The Leone Crime Family Box Set

by B. B. Hamel

  Three months we’d been hiding away in our little apartment. Three months of writing, editing, revising, trying to get the story just right.

  It felt like an impossible task. I had to tell the world what happened as honestly as I could, but I also couldn’t reveal the identities of the men involved. It was a tightrope act, and I’d written and rewritten and bashed my head against the wall, until finally, finally, I was finished.

  I heard more creaking floorboards. Vince would be in the kitchen at this point, brewing us both some coffee and cooking breakfast. I smiled a little to myself and hesitated, looking back at my little brown desk with its ratty black rolling chair. I’d spent so long sitting at that desk, working hard in that chair, and now it was done.

  It was almost bittersweet.

  But no, really, it was just sweet as hell.

  I turned and left the little attic. I took the narrows, steep steps down to the first floor, walked past our small bedroom, past the little bathroom, and down another flight of stairs.

  Vince turned and raised a spatula in surprise. He was shirtless, his tan and muscular body tense and worked hard, rippling with muscles and veins, and he wore just a pair of short black shorts. He probably planned on going for a run soon.

  “Morning,” he said. “You’re down early.”

  “I finished.”

  He blinked and lowered the spatula. “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not kidding,” I said. “I think it’s finally right. I mean, I’ll have to make some tweaks, and maybe adjust the ending, and maybe change a name or two again, I don’t know, but—”

  He walked over, swooped me up into his arms, and hugged me tight. I laughed, kissed him, hugged him back.

  “We have to celebrate,” he said. “Dinner tonight. Best restaurant in the city. What do you say?”

  “You’re acting like we don’t do that all the time.”

  “But this time we’ll spoil you first. Spa day, get you nice and pampered, buy you whatever you want, and then go to dinner.” He beamed at me and the pure excitement in his eyes sent butterflies rolling around in my stomach.

  “Okay,” I said, smiling like I’d never really smiled before, and kissed his gorgeous lips. “If you insist.”

  “I’m really happy for you,” he said. “I know you’ve been working hard at that thing for a while, and I can’t imagine it’s been easy.”

  “Far from easy,” I said.

  He let me down, kissed my cheek, returned to the stove. I could smell the eggs cooking in the pan, a nice little sizzle in the air. I followed him into the kitchen and hopped up onto the counter, scooching back a bit as he chopped and worked the scrambled eggs.

  “But you did it,” he said. “Seriously, that’s so amazing. Do you know what you’re going to do now?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “Come on,” he said, looking back at me. “Yes, you do.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “I’m going to submit it to Randy at the Inquirer, and when he tells me it’s absurd and total shit and they can’t print it, then I’ll—”

  He brandished the spatula at me again. “Stop that,” he said. “Stop second-guessing yourself. You did something amazing here, just own it.”

  I laughed and let out a breath, forcing myself to relax. “You haven’t even read it.”

  “No, I haven’t,” he said. “But I don’t need to.”

  I watched him finish the eggs. He divided them up between two small plates, added ketchup to mine, and slid them over. I looked at them for a second and felt my stomach rumble, though I wasn’t sure if it was hunger or nerves.

  This was the part I’d been dreading for so long.

  “But you, uh, you should read it,” I said.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head. “Why’s that?”

  “You need to make sure it doesn’t cross any lines,” I said. “You know, about your, uh, your identities and stuff. I don’t want to piss your dad off, even though he knows I’m working on it.”

  “I’m sure he’d want to read it over,” Vince said.

  “He can, if you think that would help.”

  He shook his head and stared into my eyes. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t want him to read it. And I don’t want to read it, not until it’s in print.”

  “Why not?” I asked, feeling a little desperate surge rush through me.

  “Because I trust you,” he said. “It’s not that I don’t want to read your work. Believe me, I really do.” He walked over to me and spread my legs. I wrapped them around his waist as he leaned closer. “But I want you to know that I trust you more than that.”

  “I know you do,” I said. “You’ve proven it enough already.”

  “This is the last thing,” he said. “The most important thing. This is why we got together in the first place. I want you to know that I trust you completely, and if you choose to publish a story that fucks up my family and makes a lot of trouble for us, then so be it, that was your choice. But I trust you not to do that.”

  I bite my lip and nod a little. “I don’t want to mess anything up,” I said. “So maybe… maybe you can read it, just to make sure, you know, that I didn’t screw it up.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “That would defeat the purpose.”

  “How about your dad then?”

  “He’ll make you change half the damn thing.”

  “Okay,” I said, throwing my hands up. “Dante then. He’ll be honest.”

  Vince frowned a little and blinked, tilting his head to the side like he was seriously considering it.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” he said.

  “Wait, really? I just threw that out there because I’m annoyed. I don’t think Dante wants to get involved.”

  “Dante is perfect,” he said. “He’ll be honest. And things have gotten better between us lately. This might be what we need.”

