by Fiona Murphy
He inhales deeply then nods, but he doesn’t say anything.
My knees go weak in relief. Pressing a hand to my stomach to quell the painful twisting of nerves, I ask, “What are you going to do?”
“It’s what you’re going to do.” He pulls out a roll of hundred-dollar bills, counts out ten and hands them to me. “Did you manage to hide them?”
I nod. Even now the items are taped to my inner thigh: my birth registration card, my social security card, and my Texas driver’s license. Augusto’s men had searched my apartment when they came to get me. They took my passport and birth certificate. I’m also aware my room was searched the first time I left it when I was taken downstairs to see Augusto and speak to Manuel Rodriguez for the first time.
“Tonight, men will come to drop off women. Go out on your balcony, climb down and make it into the group of women. I’ll make sure the truck is stopped before it gets to its destination.”
I want to ask him how he’s going to do that but don’t dare.
“Luca Sabatini, the guy who runs Vegas for the Chicago Outfit, is going to stop the truck. He’ll let the women go. He’s a good man.” Mundo shrugs. “As good as it gets in this fucked-up world of drugs, money, and death. Don’t get close to him. He’s also very fucking dangerous. The women have a choice of going to Los Angeles or staying in Vegas. His men will drive the women to Los Angeles. There are shelters he runs in Vegas and Los Angeles for women who’ve been trafficked. Do not go to Los Angeles. Do not go to the shelter in Vegas. Get out of the city immediately. Go east but not to New York or Florida. To be safe, get the fuck out of the country.”
“Thank you.”
He sighs. “I wish I could do more, but...Augusto is already down to only nine sons. It would be a shame if he lost another because I didn’t know my place.”
***
Manuel Rodriguez is a psychopath who doesn’t care if anyone knows he’s a psychopath. His family is one of the few who can compete with Augusto’s drug business. If people in the US aren’t getting their drugs from him, then they are getting them from the Rodriguez cartel.
To please Augusto, I brush out my long brown hair I usually keep in a braid and straighten it. There was a bag filled with makeup, all of it brand new, unopened, waiting for me in the bathroom. I don’t usually wear makeup. When I didn’t wear it yesterday Augusto got angry. So tonight I use the mascara, eyeliner, and lipstick, but the foundation is too dark for me.
I’m wearing a red dress that clings to my curves. This dress and several just like it were waiting for me in the closet. Augusto had shaken his head in disgust at me when I wore a black dress last night, muttering I was too fucking fat. The only good thing about me, according to him, was I had big tits.
I hate the red dress. I hate all the tight clothes in the closet. Even though I’m short, the dress, like all the others, barely comes to my-mid thigh.
Manuel doesn’t seem to care about what I’m wearing. He wears a gun on his hip everywhere he goes. I’ve heard of him. He handles the killing for his family’s business and he’s really good at it. The gun is a Desert Eagle .44 Magnum, and his eyes are as cold and black as the metal of the gun. I shiver from the lack of emotion in his eyes every time he looks at me. Last night he made it clear he wasn’t looking for a wife. All he wanted was a mother to his three children. Since I couldn’t have children I would take care of his.
He and Augusto are talking around me as if I weren’t even there. Manuel’s plan is for me to leave with him tomorrow so he can take me to his home in Columbia to meet his children. Then next week we’ll be married in the local church—his mother wants a church wedding. Sweat-soaked, trembling, my hands can’t keep hold of my knife and fork. Manuel frowns when I make an excuse about having a headache and flee from the table.
I’m almost to my room when Augusto’s hand goes around my arm. I wince, knowing it’s going to leave a bruise.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Nothing, I’m tired. I have a migraine. I’m not used to all this heat,” I plead as I fight not to cry over how badly his grip hurts.
Brown eyes roam over me as if he’s trying to see into my head. “Tomorrow you apologize to Manuel. This marriage is going to happen. He doesn’t care if you act like a little bitch. Be grateful he’s willing to take your fat ass.”
