BELLA MAFIA Read Online Free PDF

the liquor cabinet and poured himself a whiskey. He downed it in one swallow. "I guess we both were in competition with him. Just take a look at the family album perched on the piano. You see me, Sophia, the kids; there's you, Teresa, Rosa . . . and there is Michael, always Michael, the biggest frame, the biggest photograph."
    Filippo chuckled. Then his face lit up in a grin. "I used to put his photo at the back. Every day I did that. And every time back it would go, and there he was smiling at me, like he was saying, 'Fuck you, you don't get me out of your life that easily.
    Laughing, Constantino poured two whiskeys, and they clinked their glasses together. "To Michael, may he rest in peace and leave us in peace."
    They drank, and Filippo threw his empty glass into the stone fireplace. Constantino followed suit. They both stared guiltily at the shattered glass.
    "Holy shit, Mama's gonna hit the roof. That was her b-b- best crystal."
    Paul Carolla was led into the small interview room. He went to the counter and pressed his hand against the bulletproof glass partition. On the other side his son gave a slow smile that made him appear younger than his twenty-five years. Luka laid his hand flat against the glass, his long, fine fingers with their perfectly manicured nails tanned to a golden brown. Carolla's own stubby fingers and square palm rested against his son's. They both reached for the communicating phones.
    Carolla was guarded day and night because his life had been threatened over the murder of the jail cleaner's child. Luka had arranged the hit, and Carolla had instructed him to leave Sicily lest anyone make the connection between them. Seeing him made Carolla shake with rage.
    He looked at his two guards, then back to his son, and whispered hoarsely into the mouthpiece, "I told you I want you out of Palermo."
    "But I have something for you."
    The sweat began to trickle down Carolla's face. "You get out and you stay out, you hear me, Luka?"
    Luka held the phone loosely. The only indication that he had heard his father was a slight arching of one of his fine, almost invisible blond eyebrows.
    When he spoke, his soft voice was a strange echolike whisper. "I know the name; I have the name; everything is going to be all right."
    Puzzled, Carolla watched as Luka took out a pencil and wrote on a piece of paper. He looked up and smiled, then spoke into the mouthpiece again. "I got it for you. I had to pay ten million lira for it."
    "What? What?" Sweat streamed down Carolla's face, and the hand holding the telephone was clammy. "You are fucking insane, you hear me?"
    Luka's pale blue eyes narrowed, the pupils turning to pinpoints. He waved the scrap of paper and spoke in a singsong voice, "I have what you want, but you tell your man to pay me."
    Carefully Luka straightened the piece of paper and laid it flat against the glass. In his strange, old-fashioned spidery writing he had scrawled the name of the witness for the prosecution.
    Carolla's stomach lurched, and his bile rose. He tasted it as he retched uncontrollably, but his eyes were riveted on the name: his old enemy Don Roberto Luciano.
    Don Roberto's driver radioed to the guards at the gates that they were arriving in minutes. The message was passed by walkie-talkies to the men on the roof, and the last part of the journey was closely monitored through field glasses.
    The gates opened, and the gleaming black Mercedes headed toward the villa. The don sat between two bodyguards in the back, with his faithful driver up front.
    The villa was ablaze with lights. As the car stopped, Don Roberto sat for a moment, waiting for the door to be opened. One of the bodyguards adjusted the cashmere coat to sit perfectly on the don's shoulders, then handed him his kid gloves and hat. He had been giving statements to Emanuel since ten o'clock that morning; it had been a grueling, painstaking day, a day when memories flooded back, old wounds opened, but he stood straight, inches taller