  I chewed my cheek and shifted side to side then threw up my hands.

  “Fuck it,” I said.

  “Perfect.” He beamed at me and put both his hands on my cheeks, pressing them together. He kissed me big and bold and made a loud smooching sound.

  “Yuck,” I said when he let me go.

  He laughed and walked over to where his phone sat on the counter. He picked it up and dashed off a text.

  “There,” he said. “Now go email it to him.”

  “He didn’t even agree to do it yet,” I said.

  “Yeah, but he will.”

  “Fine.” I hopped off the counter, but didn’t move. Vince turned to look at me, and I stared into his eyes. “Are you sure about this?”

  “I’m sure,” he said. “I love you, Mona. If this is what you want, then it’s what I want, too.”

  I lingered there in the kitchen with him, and wondered how I got so lucky.

  Three months ago, I never would have imagined I’d end up here, living with Vince in this little apartment in his father’s mansion. I knew I loved him then, but I didn’t know where things would lead us, not with a war going on, not with all the chaos.

  But after that night, after the night where he killed Santos and hit the rest of the Jalisco safehouses, things settled down for a while. The Gulf cartel moved in and took over a lot of the Jalisco shipping routes.

  And best of all, one of Don Leone’s tech guys, one of the younger soldiers, found a treasure trove of information on Santos’s laptop. He found logs of sales to gangs all over the country, lists of safehouses, lists of informants and soldiers, payroll for all those hired thugs, and even detailed routes they used to bring drugs up from the south. With all that information, the Gulf cartel was slowly dismantling everything the Jalisco built up north and taking over their trafficking routes.

  Which left me in limbo with Vince. I kept expecting him to go back to New York, but he kept making excuses, until we stopping talking about it all together. His second-in-command ran the show up there, and by all accounts he was doing well. Vince floated fr
om crew to crew in Philly, helping where he could, rebuilding old relationships, establishing himself again as one of the best Capos in the entire family.

  Somehow, things worked between us. He did his job, and I sat up in my sweaty little hot box attic room and I did mine. He came home, fucked me wild and nasty and deep and good, and went about his business the next day. We clicked, and our love deepened, but it always felt like we were just waiting for something, waiting for the end to come around.

  This article felt like the end of it all.

  “I need to know something,” I said.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “New York.”

  He watched me for a few seconds. “What about it?”

  “Are you ever going back?” I asked. “I mean, it’s your crew up there, right? Are you ever going to go back to them?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out then smiled a sad, quiet smile and shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think so. Not unless you want to move there.”

  “Vince,” I said. “I can’t ask you to give that up for me.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said.

  “Vince—”

  “Listen to me,” he said, taking a step closer. “That crew meant a lot to me. I built it up myself, but now it’s beyond everything I could’ve imagined. They don’t need me anymore, and I’m okay with that. Ambrose can handle things from here. I don’t need to go back there, because the work is already done. But there’s so much to do here.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like be with you,” he said. “Like build a life with you. And somebody has to take over the family when my father passes, which will happen one day. I want to be that man, and there’s no way I could do it from New York. That’s obvious to me now.”

  I nodded slowly. “You want to… make a life with me. And take over the family.”

  “That’s the goal,” he said, coming closer. He put one hand on the small of my back, the other on my stomach. “Put a few babies in here.”

  I swatted his hand away. “Not just yet,” I said.

  “We’ll have some fun first,” he said, then kissed my neck, my cheek, my lips. “I promise, little Mona, you’re all mine. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Good,” I said and relief hit me, flooded over me. I pressed myself against his skin and held him tight, and realized that I’d been holding this in for months now. Maybe it was why I’d taken so long to write the article. Maybe I was scared that if I finished, he’d leave me forever.

  But he’s not going anywhere.

  “When that article gets published, we’ll find somewhere else to live,” he said. “A place of our own. I was just waiting for you to be done before we talked about it.”

  “Really?” I asked. “I thought you liked it here.”

  He rolled his eyes and I laughed.

  “Come on,” he said and slapped my ass. “Go email Dante. When you’re done, we’ll spend the day together.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, kissed him again, then walked off. I looked back at him for a second and he was smiling, a content smile, like he’d found a piece of himself and put it back into his chest.

  I climbed the steps and felt the exact same way.

  26

  Mona

  Two Years Later

  I stood in the street, fifty feet from a burning building, and could feel the glare of its heat on my skin. A crowd stood around as firefighters worked to put the abandoned warehouse out, making sure the fire didn’t spread to the buildings around it. I made a few notes on my phone and looked around for someone to interview.

  It was a Tuesday, right in the middle of the afternoon, and I was on my beat.

  Standing near the light pole, I spotted a young man with shaggy brown hair, an oversized white t-shirt, a cheap fake gold chain around his neck, and skinny jeans. He looked back at me and I saw his eyes go wide. I walked over to him, holding his gaze, and I saw him look around like he wanted to run.

