by K. D Clark
“I have to be at the club.”
He stepped toward, and she stepped back.
He smirked and lifted an eyebrow. “Really? You’re going to make me chase you?”
She ran to the other side of the bed, but he caught her midway. He threw her against the mattress. She giggled as he laid a kiss on her lips.
*****
“I wanted to come to you, but with Calvin’s death, I needed to do my job. I haven’t talked to them, I swear. They’ve just been trailing me. I’ve been smart, trading cars and taking the main streets,” Lucas explained.
Cassandra’s eyes flickered to Giovanni standing across the room for confirmation. He nodded once.
“I’m not a snitch, Boss, you know that. I’m just trying to do my job.”
Cassandra said nothing as she stood from her chair and rounded the desk. She sat down in the chair next to Lucas. She leaned back and pulled the knife from her high-heeled boot, swirling it in her hand.
“Tell me, Lucas, what happens when the FEDS get hot? What do you do?”
“Say something,” he mumbled.
“That’s right. You say something because if you don’t say something then what?”
He didn’t say anything.
“If you don’t say anything,” she continued, “then they start to get information. I could have shut this down the first day, you know that; so it makes me really suspicious, Lucas.”
He shook his head. “I swear, Boss, I haven’t said anything. I’ve been doing what you told me….”
Rage settled in her stomach, and she slammed the knife down, stabbing the wooden desk a mere inch from Lucas’s hand. She leaned over the chair, getting close to his face. He didn’t even flinch; he had been in the game too long for that.
“Did what I tell you to do involve the FEDS following you around for two fucking weeks!?” She spat. She could feel the heat in her face. “Who knows what information they got now because you didn’t open your goddamn mouth!” She screamed and grabbed on to his leather jacket bringing his face close to hers. “You think I’m going to risk spending the rest of my life in a fucking jail cell because you can’t pick up the phone and say that you’re being trailed?”
Lucas stayed still, his face a blank slate. He had seen her mad many times and knew it was better to keep quiet. Cosa Nostra was always personal, but it was times like this that she was reminded it was her life and freedom on the line.
“Get the fuck out of my face.” She pushed back on his jacket, letting go, so he slammed back into the chair. “You’re going to New Jersey. We need a capo down there to take over the crew. I want 50% tribute next month; you’re done finding Calvin’s killer. I’m going to take care of this, but if I hear the FEDS are following you again….” She leveled a glare at him, lowering her voice as she said, “I will kill you, Lucas.”
He nodded and quickly got up to leave the room. Cassandra leaned back against the chair, letting her breathing slow. Reaching across the desk, she picked up the blunt. She inhaled, letting the smell fill the room. After a few puffs, she looked over at Gio, who had stayed silent. He was standing against the door like a bodyguard.
“Who is that guy running for Mayor right now?” Cassandra asked.
“Johnson?” Gio clarified.
“I’ll need to speak to him.”
“You think they got that much information?”
“They’ve been following him for two weeks, and Lucas is so bloodthirsty he brushed it aside.” She shook her head, taking another drag.
“He’s out of his mind,” she mumbled to herself. The office fell silent, except for the pounding from the music downstairs.
“I think I got a lead.”
Cassandra’s ear perked up. “Yea?”
“I don’t wanna jinx it, but I think I’m getting close.”
“Good, because the longer this goes on, the more money we’re losing. It’s getting ridiculous. A sit down you think?”
Giovanni shook his head moving from the wall to sit in the chair beside her. “I don’t know, Cass; I think there’s something off with these guys; they’re too good…too organized.”
She froze for a moment before setting the blunt on the ashtray. She was starting to feel the anger building again in her chest, but the weed seemed to be keeping it at bay. She never had issues with another boss or organization stepping on her toes. It was rare that another family would come after her unless they wanted war. “Organized?”
“I know that’s not what you want to hear—” Gio said.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, alright. Let’s get one of their men. Find out what they know, and we move from there. Alright?”
“Alright.”
“You going down to the bar? Your boy toy has been hanging around there,” Gio asked.
“He’s not my boy toy.”
“Then what is he?”
“None of your damn business,” she snapped.
“Cass, you know a guy like him couldn’t last. Not in our world, we’re not exactly 9–5ers.”
She stayed silent, picking her blunt back up.
“You serious about him, huh? Ready to settle down and buy a house? Pop out a few kids? That’s not the world we live in.”
“When I want your opinion I will ask for it.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she shot him a glare. He stood from the chair and left, letting the office door close louder than necessary. She finished her blunt and rolled another. While things seemed to be coming together in her personal life, they were falling apart in Cosa Nostra. Leo stepped inside the office, not bothering to knock. He sat down next to Cassandra. She passed him the blunt. He inhaled twice and then passed it back. They continued like that, neither of them saying a word.
Finally, she said, “Do you know what being a boss is?”
He shrugged. “Tell me.”
“It’s babysitting, but instead of children it’s grown men, and sometimes you have to kill them.”
Leo’s face cracked into a grin. “You’ve never babysat; have you?”
She laughed. “Nope.”
