Famous Last Words (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 2) Read online

“A lot.”

  I nod, and he heads into the building. I don’t know what strings Dom had to pull to keep me safe, but I trust him enough to do this. I believe him enough to hand over my most precious treasure in the world, too.

  But I know the lure of his father’s open seat, and I fear he will eventually make a play to be Kingpin Dom Gennaro. Until then, I’ll use him just as he is using me to advance his position.

  Ladders, baby.

  The back door on the other side opens. “Raniero?”

  “… Ya?” I say, knowing he had a clear shot at my head or my heart. “Who are you?”

  He sits down and shuts the door. “Name is Cody Cameron,” he eagerly says with a smile. “I do lateral work for Lotus.”

  Fuck.

  Iris started a goddamn bidding war for my protection.

  6

  I Promise I’m Fine

  “I got a phone call from someone you might want to talk to,” Cameron says, dropping the phone in my hand. I stare at it like a venomous snake. I imagine it is Iris.

  “… Tell me you are okay,” Amber whispers as her sweet southern voice fills me with comfort. “I need to hear you say it.”

  Why she is on the line of a known Lotus-affiliate boggles my mind, but there will be time to ask those questions later. If nothing else, Amber is good at juggling her network, almost as good as me.

  “I’m fine. I have a couple of very nice guys taking care of me,” I say as Martinez returns with my Nike’s. I questioningly peer up to him.

  “No steel toes,” he informs, nodding at Cameron. “Let’s give him a minute.”

  I snarl as he drops the socks in my lap. Kind. “This is just weird.”

  “What?” Amber says.

  Pulling the pack of smokes and lighter from the inside of my shoe, I admit, “I’m not like really arrested.”

  “No,” she mutters exhaling. “You are going to solitary to be kept safe, but there is a price for that, Sal.”

  “Ya, I figured as much.”

  “Georgia and Dom are bringing Iris to New Orleans. They gave her the cocktail you made.”

  My jaw pops, knowing how hysterical she probably went when she saw the cop cars. I was so proud of her for getting in the SUV. I made the shimmery dream-filled syringe with a prayer to ease her fears. Although I knew the plan, I had no idea when all of this would go down.

  “It’ll be a surprise!” Dom promised.

  Tugging my socks and shoes on, I ask, “Where is Jaid?”

  “She is here between my thighs,” Amber giggles and gives a pleasurable sigh. “You need to talk to her?”

  “So, while I’m in the back of a cop car, you’re getting off?”

  She laughs. “Dom isn’t home yet.”

  I shake my head. “Why the fuck does Cameron have your number?”

  “Because to keep Iris out of the crosshairs with the differing opinions in Lotus, Dom negotiated a deal to let Nakamura make a play for the attention of his granddaughter’s boyfriend.”

  I’m a small beans player compared to his international league. My psyche stumbles as I stutter, “… What does Keishi want with me? How the hell does he even know who I am?”

  “I don’t know, Sal,” she grumbles, frustrated. “Maybe he wants to meet the guy who keeps sticking his dick in the suckling piglet. Dom promised we were only gunning for the North.”

  She doesn’t need to point that out.

  And as for her innate jealousy, I’ve gotten used to it.

  The pieces of the board divide like the start of a chess match. Lotus isn’t stable, not in the least.

  Keishi Nakamura changed the game with his pop-up franchise outfits; the problem is there are now too many cooks in the kitchen. Or too many koi in the pond. Ravenous with snapping jaws and little concern if they accidentally bite one another, Lotus quickly expanded like an airborne virus on a plane. They’ll need a samurai warrior to regain control. “I gathered…”

  “And where is my secret weapon?”

  “Exactly where you wanted,” she moans a few times under Jaid’s skillful tongue. “I’m not letting anyone take Iris out.”

  “… Swear to me?”

  “I fucking promise you, Sir. If there is a bullet aiming for her, it will land in me.”

  Ouch.

  I close my eyes, not much liking that option either. “Don’t…”

  “I’m not trying to get myself killed, but if it comes between Iris and me, just know how much I’ve got you.”