I flinch from his verbal assault. Every single time he’s spoken to me since I was ten years old, he’s called me fat. I’ve never been skinny enough for him. When he told me I would be married he declared I was lucky he had found someone willing to take my fat ass in exchange for promise of my being fertile.
Forcing a plea from my mouth. “I’m sorry, Papa. I’ll apologize tomorrow.”
With a last painful squeeze of my arm, he lets me go.
***
Luca
Sandro tosses his phone he was taking notes on onto the coffee table and leans back on the couch to study me. “Enough. It’s fine. You’re only going to be gone for days, not months. What’s with you? You’ve been good the last few times you went to Chicago. I step in shit and not know it for you to be keyed up about leaving? Usually you’re what passes for happy for your grumpy ass when you’re about to head out there.”
I reach for my whiskey and take a deep sip. “I just know Pop’s going to want to talk to me about marriage again now that I broke up with Tracy.”
Sandro runs his hand through his black hair which is slowly going gray at his temples. “Shit. That’s not a conversation I’d be looking forward to either. Especially when your pop is all married bliss with a hot-ass wife and kids all over the place. I don’t get how it’s married bliss while he’s got little kids. I thought that shit only existed in the movies. But, like he’s the exception not the rule in mafia marriages...okay, Dominic and his woman too, but those two and that’s it. All the rest of us gotta pay for it—for all of the shit.”
He leans over to pick up his glass of whiskey and swallows it down. “Haven’t you told him Vegas is different? The women are fucking different. Maybe you need him to come back out and spend some time with what we got out here.”
I nod. “Then he’ll bring up the women from Chicago who are available. I know he means well. He wants all the people he cares about to get a happy ending. I don’t know how many times I have to say this is my happy ending. When I’m ready it will take all of thirty minutes to find Tracy’s replacement. And she’ll be just like Tracy. She’ll spend my money during the day, and in return I’ll get a blow job followed by an hour or two of fucking every night I want it without any whining about me working sixteen-hour days, marriage, or kids.”
“Little will they know you talking them into bed is the most you’ll talk for the next six months.” Sandro laughs.
Smart-ass. “With some of them it takes almost that long for them to even catch on I don’t talk much.”
I might not talk much because I grew up an only child with a mother who was there and not there and a father who didn’t talk to me unless he had to. More than likely, though, it’s because in business watching and listening rather than speaking has served me well.
“Does your family know how lucky they are you actually talk to them?”
I shrug. “It’s different with them. I’m not worrying they have an ulterior motive. And with Pop he’s just happy to sit, no talking required.” Pop; I smile just thinking of him. After twenty-nine years of Al Toro as a father, to have Tony Sabatini now... sometimes it’s like I’m getting paid back for all the shit I went through growing up.
It didn’t matter I’m a grown-ass man, thirty-six years old. Pop was as concerned and as involved in my life as if I was a kid. He called every night. Sometimes we only talked for ten minutes, other times it might be an hour. When I went to Chicago, he made my favorite food, working hard to prepare kung pao chicken the way I liked it. All my favorite things were stocked in his house.
At first, I thought he was doing it to make up for the whole just finding
out about me thing. Until I saw he was the same way with my older brother Dominic. Even with his six-year-old daughter, a baby, and a wife he adored, Pop made time and effort to be an actual father.
Watching Al and my mom, nothing about getting married and having kids appealed in the slightest. Then I gave in to pressure and did the marriage thing. It was even more hellish than I thought it would be. When it was all over I swore I wouldn’t do it again.
It surprised me sometimes how much I like spending time in Chicago with my family. When I first started going I wondered if it was the whole newness of it. Family; even after two years the word still feels new. I went from being alone to having a brother, a father, three cousins, their wives, and a small village of confident, beautiful kids who loved everyone they met.
The very first time I met my cousins and their wives, there wasn’t a second of discomfort. I was greeted with hugs and laughter. None of them hesitated to accept me. That alone was surprising. What really blew me away was they knew I was mafia and had no problem with it.
My phone rings, it’s a Chicago area code. I don’t recognize the number. I answer. “Hello?”
