Giacomo
Don Sartori just didn't imagine that the man who forged our masks, who taught us to be the men of the family, had played his role with mastery.
Ignoring the rage at the man who destroyed my sister nearly broke through the whole act, the fury trapped inside his chest like a caged monster screaming for destruction.
“I appreciate your Giacomo family's willingness, even in grief. He waved us free and went back inside to get his wife.
I kept a hard, steady gaze on the men around the house looking for clues and information planted especially to draw them like bees to honey.
When he did, the three of us strode to the sedan, and I ordered Giuseppe and Andrea to follow us in the back car, wanting a moment to grieve the loss with my brothers, to unite what was left of the family. The three of us got in the car in absurd silence, I started to get out and a few blocks ahead of the soldiers closing the windows Jack turned the entire dashboard of the car while Hunter did the same between the seats, when they felt safe.
Started to laugh.
“His face looking for something that would put us on his suspect list.” Jack laughed non-stop.
We were trained separately brothers could not defend themselves during initiations each one had to go through their own test without help showing themselves strong and honorable, the difference was that we won two exclusive trainings at home as a gift.
At the end of the laughter, Hunter tapped my shoulder, staring in the rearview mirror.
— Asking Anna to prepare the wake, do you want to fuck it up? His worried tone needed no indifference.
"She's going to prepare the wake, that doesn't mean poor Mrs Sartori will take care of the bodies, especially Frank's body."
- We need to find a way to get this bastard's body, it's going to be the hardest. - Jack sighed
“We can pay for the man's burial, he only has one sister married to another soldier, and offer it as thanks for trying to protect Beatrice. We will ask for the closed coffins with the excuse that they would not like to see her deformed faces.
"This might work," Hunter muttered.
- Where are we going? – Jack asked
"Let's act." He smiles.
I urgently needed to get out the hate for obeying a motherfucker like Sartori, never changed a single law and still let his son and nephew transgress, rules are for everyone, anger for leaving my two sisters with those shits without having the opportunity to take revenge on them filling my chest. If I couldn't protect my own sisters, how could I protect a wife?
For the next few hours of the morning we hit every man on every family-run street corner, looking for names.
Rumors of the deaths and disappearances would spread faster than the plague.
Andrea and Giuseppe were covering us while we were interrogating, when Anna called to say that she had already spoken to the funeral home that worked for the family, beg her to prepare Frank's wake explaining the thought about the poor man, I didn't even have to ask him to close the coffin , she herself said that she would never tarnish the image of the two step-daughters by letting them see them that way.
Hunter made the excuse that he would look elsewhere in town and left with a mission to give some pauper a decent burial over two headstones bearing the Costello name.
At three in the afternoon we attended Frank's wake, the fucking open casket at his sister's request, taking all my composure down the drain.
Don Sartori paid his condolences saying how kind and generous I had been in offering the soldier's funeral and left.
At the same moment I looked at my brother.
"I'll work it out, keep going," Jack whispered in my ear.
And at five in the afternoon we lowered our sisters' coffins, with oaths of vengeance on their tombstones. The Rinnas, feeling sorry for our loss, allowed Bianca to be buried next to Beatrice.
All the capos paying their condolences, leaving their false feelings in a row, until the De Angelis held our brothers in our hands watching every reaction in our eyes and she appeared there, in a simple black dress with no makeup which only made it more beautiful, Giulia De Angelis made a point of greeting each of us.
And that was one of the rare times I had the opportunity to smell her and hear her sweet voice, maybe the wake wasn't being so bad, I thought to myself, watching her accompany her suspicious brothers, it was obvious their distrust in the bad language of the organization, commented that the two faked the parents' accident to take over the business, killing one's own blood is an unforgivable sin, but without evidence there was no charge.
The three of us left the cemetery taking their directions waiting for the time.
At ten at night, jumping over the cemetery wall, the three of us went to the tombstone of the little soldier.
“That son of a bitch must have suffocated to death,” I whispered.
Feeling the rage consume me for leaving this shit with Jack, his childish pranks didn't usually solve much.
"Oh great genius, I'm glad I said I'd sort it out," Jack replied in the same ironic tone.
"How did you solve this if we're at the cemetery going to dig up a body?" – Hunter replied just as pissed off.
We arrived at the burial site and Jack kept walking, what the fuck did the beast do?
We folded it several times until we reached a mausoleum, he opened the padlock and the candles lit inside the place lit almost nothing.
“If I die, I want a deal like that. – Hunter exclaimed.
- If you die, you'll become food for fish - I remembered the reason that could take our lives.
Jack pulled a drawer so hard that it fell to the floor when the end opened, we helped him pull out the rest and there was the closed coffin.
"All this for him to suffocate to death anyway," I exclaimed.
My brother rolled his eyes and opened the coffin, a mask on the man's face plucked my curiosity raising my face to Jack's.
He turned the body showing the oxygen kit under the body.
“He's going to wake up with a hell of a pain in his back, but nobody told him to get into the story out of nowhere. “He was still angry that the soldier had hit Beatrice and I understood.
Though the son of a bitch had the opportunity to at least get revenge on Salvatore, and not like he hadn't taken the cue to beat up the soldier.
"Did you pay someone for this?" – Hunter asked. – We can't leave traces.
I followed Hunter's thoughts knowing he was right and that Jack wouldn't have done all this so sneakily without the help of any soldier.
— I put these things in while they prepared the grave, and changed the coffins as soon as his sister passed out crying and was carried off by her husband — He was really proud of the feat — His luck was that a rich man from Manhattan died today.
"All this without help, Jack?" – I asked again.
— It's okay, I'll admit, I used a syringe full of drugs, but the poor gravedigger's daughter may have found a suitcase with money coming out of the hospital where she received her father's death.
We sighed at his admission, at least so far we were having some control. Carrying the body through the cemetery at night was easy with the dead gravedigger there was no one, the difficult thing was getting rid of our own soldiers and stuffing the body in the car.
Arriving near the entrance to Fort George, we stopped at the back of the building, climbing the rusty fire escapes, at the apartment window we passed each of the three. Bianca should be closer to waking up, but we couldn't risk anyone seeing, I put my suitcase on the corner of the bed and left the same way I came in, the chance of us being seen by someone is too high to risk it.
At this time the prostitutes are on the downtown streets looking for clients while the addicts try to find a way to get drugs, we left the neighborhood with the car being discarded as a gift for a homeless person in Central Park. Taking back my sedan to enter the building giving the soldiers everything they needed to believe that the three brothers are grieving.
At dawn on Wednesday, the three of us in the apartment's living room, each one with a bottle of drink, trapped in our own thoughts, we watched the sunrise through the entrance to the balcony, the glass walls brightening the room, the consequences would come one way or another. another, but that was the important thing, I looked at each of my brothers, the important thing is the blood.
I sighed for the first time praying to some God, who never listened to me, asking that everything go as planned.
To win the war, to accept marriage and be a good husband even though my mind had been occupied for years by an impossible woman.
I got up from the couch and went to throw myself on the bed, my brothers were each on a couch they threw themselves with their feet on my upholstery, too drunk to take off their own shoes. I walked back to the bedroom, wanting the king bed under me, pulling off my shirt with an absurd effort.
Always a mask on your face when going out into the sun.
And when I lay down, I let the alcohol take my worries away.