  “Have I mentioned how much I hate all of this?”

  I don’t like the idea of my ass being behind bars without any control as to what is happening on the outside. I have been keeping my girls—Iris, Amber, and Jaid—safe for years. Going to state prison is the last thing any of us needed, but the best call in the situation.

  “Do you know who took out Lydia?” I boldly ask. “Did you do it?”

  “No! I didn’t kill Lydia Kettles! Give me some fucking credit, Sal,” she scolds as Jaid mumbles out something. “Jaid says Georgia is working on it.”

  “Give her the phone, please,” I ask Amber.

  “I’m on it,” Jaid reassures, panting. “You need to calm the fuck down and breathe.”

  “You aren’t the one going to prison.”

  “And you aren’t going to prison either, Sal. This is a temporary station before the train leaves.”

  Packing the smokes, I unwrap the film and pocket the trash. I light one and inhale deep. “I hope I don’t miss the boat…or train…or motherfucking plane.”

  “There is one more thing you need to know.”

  Popping my fingers, I sigh, “What?”

  “As soon as Amber assists me in getting Iris out of the country, she is going to Arkansas to see Pock.”

  With every fiber of my being aflame, I bark, “… What?”

  “Trust me, Phoenix.”

  Angrily, I hiss, “I swear to fuck…”

  “I know what the fuck I’m doing, Sal. You need to give me some freedom of movement here. I’m running your fucking show. Not Amber. Not Dom.”

  Dale and Amber have been all over the map since earning my billionaire status. It was never about having the titular, but the cash for The Unholy to destroy my father.

  I used Dale.

  Just like Kaci wanted.

  She provided her Uncle Dale, the former porn star turned online adult video guru, to protect me. It was one of my wife’s slickest (and sickest) moves.

  “Here is a man with enough money to start a proper war; all you have to do is indulge in his fantasy.”

  She might not have ever given the instruction just like that, but her message came through loud and clear. There was only one reason to put Dale Archer on my radar, and it wasn’t his ginger beard or oaf like stature.

  It was his bank account.

  Our relationship—from his bodyguard status to my taking it beneath him—was always about his ability to fund my endeavors. Picking at the fabric of the pants, I quietly mumble, “I need you to go fuck Dale to hurt Amber…”

  “I’m aware,” Jaid agrees, understanding the logistical acrobatics she needs to pull for us to be believable. “No worries. This is all temporary.”

  “Don’t fuck up, Jaid…”

  “I won’t,” she whispers as I hear her moving. “I know what I have to do.”

  “… Are we alone?”

  “We are,” she says with the close of a door. “I’m in the bathroom. I got this—all of it. I know the plan, babe. And I won’t let you down.”

  “I need Amber to trust more than your tongue. I need her to realize you are part of the team, and so is Iris.”

  “I’ll do my best, but I make no promises,” Jaid replies as she pisses. “You know what Amber thinks…”

  Listening to the sounds of her piss hitting the water, I say, “Do you have to do that?”

  “Does it turn you on?”

  “Fuck you, Pretty,” I banter, lighting another smoke. “And I’m well aware my mistr
ess thinks my girl is an oinker.”

  I notice the guys getting in vehicles as I mentally prepare myself to leave. Cameron and Martinez shake hands. I understand they are in this together, but I don’t know if I trust either of them.

  With the water running, Jaid points out, “… I guess the only question is, what am I to you?”

  Martinez opens my door. “You ready, Raniero?”

  “Ya,” I answer, yawning. “I gotta go, J. I love you, beautiful.”

  I don’t bother to listen to her response as I hang up the phone.

  “Come on,” Cameron says, pulling under my arm. “You’re going to ride with me.”

  I give the phone to Cameron before he places me in the backseat of the SUV and hands the seatbelt to me. “I’ll see you on the inside,” he says, tapping my knee. “And Raniero?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Get that scared shitless look off your face. You’re a thug on the streets of Boston again, not a mafia prince looking for a step up.”

