Twenty-Five
Player
“I told you this was a shitty plan.”
Coughing, I spit the blood in my mouth onto the floor. My arms ached, and my body was so damn sore that I needed to see an actual chiropractor to fix everything, and I hated those doctors. Popping bones like they were twigs was just plain disgusting.
Shifting my weight, I tried to relieve some of the stress in my lower back. Hanging from the ceiling was not conducive to any situation.
Okay, so maybe my brother Massacre was right.
Maybe calling our cousin wasn’t the best option, but we were in too deep now to go back. How was I supposed to know that Gio indeed held a grudge against us? It wasn’t like I planned on hanging from a chain in the basement of the family compound while several of our relatives beat the living shit out of us.
I thought Gio would let bygones be bygones.
Of course, I should have known better.
Giovanni Valentinetti never let anything go.
Hell, I remembered a time when he waited and plotted for six years to get revenge on a kid who stole five dollars out of his lunch box. Five bucks! What Gio did to that poor kid was legendary and solidified his middle school and high school status.
No one fucked with Gio and got away with it.
Ever.
“Any other bright ideas, Obi-Won?”
“Shut up, Dwayne.”
“For the record, Asshole, it was all Reggie’s fault.”
“How? How was it my fault, Dwayne?”
“You were the one who wrecked his car.”
“Did not!” I gasped. “That country bumpkin came out of nowhere. You were the one who grabbed the wheel. It’s not my fault you aimed his car straight for a tree.”
“Yo, Asshole. What time is it?”
“Five minutes later than the last time you asked,” Gio sighed, looking at his phone, then nodded to his brothers, Luciano and Salvatore.
I braced myself as Luciano smiled brightly and said, “God, I’ve missed you, Reggie. I’m happy your home. When you have time, you really need to see my new work. I’ve got a new exhibition showing next week,” right before his fist collided with my face.
Grimacing, I muttered, “Sure, Luc. Love to.”
As beat downs went, this one was pretty tame. I mean, I’ve had worse for sure, and I was eternally grateful I got Luciano. He was a cool cucumber and preferred fucking the ladies over inflicting pain. Well, he liked inflicting a particular kind of pain, but this wasn’t it.
Hey, whatever got his rocks off, I say.
I was not one to judge.
As for Massacre, I really felt for him.
Salvatore was a beast. The man punched bricks and clobbered concrete into dust for fun. But then again, Dwayne did kind of deserve this. It was his idea to steel Gio’s brand new mustang when we were seventeen. That and he had been a pain in the ass since we left California, bitching every chance he got. His shaving tantrum surely deserved an ass beating.
“So,” Gio said calmly, putting his phone down, and I cringed. When big bad Gio put that phone down, it meant shit was about to get real. Whatever he wanted, he meant business. “Who is the woman?”
I quickly looked at Massacre, who was too busy spitting blood on the floor. Turning back to Gio, I simply replied, “She’s just a sister of one of our brothers. That’s it.”