Page 312 of Marcello

But before I could walk away, she snapped, “Come with me.”

Ohhhhh shit.

As I followed her, I wondered if I had severely overplayed my hand.

We walked up to the third floor, down the hall, and over to a marble statue of a woman with a water pitcher.

There was a door next to the statue. Lucrezia opened it and led me down a winding staircase that reminded me uncomfortably of the tunnel Giulietta was hiding in.

The stone stairs ended in a vast basement. Huge stone columns formed arches that held up the building over our heads. There were room-sized nooks that had been converted into wine cellars, but the center of the basement was one giant open area lit by a single lightbulb.

Cesare had used a chain to string up one of our own guys – the single most incompetent asshole in our crew. He was dangling there midair, already dead, as Cesare punched him relentlessly.

I had a flashback to the day I told Cesare about his father’s death in San Vittore. He’d been using a guy for boxing practice then, too.

“Go back,” Lucrezia whispered.

I walked back up to the top of the stairs and stayed out of sight of Cesare. I could still see his feet, though.

Lucrezia continued down the steps to the basement floor. Cesare ignored her as she walked over, instead choosing to continue turning the dead guy’s face into pulp.

Lucrezia sighed in disgust. “Can you not kill our men when we need them to fight the Rosolinis?”

“He was a fuckin’ waste of space,” Cesare said.

“Well, at least stop hitting him while I talk to you!”

Bad mistake on Lucrezia’s part.

Cesare wheeled around and screamed, “WHAT DO YOU FUCKING WANT?”

Lucrezia flinched. When she gathered up her resolve, she said, “I think we should send somebody else besides Romeo to do the rest of the stash house runs.”

“Why?” he asked contemptuously.

My eyes widened in shock.

I’d thought for sure that it was solely Lucrezia’s decision to have me do the money run –

But it was apparently a punishment straight from Cesare.

“His nerves are fraying,” Lucrezia said. “He’s exhausted, and he’s not acting like himself.”

“I don’t care,” Cesare said.

Then he turned and started whaling away on the corpse again.

Lucrezia tried again. “He’s one of our very best men. We need him for – ”

Cesare turned around and screamed, “FUCK ROMEO! He didn’t find the Amato cunt, he’s always acting like a pissy little bitch, and he’s been dissing me every chance he gets for the last three days! I don’t care if he’s dead after the stash house run – I WANT my fucking MONEY!”

“Alright,” she said calmly, then turned to go.

Cesare went back to punching the corpse.

As Lucrezia came up the steps, I walked quietly ahead of her.

When we got to the third floor, she closed the door and said, “Now you know why you have to do the stash house runs.”