Ruthless Empire: A Dark Mafia Collection

by Seth Eden

  They took the form of Angelo Varasso saying, “Once you’re in, you never get out.”

  Merciless Queen

  1

  Gabriel

  I winced at the loud cracking as I twisted my head to the left and then the right. It was a new normal my body had developed. I was constantly sore all over as though I’d had the world’s longest workout the day before—cardio and strength. My back always felt tight, my bones were constantly cracking, and standing always caused a painful strain in my knees. I didn’t consider myself the same sprightly boy I’d once been in my teen years, but I was still in my early twenties. It didn’t make sense for my body to be abandoning me the way it was.

  It was stress.

  I was the youngest of four brothers in a crime syndicate family in Philadelphia. My three older brothers, Luca, Marco, and Alessandro, were what I called pure blood. Their mother, Valentina, and their father, Angelo, had brought them into this world knowingly and intentionally. They were lorded over by everyone in our world and raised as princes in this demented royal family, but somewhere along the way, they came to see it as normal. All families had a thing, and this was theirs.

  I was not pure blood. I was the result of a foolish man’s search for something to fill a void he’d created and had every power to fix. I never knew what hole he dug my mom out of. I only knew that she was no longer of this world. The story I was told was that she died in childbirth and my father took me in, but I knew better. My father couldn’t afford the mooching baby mama and bastard child motif. He took me from my mother, and then he took her life, all to keep the mistake of his wandering hands close to his chest.

  I didn’t hate my father for his actions. In fact, I adored him. If my brothers and I were to tell someone about our father, that person would probably be led to believe we were talking about two different men. Actually, they’d probably be led to believe we were talking about four, but the first three could be brothers or cousins, and my dad would be on a whole other planet entirely.

  My dad loved me, and unlike my brothers, he went out of his way to tell me so. If there was anything I resented my dad for, it was that fact. My brothers would say it made me soft, but I preferred to think of it as having made me human. I could see the way my brothers looked at me at my father’s funeral, knowing that he was the one thing that tethered me to this reality. My father spent my whole life convincing me it was in my blood.

  I didn’t have any of Luca’s temperamental bite, any of Marco’s fearless strength, or any of Alessandro’s cunning intelligence. I couldn’t even stand up for myself the way Luca’s wife, Molly, would, or demand respect the way Marco’s wife, Kelly, would, or remain steadfast in the face of pressure like Alessandro’s wife, Willow, would. I didn’t have any of the qualities one would see fit to serve in this organization, and once my father was gone, my brothers didn’t hesitate to make that plain. I wasn’t complaining by any means. Luca and Marco had lightened up when it came to me, though they both carried their late mother’s resentment. Alessandro had always been good to me. He didn’t hate my father the way the older two did. He did his best to look out for me, especially after our dad was killed.

  My brothers had all met their matches, as far as the opposite sex was concerned. It was good for their personalities, but thanks to Marco’s and Alessandro’s wives wanting nothing to do with the business, the Varasso family was down to two, well three if you counted Molly—and I did. Molly was Luca’s wife, and if someone were to line up all four brothers and Molly and put them through a mobster organization basic skills test, Molly would have me beat for sure and probably Marco, too. I might have given her the edge over Alessandro about a year ago, but times had changed quite a bit, and Alessandro seemed to be taking it worse than any of us. He was a different man than my brother of a year ago, and ultimately, it was probably my fault.

  With two brothers gone and weeds starting to grow out of the cracks in our family, I supposed I should have expected the extra weight to be causing some permanent damages.

  “Mr. Gabriel?” I looked up from Marco’s—or my—desk, and one of our house staff had her head poked in the door. “Mr. Luca asked me to send you to his office.”

  The request on its own gave me a headache. “Okay. Thank you.”

