Mateo Caputo: Unseen Underground

by Davies, Abigail

  Addiction was a disease, one that I’d researched and found evidence that it ran in families. Which meant I had to be extra careful.

  “Want me to help you?” Dad asked, moving away from Mom, but it was too late because I’d already picked up the lone box of things I had. It wasn’t much, but what was in here was mine. I’d already taken up a trash bag full of clothes to my room.

  “I got it,” I told him, trying not to sound too harsh. I’d done everything for myself for as long as I could remember. I didn’t want to rely on anyone else, not knowing that it could be taken away from me at any moment.

  Dad nodded like he understood, but he never would, not really. He’d been brought up in a peaceful house, and I’d been raised in constant chaos. Part of me knew it was their addiction, but part of me blamed them for everything I’d gone through.

  “I’ll order pizza for dinner,” Mom shouted as I turned and walked out of the room. I lifted my hand to acknowledge her. Realizing that was what a normal teenager would do. And it was as I was walking up the stairs to my room that I told myself I could relax. I could let them be parents to me now. I could lower my guard.

  I’d been on edge for as long as I could remember, but maybe now it was time to pull back.

  * * *

  MATEO

  The mansion was quiet, but it was something I was used to. The protected walls of my boss’s house had become my solace over the last couple of years. In this home, people looked out for each other, we were a family even though we didn’t have the same blood running through our veins.

  It was a stark contrast to where I lived. Mayhem filled the apartment I went home to every day, but it would only be a matter of time until we were out of there—I hoped. Everything I did here was for the two small humans who relied on me. Sometimes you had to do bad things to create good. And that was exactly what I was doing here.

  The Beretta Mafia was more than what people saw on the outside. We didn’t let just anyone see what we were. We had a reputation, one that Lorenzo—the current boss—had created. But all of that was in jeopardy.

  Lorenzo had been home for four days, and I’d only seen him a handful of times since then. He was looking after his wife, Aida—I understood that, but we still had work to do. I closed my eyes, trying not to remember the night both Lorenzo and Aida were taken, but it was impossible. It had been on repeat constantly.

  I’d been the one driving. I should have seen it coming, but I hadn’t. I’d let my guard drop and they’d been kidnapped because of it. The smell of the smoke coming from the engine filled my nostrils, and if it wasn’t for my hands clasping the edge of the desk, I would have sworn I was back there.

  My muscles tensed the longer I had my eyes closed, but I snapped them open as I heard footsteps near. Tension was building with the threat of another storm brewing. Only this time I would be prepared, this time I wouldn’t put Lorenzo in danger by not being aware of my surroundings. Which was why I was waiting for the security guy to turn up to check over the new system I’d built.

  I glanced at my cell, seeing he was already running ten minutes late, but that wasn’t anything unusual for the people who tiptoed the line between right and wrong.

  “Is he in his office?” a woman’s voice asked, and I turned in my seat in the new command center. The room next to Lorenzo’s office in his mansion had been turned into a state-of-the-art defense against anything that would come our way. The wall was full of security feeds from inside and outside the mansion, as well as several cameras that were in the new top-of-the-line SUV. It was a good setup, but it could be better, which was what this meeting was about.

  Lorenzo had put me in charge of security the moment he’d come home, and I took it seriously. It was a step up from what I’d always done for him. I was rising in the ranks, and even though it meant more responsibility, it also meant I could get my little brother and sister away from our mom. That was my end goal, it had been from the moment I asked Lorenzo for a job just one week after dropping out of high school.

  At sixteen he’d given me a job, one that meant I could take care of my newborn baby brother. I’d been on track to get us out by the time I was eighteen, but then Mom’s belly started to grow again. And nine months later, my little sister entered the world. It had changed my plans, but only momentarily. It’d take us longer to get to where I wanted to be, but we would get there—eventually.

  The door to the command center opened, and I turned to face it just as Aida asked, “Mateo?”

  I shook my head, and blinked, clearing my gaze to look at her properly. It was hard to see her face and not remember the injuries we’d all witnessed on her body. She’d taken the brunt of it. The people you loved were always your weakness. Which was why I promised myself I would never put anyone in that situation. I would be alone for the rest of my life rather than watch someone I loved in pain. I saw it every day when I looked into the eyes of my little brother and sister, and I didn’t need more of it. I was trying, but sometimes it didn’t feel like I was trying hard enough.

  “Yeah.” I tried to smile, but it was hard when all I could think about were the scars that littered her back.

  “You okay?”

  I cleared my throat, not sure what I was going to say, but it didn’t matter because the doorbell rang, interrupting us. “I better get that.” I took a quick look at the monitor to make sure that it was the security guy, then stood.

  “You know you can talk to me, right?” Aida said, her eyes glazing over. She hadn’t looked at me the same since I’d told her a few months ago that I’d had to drop out of high school. Part of me regretted telling her. I didn’t want or need sympathy. I was doing what was best for my family.

  “I know,” I murmured, slipping past her, effectively ending the conversation.

