White Night

Chapter 28

The phone clicked dead. Mauro was gone.

A chill washed through Nikolai as the blood drained from his skin. Don Romano wanting to speak with him tonight was bad, potentially life threatening.

"You okay, boss?" Grensky asked.

"Don Romano wants to meet. Now." The color left Grensky's face. "I'll get the car," he said quietly.

As they drove to the restaurant, he tried to think of viable reasons for the meeting. He'd had a couple of non-payers in his territory, but that wouldn't justify an immediate meeting with the Don. A visit from a capo, maybe.

White Night was still safe, it had to be. The only people who knew about it were Grensky and Peter.

Grensky wouldn't betray him. He despised the Romanos and they'd been together since they were teens, when Grensky stepped in when a group of local kids were kicking the crap out of him. Grensky slammed a brick into the big kid's jaw until it was a mass of red pulp, then helped Nikolai off the ground while the gang hauled away the wheezing coward.

Peter never sold out a client; it was bad for business, and choosing a bunch of wops over a fellow son of Russia? Never.

"We're here," Grensky said. "Want me to come in with you?"

"No, better you stay here."

"I hear trouble, I'm coming in."

"You hear trouble, you get my family outta this city."

Grensky nodded solemnly.

The restaurant was dark, only the glow of a table lamp in the corner giving any hint of Don Romano's presence.

Mauro's hulking shape sat next to the Don. No sign of Celso. That he could see, anyway...

"Nikki, join me," the Don's smoky voice beckoned from the corner. He nodded at Mauro, who left the table—but he wouldn't be far away, the son of a bitch never was.

There were no rules about how this could go. Mauro could drop him on his way to the table. Celso could come from the darkness and silently slit his throat.

Don Romano's slender fingers lifted the bottle of red and poured it into the large wine glasses in front of him.

"Have some wine." He pushed the glass across the table to him.

Deep red like drying blood, with the rich, smooth aroma of fruit and not a trace of bitter almonds, a.k.a. cyanide. La Cosa Nostra rarely used poison, except for prison hits, where it was harder to blast someone's brains out.

Kuklinski, an old enforcer, used it for a few hits back in the eighties, spilling it on the clothes of a victim where it would soak into their skin, but it wasn't Romano's style. He wanted to look you in the eye when he pumped you full of lead, or watch your severed throat gush blood onto your shoes while you gurgled your last breath. Nikolai stopped a shiver from shaking across his shoulders and betraying his fears to the Don.

"You look tired, Nikki."

"I'm good, boss."

"Do you remember the first time you sat at this table with me?"

He did. It was almost a year to the day after they buried his own father, who had accidentally driven his limo between the Don's father and an enforcer from another family spraying bullets at Romano Senior.

"You were just a scrawny kid, but you were hungry for action. What did I tell you then?"

His mind worked furiously for the right answer. "You told me I could work for you."