“Hey Luca, it’s Chloe.” Chloe is married to Enzo, the middle cousin of three. There’s a baby crying in the background. It’s her third baby, a little girl named Valentina she had only a few months ago. “I hate to bother you. I’m sure you’re busy.”
“It’s fine. I always have time for family. I didn’t even realize you had my number, but you can always call me if you need anything,” I assure her.
“You’re sweet. I got your number from Pop. And I love him, I do, I just didn’t trust him to give you the message. I know this is going to sound bad, but I wanted to let you know I really mean it when I say no gifts for Allegra. She’s got more than enough toys. Enzo and I really do not want her to get spoiled. I mean, hell I think that ship might have sailed, as Enzo doesn’t use the word no on her nearly as often as she needs to hear it.” She mutters under her breath to Enzo, something I can’t hear.
“Sorry, Enzo is over here lying his ass off. Anyway, do not even get me started on Pop. How does he even have time to spoil her? He got her another doll that looks just like her and it’s gorgeous and she loves it and it’s not a birthday gift because he gave it to her a week before her birthday and I swear sometimes I just want to kill him. So, like, no gift. Seriously. Okay, thanks, bye.” She hangs up before I can say a word.
Sandro laughs. “From that look on your face, you aren’t going to listen to her.”
He knows me well. Tomorrow is Pop’s birthday. We’ll celebrate it at his house, where I always stay while I’m in town. The next day is Allegra’s birthday, and a small party is planned at Enzo and Chloe’s place. “Hell no I’m not. I got Pop’s present already. I didn’t know what to get the baby girl. I’ll figure it out when I get to Chicago. I’m definitely not going empty-handed to a little girl’s birthday party. Come on, man, they can get away with that being her parents. I see her every other month. And I’m not about to disappoint a baby girl. Not going to happen.”
I have no doubt Chloe will be pissed. I shrug. She’ll get over it.
***
Luca
The light knock happens before Christy opens the door. She’s carrying Santino. Santino’s eyes go wide as he makes the odd little noise in his throat when he’s excited, as his arms go out to me.
“Cora’s off the clock. I need a minute while I help Rosie clean up the glitter in the living room.” She plops my little brother into my lap and is gone.
Santino squirms in my lap for a tighter hug. I lift him up and hold him close. He sinks into me with a happy smile as a small hand fists my shirt. It makes absolutely no sense how much this baby adores me when I have so little contact with him. Ever since he was two weeks old and I held him for the first time, he has settled and stopped crying whenever he’s put into my arms.
For a baby, he’s smart—he gets I’m not here long or often. So when I’m here he wants me over Pop or even Christy, since he’s gone off breastfeeding and anyone can give him a bottle. The first time it happened Pop just laughed as Santino reached for me. There is no question he is my father’s son—he looks just like him, down to the blue eyes. Which means he looks like me.
I was pretty sure I didn’t want kids. Until I spent more and more time here with my father and his children over the last two years. Rosie is gorgeous and a sweetheart. Then there are Dominic and Regina’s two twin baby girls, who are so fucking adorable it didn’t feel fair when Regina puts one in my arms without asking.
Christy and my cousin’s wives also have me rethinking if marriage wouldn’t be a complete fucking nightmare like my first one was. I’m not sure if I have a good relationship with Christy because I wasn’t here when Pop was going through hell without her—before he found her after she left him or what. But I watch her with Pop and all I have is respect for her. Seeing my cousins with their wives, their marriages only stronger as the years went by, I couldn’t say that marriage was all hell with them right in front of me. While I’m in Vegas I can pretend I don’t have these thoughts but when I’m here they aren’t so easy to hide from.
“He could be yours,” Pop murmurs more to himself than me.
Damn it. He has that light in his eyes. I worry he’s seen the weird longing that comes over me when I’m here. Not ready to admit anything to him, I shake my head.
He sighs. “Carlo wanted me to try and talk to you again. Says there are people who talk, who ask when you’re going to get married. With both you and Sandro being young and both of you unmarried...some bullshit of stability and all that.”
