Chapter 9
"She wasn't connected to me," Dante whispered, stepping into Tariq’s personal space until the smaller man could smell the smoke on his lapels. "She had nothing to do with me. She was a starving child in a neighborhood that pays protection money to my family."
Dante reached out, his hand wrapping around the front of Tariq’s leather jacket with the force of a hydraulic clamp. He lifted the man three inches off the wet steps, slamming his back against the damp brick with a thud that knocked the breath from his lungs.
"You pay my cousin ten percent every month so that nobody robs your register," Dante growled, each syllable vibrating with a lethal, suppressed fury. "You pay for order. You pay for safety. And when a seven-year-old girl walks in with ninety-five cents trying to keep her six-month-old sister from starving to death, you throw her into the freezing rain because she was three dollars short?"
"Dante, please!" Tariq choked out, tears mixing with the rain on his cheeks. "I'm sorry! I'll give them food! I'll give them whatever they want!"
Dante released him. Tariq dropped to his knees on the concrete, gasping for air.
Dante turned to Leo.
Leo held his hands up, taking a hurried step backward. "Dante, look, I didn't know about this! Henderson handles the evictions! Tariq runs his own floor! I can't monitor every gallon of milk on twenty-fourth street! This is small-time stuff, cousin!"
"Small-time?" Dante asked.
He stepped closer to his cousin. Leo was taller, heavier, but beside Dante he looked like a frightened boy awaiting a thrashing from the schoolmaster.
"Our grandfather didn't build this family on the backs of starving children, Leo," Dante said, his voice dropping into that chilling, guttural cadence that signaled the end of a negotiation. "We took from banks. We took from corrupt politicians. We took from rivals who chose to draw steel against us. We did not let babies starve on our own streets while we sat in restaurants on Taylor Street eating veal cutlets."
Dante tapped the clipboard against Leo’s chest.
"Here is what is going to happen, Leo. First: this building is no longer part of Apex Residential. You will sign the title over to the Moretti Children’s Foundation before five o'clock today. You will personally fund a complete renovation of every unit in this structure—new plumbing, new heat, new windows. If I see a single cracked pane of glass on this block by the first of June, I will take the cost out of your personal accounts in Geneva."