The Don Called Me Nobody Chapter 07

The Don Called Me Nobody Chapter 07 What He Wanted

The top floor at night is all glass and city lights and nobody around.

Dominic Vitale had his jacket off, sleeves rolled, and a wall behind him pinned with photographs of my father, my

name written under every one like an indictment.

“Sit,” he said.

“You keep telling me to sit.”

“You keep standing against walls like you’re furniture.”

I sat.

He turned a laptop toward me. Gianna. The second proof of life, sent an hour ago. Real this time. Because of me.

“My captains say she’s a plant,” he said. “Camilla says she’s a Costa who lied her way into my house. The old man in Atlantic City says she’s the best he ever saw.” He looked up. “So here’s what I want. You run the exchange.”

“No.”

“I’ll pay whatever-”

“It isn’t money.”

“Then what.”

“I don’t do this anymore. That’s the whole answer.”

“That’s not an answer. That’s a wall.” He came around the desk and leaned against it in front of me. “I read what happened on the Marlow Bridge. My family pays half the cops in this city – I can read whatever I want Negotiator S Costa. Relationship to hostage: daughter.”

I sat very still.

“You want to talk about that,” I said, “or your sister?”

“Both. It’s the same conversation.” His voice dropped. “You think if you never pick up the phone again, he stops dying. He doesn’t. He’s dead. And every day you spend on your knees on my floor, you’re the second person Volkov killed on that bridge.”

I stood so fast the chair went over.

“You don’t get to say that.”

“Somebody has to.”

“You are a stranger who wants my-”

“I’m a man whose only family is nineteen and chained to a radiator,” he said, and his voice cracked – one hairline fracture in all that ice. “And yes. I want what’s in your head. I’ve wanted it since I watched you read a ransom note in nine seconds and go white.”

We stood there breathing at each other.

“Camilla has a sweep running,” I said finally. “In two days I’m a liar in a mob house.”

“You’re not a liar. You’re a Costa who used her mother’s name. My lawyer thinks that distinction is beautiful. He picked up a sheet of paper. “But I’m not going to protect you, Miss Costa. I’m going to make it impossible for anyone to touch you. There’s a difference, and you’re going to have to choose it out loud.”

I took the paper.

A letter. To the Commission. To every family at the table.

For the duration of the Vitale–Volkov matter, Serafina Costa speaks with the voice of Dominic Vitale. Any man who

countermands her countermands me. Any harm to her is harm to my house, and I will answer it as such.

His signature. Already dry.

“You can’t do this.”

“It’s my name.”

“You’ve never seen me work.”

“I watched you keep my sister alive with a phone and a dead dog.” He shrugged. “I’ve gone to war on less

“And if I say no?”

“Then I walk onto that bridge tonight, alone, and you go back to your floors, and I never bother you again.” He held my eyes. “I’m not going to beg you, Serafina. It would be cheap and you’d hate me for it. I’m just going to tell you the truth. there’s exactly one person alive who can bring her home, and she’s been hiding in my laundry, and my sister lives or dies on what she says in the next thirty seconds.”

The city hummed behind the glass.

Somewhere across the river a nineteen–year–old girl was sleeping on a concrete floor.

I thought about my father’s voice

If it’s ever me, Fina, you don’t hand it to anyone else.

“Not the bridge,” I said.

“What?”

“I’ll do it. Anywhere but the Marlow Street Bridge.”

His face changed. “Why?”

“Because that’s where my father died,” I said. “Now sit down. If we’re doing this, it happens Friday at dawn, and you’re

going to hate every single thing I’m about to demand.”