My Mafia Boss: Sweat

by Tasha Fawkes

  Allie or the Outfit.

  Why was I even considering this? Why didn’t I just throw Allie out and tell her to get lost, to never come back? I knew why. For some reason, she was the one for me. She was the one who made me feel like I was worth something. She looked up to me, god knew why, and she believed in me, believed that there was more to me than even I realized.

  I almost snorted, but then paused. Maybe she was right.

  Maybe for some, a decision such as this would be easy, but it wasn’t for me. Niall had brought me up in this life. If it hadn’t been for Niall, I probably would’ve been dead that first winter after my parents died, wandering homeless on the streets, digging in waste bins for food, sleeping in abandoned doorways, or even worse, a cardboard box.

  Sure, it wasn’t exactly a normal upbringing based on society’s expectations, but it was better than nothing. For years, I had felt nothing but gratitude and a sense of indebtedness toward Niall. I had worked hard in the organization. I had busted my ass to be trusted, reliable, and loyal. Did I want to end up like Niall or the other old board members when I was in my sixties or seventies, living in a constant state of hypervigilance, where one wrong move could get me killed at the worst or imprisoned for the rest of my life at the least?

  I hadn’t thought about that for one minute, until now.

  I had never felt one iota of mistrust or doubt toward Niall until recently…until Allie. Had I been blind or had that been her plan all along, to purposely turn me against him to suit her own purposes and goals?

  I shook my head. If anything, Allie was blunt. She didn’t beat around the bush. I also knew that she didn’t have a deceitful bone in her body. I had brought her into my life to find the traitor in my organization. She said she was afraid for me, afraid that I was being set up, not by another syndicate, but by my own mentor. But why?

  Niall was the only reason I held my current role in the Outfit. If he hadn’t wanted to step away from leadership, why had he passed it on to me? If he had ever changed his mind over the past five years, I would have stepped back and given him the reins, no questions asked.

  But was Niall the one pushing for more? Was it the board, and they didn’t like the limits I’d established? After all, it was easy for them to made demands when not a one of them were risking their necks or getting their hands dirty.

  I blew out a breath. I needed to stop asking myself these questions and sit down with Niall. I needed to stop thinking of him as my mentor and demand the answers I needed.

  But…

  What if he was the person behind the attempted hits on my life? If that was true, sitting down and demanding an explanation would not end well for me. And if something happened to me, something would happen to Allie. Of that, there was no doubt.

  Niall didn’t trust her, and it wasn’t just because she was an outsider. I was beginning to think that Niall didn’t want me to form any attachments with anyone outside of the Outfit. Maybe he didn’t trust me as much as I thought he did. Maybe he doubted my loyalty. At this point, he very well should. Hell, I was no longer sure who deserved my loyalty. Or my trust.

  Was my change in attitude just because of Allie? I had to think about that. If I was honest with myself, I knew it wasn’t just about her. Before I’d even met her, I’d begun to feel some discontent with my life. Before Allie came along, I couldn’t put my finger on what caused it. What did I want that I didn’t have?

  With the Outfit, I had respect. I had money. I had anything I wanted. I was used to getting everything I wanted, and as boss of the Philly Outfit, I did. Then again, was power and control all there was in life?

  I wanted more.

  After pondering these questions all night, I called Detective Hayes early that morning, asking him to meet me here. This was not our neighborhood, not our regular stomping grounds, so chances of either of us being recognized were slim. He worked in the precinct to the northwest, and I had to consider his safety as well. Or his job. After all, he’d worked with the Outfit for many years, and I wasn’t about to be the one to expose his duplicity to any cops in his district that would recognize both of us.

  Sitting in a booth in the tiny corner of the rundown business relegated to half shadows, I waited. After Hayes entered, he paused just inside the door to scan the place. He spotted me in the back. I had already ordered him a beer, which sat in the middle of the scarred wood table, its shine long since worn off. He slid onto the bench and eyed the beer. At my slight nod, he reached for it with a grin. He took three long swallows and then set the glass down, half-empty, wiping his lip with his hand.

  “What’s going on?”

  Good, no small talk. I’d never worked that closely with Hayes, certainly not to where I considered him a friend. I usually gave him orders over the phone.

  He came in handy from time to time, and the monthly envelope of cash that found its way to his house every month as a retainer of sorts was well worth the information he often provided. That information was not only on our enemies but often regarding police business as well. He’d taken care of more than a few issues for me over the years.

  I looked at him, studying his tired features. The man was probably only a year or two from retirement. He looked rough around the edges, his cheeks mottled from a childhood bout of chickenpox, still visible beneath a day’s worth of beard stubble. His eyebrows slashed thick and bushy over puffy eyes, his unkempt hair receding drastically from his forehead.

  Was he working with the ATF? I couldn’t dismiss the possibility, but I was banking on him staying true to the code, a code that he’d never deviated from in all the years he’d worked with the Outfit.

  Hayes was a man who looked out for himself, one who had remarked on more than one occasion that he didn’t owe the Philadelphia Police Department shit. He was burned out and beaten down. More than once, he’d complained about giving more than thirty years of his life to a system that didn’t give a shit about him.