  She offered a shallow bow of her head and left. I curved my body over the back of my chair, my spine a regular chorus of cracks and snaps. I stood up, grabbed my phone, and started off for Luca’s office. He had lightened up with me a little, but Alessandro was always something of a buffer between us. Molly had done her best to fill in as a go-between, but there was some work Luca insisted only pass between brothers. As such, Molly wasn’t always around. Alessandro tried to prepare me for being on my own with Luca, but we were just two vastly different people. Luca was the kind of guy who would shove kids into lockers in high school, and I was the kid getting shoved in. Things were always tense between us. He was trying desperately not to be scary, and I was trying desperately not to be afraid. It was like wading through thick, muddy waters.

  I knocked on the large, polished oak doors to his office and waited. When I didn’t hear a response, I threw caution to the wind and started to open the door. Marco and Alessandro typically just helped themselves, but I never felt like I had that right. Even Luca had tried to tell me once that I should just walk in, but his moods with regard to me changed like the wind. I didn’t want to walk in one day and get a bullet to the face because I didn’t know how to be respectful. Fortunately, as the door creaked aside, Luca waved a welcome to me, though he had his phone up to his ear. I closed the door behind me and walked over to sit on the edge of one of the leather chairs opposite his desk.

  “I know. It’s not your fault. It’s just a transition. Sandro will get used to it, I promise.”

  The crow’s feet at the edges of Luca’s eyes were elongated and deep. For such a young man, he looked ten years his senior. Our business had a way of doing that. If there were fountains of youth, there were also fountains of aging, and our organization was more like an ocean.

  “Marco’s there, and now that he has no need for witness protection, he can help more. Ricky has his number, so don’t be afraid to lean on him, okay?” Luca rolled his eyes, and I gathered he was talking to Willow, Alessandro’s wife and the mother of their daughter, Alexis. “Yeah, yeah. I know, no money, although I wish you’d accept it. It would help. All right! All right, I won’t send anything. Just keep me posted, okay? All right, talk to you soon. Bye.”

  Luca dropped his phone to his desk, and his hands immediately combed into his black hair, now long enough to curl around the edges of his face. “God, I would love just one day without this bullshit.”

  “Can you imagine?” I replied. “Just being able to pack up Molly and the kids and fuck off to Disney World for a couple weeks or something.”

  Luca’s hands flowed out of his hair and stabbed into his temples. “Fuck that. We’d go to some island far, far away. Beautiful, endless sea. Clear blue skies.” He groaned. “Molly looks so good in a swimsuit, too.”

  It was endearing to see how much my brother was still in love with his wife, even after all the wedges that had been forced between them. They were like two herculean magnets. Nothing kept them from each other.

  “That sounds nice.” Luca looked over at me and raised an eyebrow, and I panicked. “The island! The island part! Not Molly in a swimsuit. I don’t care about that. Uh, not that I think she would look bad. I’m sure she does look very nice. She’s beautiful.” I started to sweat. “But like a sister. Beautiful in a sister way.” I took a deep breath. “Because I think of Molly as a sister, not as a—”

  “Gabe,” Luca cut me off. “Shut up.”

  I nodded. “Yeah.” All I had to do was be around Luca to be nervous. “Sorry.”

  Luca blew air out of his nose like a dragon trying to decide if it was going to just light everything on fire. “You’ve gotta deal with this nervous energy, man. I’ve got shit with Sandr
o. We’re still on high alert from the Binachis, and I can’t deal with this jittery bullshit.”

  I tried to calm myself, but I could tell it wasn’t working. “Sorry. I’ll work on it.”

  “Stop apologizing. It’s annoying. You didn’t do anything wrong. Just get it together.”

  “Of course. Sorry.” Luca scoffed, and I jumped. “I mean, not that…sorry.”

  God, shut the fuck up, Gabriel.

  “So,” I said, desperate to change the subject. “How’s Willow?”

  “Rough,” Luca replied, obliging my wishes. “Alessandro’s off his rocker a bit out there.”