  I walked toward the front door, opened it, and stared at the small man dressed in navy from head to toe. He couldn’t have been more than five foot, but his stern face told me he meant business.

  “Mr. Caputo, I presume?” he asked, raising a bushy eyebrow.

  “That’s me.” I held my hand out to him and he shook it. “And you’re Mr.…” I trailed off, waiting to make sure this was definitely the guy I’d been waiting for. He’d told me during a secure conversation exactly how our first greeting would go. He said it was a way for people to know that it was him and not someone pretending to be him. By someone, I was presuming he meant law enforcement.

  “Blue.” He let go of my hand, tilted his head in a small nod, then continued. “Mr. Blue.”

  Now that the confirmation was out of the way, I let him into the mansion, shutting and locking the main door behind us.

  Aida was still standing in the hallway, her gaze focused on us, but neither of us said anything. If Lorenzo wanted her to know something, then it would come from him, not me.

  I led Mr. Blue into the command center, knowing that we didn’t want to talk business outside of this safe room.

  “I’ve analyzed your security,” he started, placing a black leather bag on the table. Lorenzo had taken to having his meetings in here lately, preferring to be able to keep an eye on everything at the same time. I understood his need to know what was happening in every facet.

  “And?” I crossed my arms over my chest and widened my stance. Mr. Blue was the best security guy in the country. If you needed something to be locked up tight, then he was your guy. A former CIA analyst who had worked with the FBI and Homeland Security, he was perfect for the job. He saw things that no one even knew were possible.

  “It needs upgrading.” He raised a brow. “It took me fifteen minutes to hack into your feed and see what you were all doing.” He pursed his lips and shook his head, his disappointment clear. “Don’t worry though, I got exactly what you need.”

  “And what is it that we need?” a new voice asked, and I immediately stood taller. I pushed my shoulders back and glanced to the side as Lorenzo walked into the room. The click of the door closing rang out in the sile
nce.

  “You want to know what you need?” Mr. Blue asked, opening up his bag. He wasn’t fazed by Lorenzo, and I wasn’t sure whether that was a good or bad thing. People always wanted to impress him with what they could do, which usually meant they made out they could do things that they couldn’t. We didn’t need that right now though. We needed someone to make this place as secure as it possibly can be. “Everything.”

  Lorenzo sauntered past me and leaned against the back wall. “That right?” His attention didn’t move off of Mr. Blue for even a second as he analyzed him.

  “Yeah.” Mr. Blue placed several items on the table and finally gave Lorenzo his full attention. “Your firewalls are good, but not impenetrable. Your security around your property isn’t as good as it could be.” I winced. The soldiers we had on the mansion were new, they hadn’t been trained yet, but that was in the works too. “And it was too easy to find out where every single one of your stash houses and legal businesses are.” He paused, letting that sink it, but he wasn’t finished yet. “I’m sure you don’t want the public to know it’s you that owns—”

  “Enough,” Lorenzo ground out as he pushed up off the wall. I frowned at him, wondering what Mr. Blue was about to say. What did Lorenzo own, and why was it so secret? It was on the tip of my tongue to ask, but I was only a soldier. I knew my place, so I kept my lips glued together.

  Mr. Blue blinked several times, his face paling. He may have had lots of experience, but Lorenzo’s reputation superseded that. “I…okay.” He glanced down at the table and picked something up, holding it in the air. “The security around your properties is easily fixed.” He waved at the wall of screens. “This helps with that.” He turned to face me and then Lorenzo. “I can make your firewall impenetrable by the end of the day.” He shook the device he held in the air, and I figured that was one of the tools he would use. “But what will be the biggest problem are the ears listening to everything you do.”

  “I check for bugs daily,” I said, stepping forward. “We haven’t found any since our last FBI raid.”

  “You think that’s the only way they can listen to you?” Mr. Blue laughed. “We’re not living in the eighties. They can listen to you without having to get inside your properties or cars.” Mr. Blue set his device back on the table, then crossed his arms over his chest. “All they need is to place themselves between you and your nearest cell tower. They intercede your call before it hits the tower, then forward it on. Which means they can hear every conversation you have over the phone.”

  Lorenzo’s face turned red, his anger on display for us both to see. Since he’d been taken from Paolo, security was at the forefront of his mind. And this was the first time we’d heard about this. We’d relied on how we’d always done things, but times had changed, and we needed to change with them.

  “How do we get around that?” I asked, feeling both frustrated and also out of my depth.

  “Satellite phones.” He plucked another device off the table. It was as small as a regular cell phone, but it had several small antennas on the top and only a basic screen. “Only give them to the people who need them. The smaller the circle, the better.”

  I stepped forward and took the device off him. It could easily be mistaken for a cell.

  “Get me ten,” Lorenzo told him, taking two steps toward the door but not looking away. “I want them by the end of the day.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I said, end of the day,” Lorenzo gritted out, then yanked open the door and slammed it behind him.