  Before I can correct his assessments of me, he takes my cigarette between his lips and pushes me forward as he locks the cuffs on my wrists and warns, “Don’t let them see your fear.”

  Shocked by his honesty, I mumble, “I thought I was going to solitary…”

  “There is a long way from here to there, Pretty Boy.”

  The door slams as my heart pounds. Tilting my head back, I close my eyes and pray for the end of this nightmare—soon. I am nothing more than someone else’s bitch behind bars, and regardless of what Dom believes he can do, the inside changes people.

  Hell, even Deacon admitted it.

  And in a blink, the battle is on.

  The clanking of the rusty rails grate with a nasty sound as the gate to freedom simultaneously closes the walls of my mind. I shriek with the scraping as it reminds me of the vibration of ripping flesh from bone. Never a noise to become accustomed to, despite my job sometimes dictating the order.

  This isn’t my choice.

  And I didn’t make the rules.

  “Raniero… You got a phone call,” Deputy Martinez barks into my receiving cell. I’m feeling overwhelmed. Father Quinn left half an hour ago. He offered prayer, eucharist, and little conversation. I follow Martinez to the private room with the payphone on the wall. I get that this is unusual; I also get I am not the average prisoner.

  Before handing over the receiver, he warns, “You have five minutes. Make it quick, Kid.”

  “Thank you,” I reply, taking the phone. “… Hello?”

  “Let me make this clear for you,” the familiar voice of my father rumbles. “When you are done playing these games and ready to do what you were born to do, call me. I doubt you make it one-week, pussy boy.”

  Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath as I start to rock uncontrollably. Tears trim along my eyelashes, and I try to blink them back. “The murder…”

  “We will have it taken care of—both of them.”

  Tears drip from the corners of my eyes as I remember the first kill, Eric Henderson, at my graduation party. I picked up a machete in the garden shed and had at it. Blood splattered over my arms and face as I brutally maimed him because he raped Emily Lee Granger.

  She was 12, and I was always about justice.

  I still am.

  But I was born to the royalty of Kings and Queens—or, Monsters and Devils—controlling a future I had no say in. My father, Cesario Raniero, is the mob boss of Boston. He inherited the outfit from his father, Luca. Nepotism dictates the only son—me—should take it over. My name is Lucas Salvatore Raniero, and crime is in my fucking DNA.

  Live it. Breathe it. Sleep it.

  Love it, hate it, own it; It’s mine.

  Unfortunately, I don’t want it. And I damn sure don’t need it.

  My father got me out of the mess at eighteen. He covered up the murder by paying off Eric’s parents, and then he loaded me with cash and put me on a bus to anywhere other than home. It was easier than having the Raniero Kid in the slammer.

  I did kill Eric.

  I was guilty and proud of it.

  Little did I know, Nico Cristos would intercept my bon voyage and lead my ass straight to my future—now-deceased wife—the mental terrorist, Kaci Hope.

  And that was the short story of how the Raniero Kid set to inherit the Boston mafia ended up being a black ops assassin for the opposing team. Now, I was using my work resources to try and collapse my father’s organization. It was dangerous as fuck, but a cup of water is deadly in the wrong hands, too.

  I had nothing to do with Lydia Kettles death, and my father knows that. I believe the remaining Campanelli cronies are framing me. They’re trying to keep their shit together to impress Dom. The lovely Lydia Kettles was Angelo Gennaro’s beloved mistress. I assume she knew things and had to be eliminated because she started associating with Lily Miller-Armstrong, who I’ve got safely in my back pocket.

  I missed it.

  I fucking missed it.

  I tucked everyone away and safe from harm but damn Lydia Kettles. I kept—Jaid stashed in the loft in Houston, Amber protected by Deacon, Ainsley secured by Serene under the guise of ponygirl, and Iris moved well on her way to a nameless, unthinkable, transitioning locale. I lost everyone. I lost my wife. I lost the love I never had a chance with—Iris.

  I cannot lose anymore.

  To understand it all, the whole story needs to be told.