  My memories collapsed in on me like a suffocating gas. Alessandro on his knees in front of Willow’s family home, unmoving. Willow walking around him with a tear-stained face, saying she didn’t want to see him ever again. He didn’t move for so long, and I just stood there. I could see the demons my dad had left behind, seeping up out of the ground and clinging onto him. If I’d interfered sooner, would he have snapped the way he did? I looked over at the corner of Luca’s desk, where I nearly shattered my skull when Alessandro attacked me. I glanced at the dried crimson bloodstains from Luca’s nose when Alessandro gave him a hard fist to the face. I could have stopped it if I wasn’t so afraid.

  “Gabe.”

  I could hear Luca calling out to me, but I was paralyzed. Stuck in a nightmare that I desperately wanted to be awake from.

  “Gabe.”

  I could have just stopped Alessandro altogether. He wasn’t in good shape, that was clear. I never should have brought him to Willow’s in the first place.

  There was a sharp pain against the back of my head. I looked up, and Molly was staring down at me, her long, black hair hanging just inches from my face as her brown eyes looked me over.

  “Molly?” I questioned. I hadn’t heard her enter.

  “Come back,” she said. “We can’t lose another brother.”

  The memories of Alessandro snapping still haunted me more than I cared to admit. He’d gotten better after my brothers fled to his rescue when he went rogue. He had a baby and got married, and everything seemed okay, but then Willow reported changes in his demeanor. No one could figure it out, but I knew. Alessandro had made a weak attempt to stitch back the pieces of him that had blown out when he thought he lost Willow forever. That seed of evil that had existed within my father, that hadn’t yet truly bloomed in any of his sons, started to vine out. It was taking Alessandro over, and I feared what would happen if we couldn’t figure out how to snip the bud.

  “Sorry.” I scratched my head and then looked up at Luca, fearful. “Sorry.”

  Luca threw himself back in his chair, closing his eyes in frustration and massaging his head. Molly walked over and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “Calm down. Your blood pressure.”

  Luca nodded. Molly was like a lighthouse. As long as she was around, darkness didn’t cling to Luca as much as it did when she wasn’t. “You’re right. Sorry, baby.”

  “How’s Willow?” she asked.

  “I was just telling Gabe that she isn’t great. I told her to reach out to Marco for help with Sandro. They’re both in Cali now, so they should be able to have each other’s backs.”

  Molly leaned back against the big, bay window that looked out over my family’s massive, well-tended garden and hedge maze. It was something my father thought would keep his sons entertained. By entertained, I mean blindfolding us and then leaving us in isolated parts of the maze as children, expecting us to find our way out. I always found it fun, but Luca and Marco always seemed to hate him more for it. Maybe it was his tendency to wake us up in the middle of the night and snatch us out of bed to do it. Maybe they were just searching for reasons to dislike him.

  “I can call Marco later, too,” Molly suggested. “Give him a heads up.”

  “Please. Gabe and I need to focus on trying to figure out what the Binachis are up to. They’ve been quiet for too long. They’ve got to be planning a major retaliation.” Luca pulled a manilla folder off his desk and held it out toward me. “These are some contacts for people who could be working with them. I need you to follow-up and see what you can learn. Rough ‘em up if you have to.”

  My heart sank. I didn’t want to rough anyone up. “Okay.”

  Luca rolled his eyes. I hadn’t hidden it well. “Forget it. Switch.” He handed the folder to Molly. “You follow the leads. Gabe can call Marco.”

  I was as relieved as I was disappointed. I didn’t want Luca to think I couldn’t handle my share of the responsibilities now that Alessandro and Marco were gone, but I’d worked hard not to get my hands dirty in this family, and I didn’t want to tarnish that now. “Sor—”

  Luca glared at me. “I swear to god, if you apologize, I’m coming across this desk.”

  I tucked my head between my shoulders and remained silent.

  Molly tapped the folder on Luca’s head. “Be nice. It’s not a bad thing that he’s a good guy.”

  An indignant suspire left Luca’s lips. “Just go.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. I hopped up out of the chair and walked from the room. I was hopeful it wasn’t a pace that was fleeing in nature, but it probably was. I was halfway down the hallway already when Molly’s voice followed me.