  I also knew that if the ATF was closing in, a well-compensated and motivated Detective Hayes might just be the best shot I had to not only find out what the feds knew but in finally learning everything there was to know about my past. About my parents and their death.

  About Niall.

  Maybe this first step would suffice to please Allie, to prove that I was at least thinking seriously about her ultimatum. But was I ready to cut loose right now? No. Not only would that look suspicious, but I had to figure out exactly what the feds had on me and the Outfit. I also knew how difficult it would be to safely disappear without going deep underground, but I couldn’t do that until I had more information.

  “I’m on a hunting expedition,” I said simply.

  Hayes grunted and took another sip of his beer.

  “How would you like to pay off your overextended mortgage and pad your 401k or whatever other city pension plan they’ve got you on with the department?”

  He lowered his glass and stared at me. Good, I had his complete attention.

  “And what do you need from me?”

  “Information.”

  Hayes shrugged. “I already know, and so does every other law enforcement agency in Philly, that the Outfit and Tarasov have been skirting around each other these past few months.”

  I frowned. What other information did law enforcement have? “Well, the deal is done,” I began. Hayes lifted an eyebrow in interest. “That means that the Outfit is flush with cash, and that’s just after two clean collections and distribution runs for Tarasov.”

  Once more, Hayes grunted. “Good for you.”

  “I also know that this honeymoon is going to be short-lived if the ATF has its way.”

  Hayes fingered his glass, idly rubbing his index finger down the condensation on the outside. He glanced up at me. “The ATF? You think the ATF is sniffing around?”

  In answer, I simply lifted an eyebrow.

  “Well, if they are, you can pretty much figure that other agencies are going to be involved as well, maybe even t
he FBI.” His brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed. “And if you’re running weapons outside of US borders, you can damn well believe that the Department of Homeland Security and maybe even the Justice Department are sniffing around too. That what you want information about?”

  “Partly. I need confirmation, and I also need your eyes and ears on the inside. I need to know what the ATF has on the Outfit or anyone else for that matter.”

  “That’s risky,” Hayes said, sipping his beer once more.

  Often, it was difficult to gauge Hayes’s reactions or feelings, if he had any, because his expression was almost always blank. Stoic. I knew he waited for me to explain further. I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible, reducing the chances of either Hayes or me being identified by some bar patron. Unlikely, but always a possibility. I wasn’t exactly an unknown entity in Philadelphia.

  “If you can find that information for me, I’ll give you my share of the proceeds from the Russian alliance. It’s a nice chunk of money, enough so that you might even retire in style.” That got Hayes’s interest. Both eyebrows lifted.

  “It might take me a few days. I’ll have to find a way to ask around, approach a couple of my connections, maybe even do a little hacking…all without triggering the notice of said agencies.”

  I shrugged. “That’s your problem. Whatever it takes, as long as you don’t get caught and your snooping doesn’t come back on me.”

  Hayes finished his beer, smacked his lips in pleasure, and nodded. “Done.” He started to rise.

  “One more thing.” Hayes sat back down, eyeing me warily. “I also want you to dig up everything you have on Niall Burns.” This time, Hayes reacted, giving away his surprise. Frowning, his gaze darted around the small bar, as if he feared Niall himself had suddenly appeared on a stool.

  “Are you…?”

  I figured he was going to say crazy and quickly realized that it might not be the wisest thing to say to me. He glanced away, cleared his throat, nervously licked his lips, and then turned back to me.

  “You want me to start digging around Niall’s past?” he hissed. “Marcus, that’s even riskier than finding out what the feds want!”

  I could very well understand his reluctance to fulfill my request. If it got back to Niall, Hayes’s years of service and loyalty to the Outfit would be completely disregarded. Doing so would very well result with a bullet to the back of his head, regardless of the years he had worked alongside us.

  “I want information about the accident that killed my parents. Detective Bruce Ryan, out of your precinct, actually, and also my mother, Mary. My father worked on the force twenty-five years ago. I want all of it. Witness reports. Canvassing. CSI reports. Autopsy reports. Everything about the cases he was working on at the time he was killed. Everything.”

  Hayes once more licked his lips, eyed his empty beer glass, and then sighed. I knew he didn’t like this, not one bit, but the thought of tens of thousands of dollars finding its way into his secret and offshore bank accounts always won out in the end.

  He nodded and pushed to his feet.

  “One more thing,” I said. He froze. “If you tell Niall about any of this, you can count on me to kill you. Is that clear, Hayes?”

  Without looking at me, he sighed before nodding again. “Crystal.” Then he was gone, walking out on legs that looked a bit less steady than the ones he’d walked in on.

  Long after Hayes left, I sat at the table, nursing a fresh beer of my own. I had much to contemplate, but one problem kept rising to the top of the many issues. Allie’s ultimatum. I wanted to promise everything and anything to keep Allie in my life, but in my line of work, that was easier said than done.

