with tension, but his immediate execution had been postponed.
It was enough. Barely. And this sort of thing happening twice in one day was a bad, bad omen.
Gianni released Salvatore with a violent shove that sent him stumbling backwards into his own men.
The fat man caught himself against the wall, one pudgy hand going to his bruised throat, gasping for air like a fish drowning on dry land. His face was a mottled mess of purple and red, veins standing out against flushed skin.
More of Gianni’s own guards were arriving now, finally, weapons drawn and faces grim as they surrounded The Butcher’s men and left them outnumbered.
They took in the scene instantly, their bound colleagues on the floor, the bullet holes in priceless antique panelling, and worse yet, the armed invaders in their boss’s private hallway.
The tension grew impossibly higher. One wrong word or one sudden movement, and all of this would explode into a bloodbath that would paint these walls red.
“You have ten seconds,” Gianni said, his voice deadly calm in the eye of the storm, “to explain why I shouldn’t kill every single one of you for this breach.”
Salvatore was still clutching his throat, but his eyes, those cold, calculating eyes were already glaring back at him while he strategised his way out of the hole he’d dug.
“The families,” he wheezed, each word clearly painful. “The old families. Do you honestly think that… do you think that you broke them all? Eliminated every threat?”
Gianni’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I did what needed to be done, and I took out everyone who stood in my way. New York was ripe for the taking, and so I took it. Everyone else who isn’t dead has learned their place in the new order, and they are grateful for it.”
“Cazzate.” Salvatore spat the word like venom, some of his usual pride and bluster returning despite the bruises blooming on his neck.
“Bullshit, and you know it. You left survivors, Gianni. The Morettis in Brooklyn. The Russos in the Bronx. Half the Calabrese crew in Staten Island. Even some of my own cousins in Jersey.”
He straightened slowly, one hand still massaging his throat but his posture regaining some of that aggressive confidence.
“Any gangster who actually knows how this works knows that you never leave survivors. Because they always come back to bite you in the ass.”
He continued, “You thought you could use them, didn’t you? Control them with strategic violence and carefully applied pressure. Keep them in line while you consolidate power.”
A cold unpleasant feeling settled in Gianni’s stomach.
“But you made a mistake tonight,” Salvatore continued, his voice gaining strength despite the rasp. “You blew them off. All of them. Those weren’t just business associates waiting for you at the meeting you were supposed to attend in Brooklyn. They were family, blood relations. My blood!”
The Serbian shooter spoke up, his dead eyes fixed on Gianni. “There are still members of the original families alive. The ones you spared because you thought them useful and under your control. Il Macellaio is blood-related to the heads of three of them. Cousins, uncles, brothers-in-law.”
He shifted his weight slightly, the gun in his hand a constant reminder. “Any harm that comes to him in this house, will be met with immediate and total payback.”
“Not even you can end this if you start it now. There will be no more staying in their lanes, no more controlled territories and negotiated boundaries. They will unite under a single purpose, come for you with everything they have, and you will not survive.”
It was not very often that men like Gianni made mistakes, but it was starting to dawn on him that perhaps he had made the biggest one any crime lord had in a very long time.