“I know it doesn’t mean much, but I like your new friend. Clean-cut guy but doesn’t seem to take your bullshit.”
“Hey!” she protested.
Leo shrugged. “Just saying you’re not the easiest person to handle.”
Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Thank you, Leo.”
He nodded and stood up from the chair. “I’m going to make a round, but I’ll be following when you leave tonight.”
She nodded. “Thanks.”
Once Leo left, Cassandra decided to go down to the bar. It’s funny how being apart from Andre for just a few hours tugged at her heart. It was like just being in his presence made all the worries and stress disappear for a brief moment. She could easily spot him out of the crowd by the way his confidence seemed to radiate off him. It was like everywhere he went, he owned the place and no one could bother to correct him. The muscles in his back flexed under his suit jacket as he took a swig of his drink at the bar. The man sitting next to Andre on the barstool was the size of a football player. He had short hair. He was dressed in dark jeans and a button-down shirt. The man turned around and smiled at her, showing his bright white teeth. He then hit Andre on the shoulder. Andre turned around his eyes full of desire as he scanned her body in the tight dress.
“Hey,” she said once she reached the bar and stood on the side of Andre. He hooked one arm around her waist keeping her close as he took another swig from his drink.
“This is Matteo, Matteo, Cassandra.”
Matteo smiled, sticking out his hand. She shook it.
“So you own this place, huh?” Matteo asked.
Cassandra raised her eyebrow at Andre. She didn’t like people to know what businesses she owned or really anything about her but he just shrugged giving nothing away.
“It appears so, what do you do?” she asked.
“Basically follow this man around and do what he tells me to.”
> “He helps me manage the restaurants and real estate properties,” Andre explained. He pulled out his phone, checking through his emails.
“Is that a new phone?” she asked, noticing the slick black iPhone that had replaced the white one he usually had.
“Yea, the other one broke.”
“Wasn’t it brand new?”
He shrugged.
“So, Cass, I can call you Cass right? You know any other attractive women about your height likes to have a good time?” Matteo asked scanning the crowd.
“Excuse him, he’s a little upset because the assistant he made me hire blew him off,” Andre said.
“She didn’t blow me off; she just had something come up.”
“She blew you off,” she and Andre said at the same time.
“You guys don’t understand, the dating world is cutthroat.”
Cassandra smirked. “You know what? Let’s find you a woman tonight.”
She grabbed his arm, pulling him off the barstool, and dragged him on the dance floor.
Andre
He watched in awe as Cassandra inserted herself and Matteo into a group of women. It was an odd sight seeing her with a group of other women when she mostly spent her time with men. She seemed to fit right in, obviously putting on a show for the sake of Matteo. She looked beautiful tonight with her hair falling in long waves over her back, her tight dress hugging every curve. She didn’t seem to notice all the eyes that stared at her every night as she walked through the club with her head held high. Most guys were probably intimidated, and he wouldn’t blame them. Cassandra could be downright scary when she wanted to be. But when she wanted to turn that switch off, she did it with ease. Andre watched as she smiled and laughed at something one of the girls said. He had never seen her so carefree in her own club. This is the Cassandra he had fallen in love with. He accepted all parts of her, and the fierceness in her eyes when she got mad turned him on like nothing else. But her laughing and enjoying herself right now made him want to scoop her up and take her back to the apartment, never letting her leave.
Chapter Nine
Two Weeks Later
Cassandra
Cassandra’s heels clicked against the floor. The sound echoed off the bare walls as she walked across the cement floor of the abandoned warehouse. Giovanni had called earlier with some good news, and she had dropped everything to rush over to the warehouse. It was located about twenty miles outside the city. No neighbors could hear the screams of the men they tortured and eventually killed. She had given instructions to keep the man alive until she got there. She wanted to hear everything directly from him. The smell of blood filled her nose as she got closer to the back of the warehouse. The smell usually didn’t bother her, but today it was making her nauseated. She spotted Giovanni first. He was leaning against one of the walls. His usual suit was traded out for a pair of dirty jeans and a black T-shirt. He always wore black so that the blood stains weren’t so obvious. Not that it mattered—everything would be burned afterward. He twirled a pair of pliers in his hand, looking bored. He looked up at the sound of her heels coming forward. His face was blank, eyes cold, but his lips tilted up in a sadistic smile when he nodded his head toward the young man in the chair. The man was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, similar to Giovanni’s. But compared to Gio’s, size this man looked weak and fragile. His head was drooped forward and blood trickled down from his mouth. No doubt a result of Gio’s plier. His blond hair fell in front of his forehead. Cassandra reached her hand out and grabbed a fistful of his hair. She tilted his head back to get a look at his face. His eyes were almost swollen and completely shut, and he was barely conscious.
“I found where they kept their supply. All I had to do was wait for this piece of shit to show up,” Giovanni said.
“Has he spoken yet?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the man.
“Oh, yea, barely had to do anything. I was a little disappointed. I expected to be here for hours.”
She let go of the man’s hair, letting his head droop again. She straightened up and looked at Gio.
“Are they organized?”
