“If your friends are Jared and—”
“Rome, do you want to take me in?” She glared at me, cutting me with just a look, like it was a challenge, like she knew I’d say no.
I recoiled at her question like she’d drawn blood. She couldn’t live with me. I’d just murdered someone with my bare hands in the house she lived in. I was what the mafia made me: a monster and nothing more.
“I’m no good for you, Cleo. I’d ruin you.”
“Then let me go where I need to go. I’m safer wherever I land than I ever was with the dead man out there.”
Maybe I was too young to make a different call, but I still wonder if I should have.
She didn’t writeto me again.
I couldn’t write to her either since I didn’t have her location, only snippets of information from some of the calls Mario and the guys made. I was running my bar, trying not to be a part of the meetings. When Mario needed me, he called me.
I delivered kill after kill. Tonight, I did one quick. After a couple of missed punches, he’d run at me, hoping to outmaneuver me with force.
I needed efficiency this time, even though the frustration and need to torture was there. We’d found out he’d been trafficking women through the business we helped him keep afloat. He deserved a beatdown, but I took his life fast instead.
Mario Armanelli, the boss of the family, wanted a late family meeting. My plans for torture and suffering would have to be inflicted on those that aided the trafficker.
I stepped over the obese, balding man as I pressed and held the number three on my phone. “Job is done. Take care of the mess. I made it easy for you, no red anywhere.”
Sergio sighed into the phone. “Thank you, Rome.”
I hung up and drove my truck through the cool night air with my window rolled down. I took the side alleys and got lost in the sea of buildings. One road led to another until the old factory our family owned came into view. The massive garage hid most of our cars, and one of the guys opened it immediately when he saw me approach.
It’d been a while since I’d taken my place at the right hand of Mario Armanelli. I was a young underboss, but I’d earned my seat. I protected his life and solved the problems he needed me to.
I nodded to a few familiar faces as I walked into the open space that must have been where they used to house the large crates. Now, we had an expensive circle of luxurious chairs on the cement slabs, and they all faced the middle one. The rusted metal of that folding chair had seen better days, and so had the people who would sit in it. One of the younger members dragged it to the center of the room, letting it scrape loudly against the ground, drawing the attention of everyone there.
These impromptu meetings always had everyone jumpy and on their toes. No one knew who the boss was going to call to the middle: the hot seat, the electric chair of the mob, the one you never wanted to be in.
Mario patted my shoulder as I sat down next to him. “My boy. Thanks for the easy cleanup. Sergio’s getting old. Frankie’s out of town, but we need to bring him in more to help Sergio.”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. Wanted to be on time. Not every day we have a meeting sprung on us. Who’s in trouble?”
Mario grunted and rolled a thick gold ring on his finger. His olive skin wrinkled around it, worn from age and years of strain. Running the mob and keeping his businessmen in line kept the man busy.
And me too. I did the dirty work. The dirtiest of all. I killed the men Mario didn’t need anymore, that disobeyed us, that stepped out of line.
Just a year ago, one man stepped so far out of line that Mario would have been dead had I not jumped in to save him at the exact right moment. No one saw it coming. Except his right-hand man, my father.
Mario and I cried that night. He cried like he’d lost a brother, and I cried like I’d lost my father.
Because we had.
Life within our family was a dangerous business. Irish, Russian, and Albanian families watched for a weak spot. They found one with my father but didn’t expect that I’d bridge the gap. Mario Armanelli lived on as the Chicago Boss, but he’d changed after that night.
He wanted new ways for the mob, and he tightened up his team, kept me close, and started to pull the Italian families back together.
Mario squeezed my shoulder and then gave it a little shake. “It’s not you.” He chuckled. “Never you, son.”
I rolled my eyes at him even mentioning it could be me.
No one came between us. I’d lived in the family under my father from a very young age. My mother left me to my father early on, or he took me from her—I wasn’t sure which. But I wouldn’t have been surprised at either.
I never asked, because he never would have told me. He didn’t care about the niceties of parenting. He was ruthless, cold, and vicious. It made him good at what he did. And it taught me the same skills.