“Stability? How much more stable can I be after almost twenty years of running Vegas without a major war in fifteen years? The tussles that go down don’t even make it in the paper. As far as the media is concerned the Outfit doesn’t exist in Vegas. More like he’s just pissed Dominic backed me replacing Gianni with Sandro as my number two.”
Sandro as my number two in Vegas was what I’d needed. Someone I could trust and count on and who was able to be both as soft and hard as I needed him to be. For years I’d had Sandro’s father, Michael, as my number two. Michael was Al’s number two, and I was willing to admit a huge factor in my success. When Michael died Carlo dumped Gianni on me. Gianni was weak—he didn’t have the stomach for what needed to happen on the daily in Vegas.
Death was a part of business in Vegas. In any given week I needed to order, sometimes even handle myself, anywhere from five to fifteen murders to maintain control and discipline over the Outfit’s interests. The deaths weren’t something I did without careful thought, but they had to happen. Gianni couldn’t deal—I needed someone who could.
“Maybe. But you have broken up with Tracy. And Sandro seems to pick the ones who appear at the parties looking as if they are the entertainment.”
Shit. Running Vegas meant rubbing elbows with the others who ran their piece of the city. Senators, local government, businessmen and women; there were endless parties, public and private, Sandro and I needed to attend. “I’ve talked to him about the women. He gets it.”
Another sigh. “Emilio, one of his girls would love to leave Chicago. She’s pretty, a little young, but she’s not a brat.”
I shake my head even as the small heartbeat of Santino thumps against my chest and soothes me.
“Or there’s always Carlo’s girls, both of them are old enough they’re probably ready for a baby already.”
Another shake of my head.
“Having one of those is not easy to do on your own. Ask Enzo.” Pop nods at Santino.
“When he cries in the middle of the night, I don’t have to get up.” I say it to remind myself.
He chuckles. “He’s already sleeping through the night.”
“Just in time for you and Christy not to get any sleep for a year.”
“You sound like Christy. This time when the babies come home, so will a night nurse. And we’re now at two nannies,
you’ll meet her tonight when she’s in for Cora.” He shrugs. “Christy needs more help. I don’t want her stressing, it’s not good for her and the babies.”
“Twins.” I shake my head.
Pop laughs. “I’m a lucky man.”
The door is opened by Christy. She’s tense. Dominic and Milos, a Russian mafia associate of the Outfit, follow her into the room. The guy is not to be confused with Bratva—he keeps the Bratva in Chicago in their place. Santino grumbles at his mother for taking him away from me. Dominic closes the door behind Christy.
“What’s going on?” Pop asks.
Milos sits down across from Pop. “It is time for me. I turn thirty-nine in a few months. I’m in need of a wife. One who is willing to give me children soon. For years, I have proven to be an ally. I keep to my promises. I want to further secure our relationship. My hope is you will help me with making a match with one of Carlo’s daughters.”
Pop sighs. “You sure you want to go there with Carlo? Alliances and all are strong enough, you won’t like getting him as a father-in-law. He doesn’t care for either of those girls. In the family he would have to pay to get rid of them. If you want to go forward, you’re going to end up paying a fuck ton.”
“And both of them are odd.” I feel it’s wrong not to warn him. “The oldest one is a crazy cat lady. The younger one is mute. She straight up refuses to talk to anyone except her sister and mother. He might pay you to take the cat lady off his hands.”
Leaning back, he shrugs. “I like cats.”
I sigh with relief. Better some other poor dumbass than me.
2
Isa
In my room, I prepare for tonight. I scrub off the makeup and braid my hair. The tape hurts to remove so instead of adding it to my documents, I tape the money to my other inner thigh. I’d been allowed to pack a bag of my own clothes and put on the one pair of jeans I own. Normally in Dallas I lived in plain short-sleeve shirts and yoga pants, since I worked from home and chose comfort over fashion. Here in Mexico yoga pants were a no so I hadn’t packed them.