  What she asked of me was not only difficult but risky. One didn’t just leave a syndicate. Especially not someone in a leadership position like me. I knew only a handful of former syndicate members that were either hired assassins or in the upper echelons of leadership ever betraying their loyalties. Of course, most of them had done so to avoid the death penalty, while some had offered information in exchange for better and cozier environments to serve out their prison terms. Even so, several of them continued to operate and guide their organizations from behind bars.

  Allie wasn’t asking me to do any of that. Not really. She was asking me to choose between her and the only life I had ever known. I wasn’t sure if she understood the ramifications of doing so. Even if I left the Outfit, we would both spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders. You could only disappear for so long before the mob found you.

  What I had to do, if I chose her, was not only to find a way to get away from the syndicate but to go deep enough underground that she would be safe. Forever. Unfortunately, that meant new identities and leaving everything she knew and loved behind.

  Including her father and her best friend.

  Fourteen

  Allie

  I waited for Selena at the same coffee shop where just days ago we had enjoyed our coffee and pastries until my world had shifted once more. If this was what being an adult was all about, I wasn’t sure I wanted to grow up anymore.

  I longed for the days when I was a happy-go-lucky child, my mom was well, and my dad hadn’t been stricken with cancer. But that was just foolish. I was an adult, and I had to act like one. But why did it have to be so difficult?

  It wasn’t until the moment that Selena told me about the ATF agent that everything had become so clear. I knew I had to make a decision. Now, several days later, so did Marcus. He’d been fairly quiet since I divulged my secret, and although he didn’t ignore me, didn’t treat me with disdain, distrust, or avoid me like a leper, I also knew that he had sunk into deep thought.

  The day after I told him, he was gone most of the day. When he returned to the penthouse late that night, he was very quiet and somber. Lying in bed, we engaged in small talk, both of us avoiding the topic that most needed to be discussed. It had taken me a couple of days to work up the courage to tell him about Agent Felicia Warner, so I had to give him the same courtesy. It was even more difficult for him, I supposed. My decision was based on moral and ethical decisions. His did too, but his also involved a deeply emotional level, although he was obviously loath to discuss that.

  Marcus had grown up with the Outfit. These were his people. They weren’t my people, so I didn’t even pretend that my decision was more difficult than his. Did I want to keep Marcus in my life? Yes, I did, more than anything. Had I been right in giving Marcus an ultimatum? I believed so. Nevertheless, we both had difficult decisions ahead. I had to be prepared. I had to be mentally and emotionally prepared for him to cut ties with me. I knew he didn’t want to, but at the same time, I was asking for so much from him. So much.

  I looked up in time to see Selena walking past the bakery store windows toward the entrance. She entered, sweeping her gaze over the empty room. At this time of the day, it was only me. Most of the bakery trays were empty of their delicacies, though the bakery shop still smelled of cinnamon, baked apple, and bread dough.

  Selena waved at the waitress behind the counter and then made for my table, where she sat with a sigh. I took in her appearance, concerned. She was pale and looked tired, with dark smudges under her eyes. If I didn’t know any better, I would guess that she spent most of the previous night awake, tossing and turning.

  “Have you had anything to eat? You want a bear claw?” I asked, glancing at the bakery shelves. “I think I see one left.”

  She attempted a smile, for which I gave her a mental C-, and shook her head. She looked at me much as I had looked at her just moments ago, her mouth turning up at one corner. “You look worse than I do, Allie. Did you get a pastry?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “I haven’t had much to eat over the past few days. Mostly running on tea and coffee.”

  “Red Bull.”

  I was going to warn her of the dangers of drinking too much of the stuff, but she jumped right into the crux, no more small talk, no more skirting the i
ssue.

  “So, tell me, Allie, what’s going to happen to you? To me? How did we end up in this mess?” She dropped her face into her hands. “I wish I had never seen that ad on Craigslist. I swear, I could kick myself every time I think about it. I got you into this mess so—”

  “It’s not like anybody twisted my arm to accept a job offer, Selena, so quit blaming yourself. This is my fault too.”

  “Okay, okay, so we’re both to blame. What’s happening?”

  “I have to meet Agent Warner again soon. I’ve already taken more time than she offered, but we agreed to meet today at one o’clock.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell you.” I sighed. “I’m not supposed to tell anybody exactly where. What I can say is that we’re meeting in a medical building in the Blue Bell neighborhood, and that’s all I can say.”

  Actually, the medical building was situated in a suburb of Philadelphia proper. I had already made reservations for the trip. I didn’t want to take a bus that would be too obvious and easy for anyone watching me to follow. I knew some people were, maybe not just those from the Outfit. I even had thought about changing buses twice but decided I was getting carried away. After thinking over every possibility a hundred times, I’d opted for a ride share.

  I didn’t suppose my conversation with Agent Warner would last too long. The location was the perfect place for us to meet, neither one of us wanting to be seen by anybody closely involved in the investigation. My going to a medical office was a perfectly plausible destination, just as it wasn’t unusual for a federal agent. Women had doctors’ appointments. I had a feeling she would probably arrive well before my supposed appointment.

  “Allie, I’m so sorry you have to go through all this.” Once again, Selena shook her head, tears welling in her eyes.