  CHAPTER 2

  LUNA

  It was refreshing being somewhere that no one knew me. When people stared in the hallways, their eyes didn’t narrow on me in judgement. Their lips didn’t whisper to each other followed by laughs at my expense. It was foreign, something that I’d never experienced before. And I liked it. I liked being the girl who was heading to the class instead of the girl whose parents walked around barefoot around the edge of the school as they were coming down from a high.

  I was here. I was ready for my new life. But first, I had orientation and a tour of the campus. I couldn’t believe I was walking past the old brick buildings where I’d be taking my classes. I’d made it. I’d finally made it.

  A sign attached to a wooden pole was stuck into the grass outside of the main building in the middle of campus, and a guy stood in front of it with a clipboard. The sign read, Freshman Tour Starts Here, and was surrounded by other students, some talking, and some standing on their own.

  “Welcome,” the tour guide announced, clapping his hands. “I’m Bren, a junior, and I’ll be giving you the tour today.” Bren’s brown hair hung just below his ears. His pressed pants and buttoned-up shirt told me that he took his job seriously, and even though some people snickered as they walked by the checkpoint, I appreciated it. I wanted to know everything there was to know about campus. “Follow me.”

  He waved his arm and spun around. We all followed, listening intently as he told us how long each building had been on campus and what classes it held. He gave a detailed history on almost everything. I learned that the main building had originally been the home of the man who the college had been named after, and that it had only been in the last one hundred years that they’d allowed women on campus.

  “And this is the final building.” Bren smiled at the crowd of students. We’d lost half of them on the way, so now there was only about fifteen of us. “This was the last addition to campus in nineteen ninety, and has been used for many things, but currently is the English department.” Bren waited a few seconds, then started to walk again. I spotted the sign where we started the tour just as he announced, “And that’s the campus. Maps are in your orientation packs. Welcome to college!” He said the last words with such excitement that I felt my stomach flip.

  I was a college girl. Holy shit.

  “Thank you, Bren,” I said, my voice small.

  He nodded, his gaze not meeting mine. “You’re welcome.” He shuffled on the spot, clasping his clipboard to his chest. “I…I have to leave.”

  I raised my brows, not able to keep my lips from quirking as he spun around and practically ran away. He ran into another student, but both of them managed to stay upright, and I wondered how he could do an entire tour on campus without flinching but yet when I spoke to him, he escaped as fast as he could.

  When Bren was out of sight, I glanced around, wondering what else I could do. I didn’t have any official classes on campus today, but I wanted to figure out where all of the rooms were for tomorrow and see how long it would take me to get from each of them to the next, so I pulled out my map, looked up, and started walking to my English Lit class. English had always been a passion of mine—poems in particular. There was something about the way that everyone could interpret the words differently that fascinated me. No two people ever read it the same, they didn’t feel the same things. It was magic—pure magic.

  It didn’t take me long to time out the walk to and from each class. The smile on my face felt like it would never leave. I’d had the best first day ever, and now I was heading home, hoping that it would continue. We’d been living in the apartment for two weeks, and there hadn’t been a single hiccup—not one sign of either Mom or Dad relapsing. The hope that had been building inside me was in full bloom, out in the open for everyone to see.

  It was a twenty-minute bus ride home, and the whole way all I could think about was getting into the apartment and telling Mom and Dad about my day. I was officially a college girl, one who was going to pave her own way. I was going to make something of myself; make them proud to be my parents.

  Immense pride flowed through me as the bus pulled up outside the apartment block. I thanked the driver and waved as I got off. The bus pulled away from the curb, and my feet carried me as fast as they could toward the apartment building. My attention veered to Cardo’s apartment door, just like it had every time I’d been outside since I met him, but he wasn’t there. It was almost as if
he had vanished into thin air.

  My stomach rolled as I wondered if something had happened to him, and I made a mental note to give it another couple of days before making a ploy to knock on the door to check on him. I didn’t know why I was compelled, but something deep down told me to. There was a kindred spirit in him that called to me, and there was only so long that I could ignore it.

  I let out a breath as I walked toward the stairs, hesitating. Maybe I should have checked on him there and then instead of leaving it another few days. What if something was wrong and he was waiting for someone to come and save him?

  Shaking my head, I rolled my eyes at myself. I was thinking too much into it. I’d only had one conversation with him, and already I was pushing my problems onto him. He was fine, and I was overthinking.

  So, I took the steps to the outside stairs two at a time, my stomach floating with butterflies the closer I got to my apartment door. I didn’t know what made me pause to catch my breath when I was a couple of feet away, but a force overtook me, one that was holding me back. And I knew right then…I knew something had changed.

  My bad feeling about Cardo wasn’t about him after all. It was about me.

  I took in several breaths, trying to calm down my racing thoughts. I hadn’t even stepped into the apartment and I was already scared of what I would find. My hands started to shake, but I propelled myself forward, not shying away from whatever was behind the closed door.

  I opened it slowly, the smell of smoke smacking me in the face, and that was closely followed by the pumping music coming from the living room. The last time they’d played music was back in our old, decrepit apartment. My chest felt heavy and my breaths were turning to gasps. My body was warning me against going any farther in, but I didn’t have a choice.