Giovanni nodded. The man opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Cassandra hooked her heel under the chair and pulled, sending the chair falling to the ground along with the young man. A loud crack sounded as his head hit the ground, but there was no blood. His eyes flashed opened, and his face twisted with pain as tears flowed freely down his cheeks. Giovanni kept quiet as Cassandra circled the chair. She placed her heel at his chest, feeling the irregular rise and fall under her feet.
“I don’t like torture. Not my thing. I prefer to get what I came for and leave it at that. But this man.” She tilted her head toward Giovanni. “He lives for this shit. I’m aware you have already seen a sneak peek of his potential. I am not above torture, but it would be a lot easier for you to tell me what I want to know.”
The man nodded and opened his eyes as wide as they could go. This was going to be easier than she thought. If this really was an organized group, this man was new. It usually took hours of torture before a mad man would speak.
“Who do you work for?” She slightly lifted her heel off the man’s chest so he could talk better.
“I was…a…Hell’s…Angel.”
“The Hell’s Angels aren’t selling dope in Chicago; I’m not stupid, and I don’t have time for your games. Gio!”
Giovanni started to push off the wall and walk toward the man. The man quickly shook his head back and forth.
“Wait, wait. I was a Hell’s Angel. Not anymore.”
Cassandra put up her hand up, stopping Giovanni in his tracks. She looked down at the man, squinting her eyes. She didn’t know much about the Mafia in Canada, but she knew there were only two places someone from Hell’s Angel would go: either the Westend game or one of the Montreal crime families.
“Montreal?” she guessed.
He nodded.
“Why?”
“The War just ended…in Montreal, we…lost a lot of business…deals.”
“So you came here thinking you could get some leads to show off to your boss?”
That would make sense. Many men climbing their way up through the ranks will do something stupid like that, trying to impress their boss and end up in a stupid situation like this. But the man shook his head. She dug her heel deeper into his chest, close to breaking the skin. He winced.
“Talk!” she demanded.
“My boss is here and some men. The goal was to team up…” he paused, trying to catch his breath, “With you.”
Cassandra’s eyes narrowed, confused by his confession.
“And your boss thought that the way to do that was to steal my profits?” She spat. That’s not how things worked in the organized crime world. Unless you wanted war.
The man shook his head again. “The plan was you.”
Cassandra froze. Heat radiated off her body.
“What did you say?” She slid her heel up to his throat pressing lightly as a warning. More tears trickled down his cheek.
“He wanted…to get close…to you.”
Cassandra kept her face emotionless, but inside she felt like she was going to vomit. She couldn’t have prepared herself for what the man said next as he struggled for air.
“His name is Andre…you know him as Andre…Murphy, but he adopted the name Rizzuto several years ago.”
It was like someone had taken the air out of her lungs. She struggled to breathe just as much as the man on the floor beneath her heel. She looked behind her at Giovanni—his face impossible to read but his eyes narrowed. In a flash, Cassandra grabbed the gun at her back and shot the man between the eyes. The gunshot echoed off the walls as blood splatted over her legs and dress. She couldn’t even begin to care about the corpse laying on the ground, his eyes still open. She knew when the truth settled in that it would hurt. It would rip her apart and cause the heartbreak that she had tried so long to avoid, but right now all she felt was the r
age. She was mad at herself for being so stupid and at the man who was smart enough to trick her. He fooled her and she fell for it. She had spent her whole life being groomed for this life, and one man was able to snake around her and steal her money. He’d slept peacefully in her bed just that night. Today that would change. Giovanni cleared his throat, bringing her out of her daze.
“Clean this up, I’ll take care of the rest,” she said and turned on her heels and left the warehouse.
*****
By the time Leo pulled up to her parents’ house, her hands were shaking. The long drive had given her time to think which the worst possible thing was for her right now. She hated to feel betrayed. Andre was the reason Calvin died on the streets. Soon all her anger would be directed at the person who deserved it: the man who had laid in her bed while she slept soundlessly. He was stealing money from her pockets and killing her men. He had the nerve to comfort her the night Calvin died and act like he had no idea what happened. She had been fooled, but when she got back to the apartment tonight, she would make a spectacle out of him. Maybe it was time to remind people why she was the boss. She knew people feared her but obviously not enough. She didn’t bother to knock as she walked into her parents’ house and swiftly made her way up the stairs to her father’s office. Leo was silent during the car ride, probably feeling the anger radiating off her, but his curiosity had gotten the best of him as he followed behind her. She barged into the office. The door slammed against the wall. Her father sat with a folder in the middle of the desk, waiting for her. She couldn’t bring herself to pick it up—she knew what it would contain. Instead, she paced.
“You told me, Papa, you told me! Over and over you told me not to let any man be my weakness, and what did I do? I let a snake crawl into my bed and fuck with my head while he went out and killed my men! He killed Calvin. He stole from me. He was trying to use me to make money for Montreal.”
Her father gestured toward the chair, but she was too angry to sit now. She wanted to run all the way back to the apartment and put a bullet through Andre’s head.
“You told me he was OK. You gave me the green light!” she spat.