  “Hi, Eric,” I said.

  “Uh, hey, Mona,” he said.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Nothing,” he said too fast, his eyes darting to the side. “Just, uh, saw the fire.”

  “Huh,” I said. “Interesting. So one of Steven’s soldiers is just hanging around outside a fire where I’m pretty sure the Jalisco were hiding some of their drugs. That’s an interesting story.”

  “Jalisco are dead,” Eric said.

  “Come on,” I said, grinning at him. “We both know that’s not true.”

  He glared at me and shoved his hands into his pockets. “What do you want me to say, Mona?” he asked. “Steven told us not to talk to you when you’re working.”

  “Steven’s a dick,” I said. “Just give me something.”

  Eric shifted from foot to foot and looked away again, scanning the crowd for someone. He seemed to spot him and perked up, his eyes going wide. He got up on his toes, brought his hands out, cupped them around his mouth.

  “Yo, Steven!” he yelled over the crowd. A few heads turned and I cursed to myself.

  I could push around a new solider like Eric. With a little more cajoling, a little more pressure, he’d crack eventually. All the guys knew I was Vince’s wife, which meant they couldn’t just ignore me and treat me like shit. Otherwise, Vince would hear about it, and he’d make their life a living hell.

  It was a rough line to walk. I had to make sure I didn’t reveal any sources, didn’t let anyone know that I had a direct connection to the Leone family. I didn’t use their names and didn’t report on things that would give them away.

  And on the big stories, I let Don Leone himself read through my copy before submitting it, just to make sure it passed muster.

  He was always on my case, always complaining, but I think he liked the attention, at least to some degree. I passed him along information I heard on the newsroom floor, rumors about politicians, police chiefs, that sort of thing. A few of those rumors worked out in the family’s favor and earned me a lot of good will.

  But still, the soldiers hate it when I push them for information.

  It’s kind of fun though.

  Steven came pushing his way through the crowd and gave me a sharp glare as he stopped next to Eric. The skinny kid drifted back away from us, like he was trying to disappear.

  I crossed my arms and glared up Steven.

  “He was just about to talk, you know,” I said.

  “I know,” he said. “But you also know it’s my job to step in and make sure he’s not giving shit to journalists, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Look, what can you tell me about this?”

  “I know nothing, I saw nothing,” he said.

  “Sure,” I said. “You just happen to be here, hanging around in the crowd.”

  “Yep,” he said. “Roasting marshmallows. We’re making s’mores soon if you’re interested.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Give me something, Steven, come on. You know how this works.”

  “You’ve got a deal with the Don and I respect that,” he said. “And Vince likes to play enforcer for you, push around all the soldiers. But I’m a Capo, and I didn’t make any deals with you. So I’m going to go ahead and give you nothing at all.”

  I stared hard at him. “I’m going to tell Colleen,” I said.

  His mouth opened, worked a little, then snapped shut.

  “You wouldn’t,” he said.

  “Of course I would. She’s supportive of my career, unlike you morons. You think she’ll be happy to know you refused to help a friend out?”

  Steven held out his hands. “Come on, Mona. Don’t be like this.”

  “Give me something,” I said. “Just a little tidbit the other reporters won’t pick up on until tomorrow, after the fire department does their investigation.”

  “Fine,” he said. “But promise you won’t tell Colleen about this?”

  “I promise,” I said. “Even though we ar
e having drinks later at O’Hare’s.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Drinks?” he asked, his eyes drifting down to my belly.

  I put my hand over the small five-month swell. “She’s drinking for both of us,” I said. “I’m sticking to the virgins.”

  He rubbed a hand over his face.

  “Okay, fine,” he said. “All I’ll tell you is they’re going to find a bunch of empty, burned-up crates with Spanish writing on them. They’ll probably find some heroin residue, if they choose to test it.”

  “That’s a good tip,” I said, typing it on my phone, then looked up at him. “Where are the drugs now?”

  He gave me a flat look. “Don’t push it.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, and smiled as sweet as I could. “You’re a dream, Steven.”

  “Whatever.” He took a deep breath and looked up at the warehouse then shook his head slowly. “Tell Vince to stop by the bakery tomorrow. We want to talk about… well, just tell him to come by.”

  “I will,” I said.

  “Thanks.” He lingered for a second then looked at me. “If you’re going to mention a source in your article, call me Karl.”

  “Seriously?” I asked.

  “Sure, that was my great-grandfather’s name.”

  “Okay then, Karl,” I said, and made a note of it. Small thing to do for a friend, and I figured he’d be more likely to become Karl in the future if I actually did it. “I appreciate the help.”

  “I’ll see you later, Mona,” he said then looked over his shoulder at Eric. “And you, don’t disrespect her again, you understand me?”

  “But, but you told us not to talk to her,” Eric said.

  “Come on, you fucking prick,” Steven said and walked off.