Read Online Omega Dog by Tim Stevens - Free Book Online Page B

Hudson it wasn’t good for much but engine parts.
    DeeDee had returned from hospital after three days, bruised and bloodied but mostly unhurt. Her grandpa had been waiting for her when her ma brought her home. Her ma had disappeared quietly, and Gramps had gone to work. With his fists, with a strip of tanning hide, with his boots.
    By the time Grandpa Rosetti had finished with her, DeeDee had five cracked ribs, a busted nose, a burst eardrum, and internal bleeding. Back to the hospital she went.
    This time she was in three weeks.
    ‘No hard feelings,’ Gramps had said, giving her shoulder a manly squeeze and looking her straight in the eye. ‘You got what was coming to you. No more, no less.’
    DeeDee quoted those exact same words back to the old man when, twenty-five years later, she dropped a live radio into the tub while the old bastard was taking a bath. She did it mainly because her pa was next in line for the top job in the family and Gramps was taking too long to die.
    But she also did it because she’d never forgotten. Or forgiven.
    Now, Rosetti was the boss. Head of the Manzullo family. She had been since the death of the capo Cardinale twelve years earlier. In a world where the East Coast mob was largely a spent force, a cowed and beaten thing, squeezed out of existence by the Feds, the Manzullos were old-school. Big, bold, and unashamed. Rosetti made sure of it. Her crew didn’t confine their operations to petty embezzlement, money laundering, a little dope dealing. No way . The Manzullos under DeeDee Rosetti went in for spectacular heists, wholescale loan sharking, major narcotics distribution. They were the kings of New York, the emperors of the Empire State.
    Rosetti feared nobody else operating in the city. Not the Chinese Triads, the Japanese Yakuza, the Russian mafiya who were making inroads from their growing base in Little Odessa. They were all third-rate wannabes, Johnny-come-latelys, as far as DeeDee Rosetti was concerned.
    And the FBI? They could kiss her ass. 
    It was this attitude, this temperament, that faced Zach Infante as he stood on the carpet before Rosetti’s huge mahogany desk. Infante was immaculately dressed in a cheap-looking, shiny suit, his eyes hidden behind mirror shades even though he was indoors.
    Rosetti thought he was trying not to piss his pants.
    ‘Run that by me again,’ she snarled.
    They were in Rosetti’s office on the top floor of an office block in the Meatpacking District. It was after two in the morning. Rosetti didn’t sleep much, not since the injury that had robbed her of her legs. She knew death would probably come to her before her three-score-and-ten was up – not a lot of people in her position enjoyed especially long lives, given the nature of what she did – and she wanted to be awake to look death in the eye when it came knocking.
    Infante raised the cell phone in his hand. ‘He says the target got away.’
    ‘Got away.’ Rosetti was disbelieving.
    ‘Yeah, boss.’
    ‘A civilian.’
    ‘Yeah.’ There was a quaver in Infante’s voice, despite his impassive expression.
    ‘A girl .’
    ‘I know, boss.’
    Rosetti was silent a moment, staring at Infante. Then she held out her hand across the desk. ‘Give me that.’
    ‘Boss –’ Infante stepped forward, but hesitated.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Royle said to tell you he won’t speak to you, or anyone else associated with you, till he’s got the job done.’
    ‘What? He can’t do that. I decide who fuckin’ speaks to me and who doesn’t.’ Once again Rosetti silently cursed her crippled legs for not allowing her to stand up and tower over the desk.
    Infante shrugged apologetically. ‘I’ve tried calling him back, boss. He doesn’t answer. He just said he wanted to let us know there’d been a hitch, but he’s working on it. He also said that if you’ve put someone else in the field to compete with him, he’s going to kill them along with the target.’
    ‘Son of a –’ Rosetti held out