  “Gabe.” I looked back at her, embarrassed. She walked up to me with a warm, if not pitying, look on her face. “Try to be less afraid of him. He loves you. You’re brothers.”

  That was never quite the feeling I got from Luca. Until recently, I don’t even think he would have said so. “Yeah.” I twisted my neck, and it crunched loudly.

  Molly let out a whistle. “That sounds nasty.”

  “It’s been like that for a while,” I admitted, rubbing the side of my neck in search of relief.

  Molly took out her phone, clicked away on it for a minute, and then my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and looked down at it, and she’d sent me a text with just the words ‘Hoga Studio’ in it. “Hoga Studio?”

  “It’s shortened for Holistic Yoga. It’s a yoga studio I go to downtown whenever I’m not too busy. This shit is stressful, and yoga helps. The woman who owns the studio is also a health consultant and does all the classes herself. You should give it a try,” Molly explained.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know that yoga’s my thing.”

  “Gabe, right now, your thing is cowering in fear at your own brother and sounding like an abacus when you move.” She slapped my back as she walked past me. “I’ll call and set up an appointment for you. Just try it once. And don’t forget to call Marco.”

  2

  Stacy

  I balanced a somewhat heavy box on my hip as I stepped through the front door of my parents’ new rambler. Despite that it was just one floor and had a single hallway that ran from one end to the other, it still felt a little too modern for them. I supposed I wasn’t in any position to talk. My house two doors down didn’t even have a standard roof, having sacrificed the typical gabled roof for a flat, sleek look. My parents, at least, had something that came to a point.

  “Those can go in the back bedroom, Stace!” my mom called after me as I entered.

  I waved my free hand through the air. “Got it!”

  There was just something about swimming through pastel-colored walls and a bland, multi-thread count carpet that brought me a little too close to thinking we were sacrificing ourselves. I wanted my parents’ old shag and wood paneling, the dusky smell of sage and incense clinging to the air, and the natural lighting that very nearly eliminated a need for lamps. At least when I’d abandoned Woodstock, New York, about seven months ago, I could still drive the few hours and return to my grassroots. We would sit around my dad’s self-dug fire pit while my mom strummed away at her acoustic guitar and I doodled any small creature I could find. Occasionally, I’d draw my parents, too. My dad, who was rocking a man-bun before it was cool, looked good on paper with his ratty curled beard and freckled face. So did my mom’s wais
t-length blond hair, slowly being invaded by gray, and her blue eyes that still sparked as bright as an ocean in the sun. She always looked so calm when she was playing, and drawing her made me calm, too. Maybe I could convince her to dig the guitar out after we’d finished loading in the boxes.

  I skipped to the left of the door, making my way down the hallway to the door at its end. I nearly leaped out of my skin when I passed a mirror that was set into the wall by design. I still wasn’t quite used to the ever-present vanity of a big city. The incessant need to make sure oneself looked okay was arduous on a good day. Still, my open hand flicked to my lengthy blond beach waves to primp them before journeying to my set of hazel-green eyes to flick an errant eyelash back into place. I was rubbing my thumb along my thin, peach lips before I caught myself and walked away from my reflection. It was already seeping into me, a need for perfection that hadn’t existed when I was just an innocent, young earth child.

  I didn’t like using the term hippie. It evoked images of weed-filled tokes and barely-there souls drifting through life without a worry or a care. Sure, my parents would occasionally partake of a recreational drug, but the by and large of it was that we simply lived a more holistic lifestyle than most. We didn’t own televisions, and our computers had been purchased out of necessity. My mom was potentially still the only person buying stationary kits, and it took several stern talking-tos and about three hundred dollars worth of organic, non-labor, non-animal-tested bath products to convince my dad that showers were a requirement. Not every practice our seventies ancestors had handed down were worth hanging onto, and that one had to go. None of us ate meat, and my parents were totally vegan. I was working on it, but I’d had several unexplained affairs with cheese that I refused to apologize for.