  Angelo Gennaro and Cesario Raniero have been in a constant, ongoing battle since before I ever came into existence. I don’t know what started it and that probably doesn’t even matter now. They’re tit-for-tat, and every single fucking time someone is eliminated from one side, it won’t be long before a retribution killing occurs. It goes well beyond the basic mafia turf wars. It has been this way for years.

  This is war.

  And I am but one soldier.

  Ruffling my fingers through my hair, I consider the options, for which are far and few between. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I have a plan, but you must agree to my terms, Salvatore.”

  My father’s accent is heavy Bostonian with a generous coating of Italian. I haven’t heard his voice in so long, and I end up pressing my hand to the wall and looking at the floor as I try and avoid the tears.

  He’s my father.

  I hate to love him, but part of me…

  Clearing my throat, I say, “I’m not making deals.”

  “Then you stay there for the murder of Lydia Kettles and go on trial,” he informs me of what I already know. “And her daughter—who I will find—is mine.”

  My fingers tighten into a fist as I pound them against the cement wall. Stinging, hot tears trickle down my cheeks. I cannot know he is searching for Iris and do nothing. Red pours over my knuckles, and I demand, “What is the offer?”

  “You call me back when you’re ready to talk. I can hear in your voice that you’re trying to come up with a scheme to save the girl,” he provokes, puffing on what is likely a cigarillo. “My only question is this—why the fuck do you want a half-baked mutt of a Nakamura, Sal? You are so much better than that. You are a thoroughbred, son. You can do so much better than her kind of slime.”

  I hate him so much.

  I contemplate what to say, but my anger gets the best of me as I reveal, “Because she is mine.”

  “She was never yours,” he arrogantly prods like his words will deter my vision. “That is where you are wrong. Iris Nakamura is trouble.”

  “You don’t even fucking know her!”

  His evil laughter fills the void, saying so much about our past relationship. “I know my son does not belong with the spawn of Nakamura. Where did you send her Sal?”

  “If you think I’m telling you…”

  “Oh, you will break eventually,” he chastises, raking my remaining sanity over his words. “You won’t like it when I give your sisters the business.”

  “… You seem to think I care,” I remark, pulling out a smoke and fli
cking the lighter. “If you think they’re not going to liquidate everything, then you’re the fool.”

  “Would you like to tell that to Stella?”

  “No,” I hiss, holding onto the smoke between my lips as I rub the blood over my busted knuckles. “Stella is the biggest snake of them all.”

  “Snakes live in jungles,” he points out. “Rats live in cages. And I’m offering to help you out of yours, Sal.”

  Shaking my head, I snicker, “No, you are inviting me to the pits of your hell. Frankly, eighteen years was enough.”

  “What would Old Poppa say if he knew you were spitting on his business?”

  “If he knew the sleaze you turned it into, I’m sure he’d be proud of me,” I boast, blinking to meet Martinez’s gaze. He eyes his watch. I nod and lift my pointer finger. “I gotta go, Dad.”

  It pains me to say the word.

  “Call me when you’re tired of being used, son.”

  “You’ll just use me, too.”

  “At least you will know I’m doing it. You’ll come around in time. After months of fighting and getting your ass handed to you, you will call, and I will have you out in less than twenty-four hours. Sleep well, my boy.”

  “Fuck you, old man.”

  On the other end, I hear the click.

  Lines are drawn. Soldiers are assembled.

  My lungs tighten in the vice-like grip of my father’s power as my mind flatlines. This life is a fucked-up mess burning into a pile of ash, but the globule of my very existence rides the waves of the storm and refuses to sink.

  I pray I’m as brave as she is.

  II

  Fragile Vacant Things

  7

  Be Careful Who You Trust

  June 28

  “Hello, Dom,” I say, pacing around the interrogation room. I’m meeting with Mierne and Deacon, and I’ve borrowed his phone to check on things in New Orleans. They’ve gone to get coffee. “We need to talk.”

  In the last week, I’ve gone through receiving and discharge (R&D) and the motions—fingerprints, swabs, headshots, and a meticulous cavity search—while I stayed in a cell with a window near the main offices. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the actual unit either.