Warning [Part Three]

by A. D. Justice

  “You know, when tough guys use those in movies, they make it look so easy. But the reality is very different. You’ll break your fingers if you try to throw a straight-on punch with them on.” Lorenzo spoke calmly, but I sensed a hint of sadness in him. I didn’t get the feeling that was because of what I was about to do to him, though.

  “You don’t speak to her.” Damon grabbed Lorenzo’s face, squeezing and shaking Lorenzo’s jaw as he spoke through gritted teeth. “I will rip your fucking throat out if you utter one wrong word.”

  Damon released him with a violent snap of his wrist, making Lorenzo’s head jerk to the side. When Lorenzo turned his gaze back to Damon’s, there was no anger or hatred in it. But his confident mask had dissolved, revealing his vulnerability.

  Lorenzo nodded at Damon. “You don’t have to do this, you know. There’s a better way to handle this problem, Damon.”

  “Better than blowing your head off? This, I’ve got to hear.”

  Lorenzo drew in a deep breath, straightening his back as he inhaled. “We could work together.”

  “Why the fuck would I ever work with you on anything?” I stepped forward, piercing him with the daggers flying from my eyes. “Why do you think you deserve to live after you murdered my mother?”

  He looked to Damon and lifted one eyebrow. Damon nodded, giving Lorenzo permission to speak to me. “Choose your words wisely. If you upset her, you’ll lose your fucking tongue.”

  “Jillian, I didn’t kill your mother.”

  “You ordered your men to do it because you didn’t have the balls to do it yourself. But I do have the balls to kill you for issuing the order, though.”

  “I also didn’t order my men to kill her. My father did, no matter how hard I fought against his decision.”

  “You’d better start from the beginning and explain exactly what you mean. Tell me everything, or I swear to God, you’ll wish you were dead before I finish with you. You’re the one who gave me the ultimatum to kill Damon or you’d kill my mother.”

  “Yes, I did do that, but just hear me out. My father has been trying to start an all-out war for some time now. He wants huge shootouts in the street between our families. He wants a show of brute force that resonates through every borough and daily media coverage of our battles. The bigger, the better. When he positions the Sanfratello family just right, he has a plan to annihilate all of the Marchetti family.

  “One step in that plan was to take Damon out of the picture, one way or another. You were a convenient target that day my father’s men shot at you two on the street. They were supposed to hit Damon, but make it look like they were after you. That way, Damon getting hit in the cross fire could be explained away.

  “My threat to you was supposed to make you run back to Louisiana to be with your mother, knowing Damon would follow you. He assumed responsibility for your safety the first time you were seen with him, and my father knew that. Dad said Damon would go after you, at least long enough to set his Sanfratello takeover plans in motion. That’s what Dad told me, anyway. I found out too late to do anything about his plans to kill you and your mother when you arrived. That order never came from me, Jillian.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “The Underboss and Consigliere of my family just walked out, leaving me here to die. They want you to kill me for several reasons. First, it’ll validate the war they’re going to wage against the Marchettis anyway. But it’ll ensure the smaller factions side with them.

  “There are very few laws we follow outside of our own code of honor. Killing a made man is one of those laws we just don’t break. A Marchetti-sanctioned hit on me would guarantee other families would align with my father because they wouldn’t trust the Marchetti name anymore.”

  “And the second reason?”

  “Second, they already knew I was running that scam, taking money from our own men and our allies. Do you really think my father cares about that? He only used it as leverage against me because it fits his cause. I’ve been saving that money for the past year, squirreling away as much as possible, because I’ve been planning my getaway. That money was my ticket out of this life. They’re using it as a flimsy excuse to leave me here with you—like they don’t take money from everyone they know.”

  Lorenzo dropped his eyes to the floor, and I stood there staring at him, my mind reeling from all he’d shared. How could I doubt what he was telling me? He knew I was hell-bent on killing him. He had nothing to lose by telling me the truth now. But then, on the other hand, how could I believe him? He could very well try to play me by feeding me lies and half-truths until I let him walk away.

  He looked lost. He looked as if his best friend had died. He looked as if he’d just experienced the ultimate betrayal in his life.

  If what he said was the truth, then I supposed he had also felt the bitter sting of betrayal. His own father sacrificed him for a chance to be the area’s mafia king. Geno was ruled by blind ambition and ruthless intentions. Even his own son wasn’t given advance warning or the least bit of protection.

  How could I possibly know fact from fiction? How could I know with absolute certainty he had told me the truth? How could I let him live with even the slightest possibility that he was the one responsible for murdering my mother?

  I cut my eyes to Damon to gauge his reaction to the overload of information. His expression was passive, giving nothing away about his inner thoughts. Whether he believed Lorenzo wasn’t part of the equation. In his mind, Lorenzo was a Sanfratello, and all Sanfratellos were the enemy.

  That wasn’t good enough for me.

  Then I looked at Carrie, hoping she’d be an easier book to read than her older brother was. How I’d ever missed the signs before that moment was beyond me. Maybe my own path to vengeance had blinded me to everything else. Maybe keeping my secret plans for the meeting with Lorenzo had prevented me from seeing she had her own secrets.

  The one and only fact I was certain of was that Damon had no clue whatsoever.

  Everyone had so many fucking secrets. Their world seemed to create them out of the blue.

  “And reason number three why they want you dead is because they found out you’re secretly in love with a Marchetti, right? They knew part of your escape plan included taking her with you—and that would hurt the Sanfratellos more than it would the Marchettis. With your father making a bid for top dog, his son running off with a member of the rival family would cast a lot of doubt on his ability to manage his family.”

  Dead silence filled the room.

  “I’m right, aren’t I, Carrie?”

  She wouldn’t look at me.

  Lorenzo wouldn’t look at me.

  Damon couldn’t look at me. He couldn’t stop his eyes from darting back and forth between Carrie’s and Lorenzo’s faces, waiting for one of them to crack.

  Pieces of the puzzle that never fully made sense began to fall into place. Carrie’s change of heart over trapping Lorenzo with the intent to kill him was the main one. She said she wanted to make Damon pay us the fee he’d posted on the dark web, but she had plenty of her own money. She ran her own illegal schemes and had stolen more than enough money through insider trading and blackmail. She didn’t need the chump change Damon offered in comparison.

  “Did you think the two of you would run away together when we came here tonight, Carrie? Was that your plan all along?”

  Lorenzo looked at Carrie, hope brimming in his eyes and anticipation covering his features. “Is she right, Carrie?”

  “Hold up just a fucking minute!” Damon bellowed, running his fingers through his hair with one hand and pointing his gun at Lorenzo with the other. “Just wait a goddamn minute. Are you saying this is true? You’ve been sleeping with my sister?”

  “Put the gun down, Damon.” Carrie stepped between Damon and Lorenzo, her hands on her h
ips and a stern expression on her face.

  “Yes, Damon, put the gun down. You know better than to point it at your sister.” The deep, commanding voice bellowed from the entryway, causing all four of our heads to jerk in that direction.

  Vincenzo and Uncle Leo had joined our spontaneous gathering. While Damon’s, Carrie’s, and Lorenzo’s eyes were glued to the Boss and Underboss of the family, I turned my attention back to Lorenzo. He wasn’t breathing at all. He’d completely frozen in place, as if instantly changing into a statue would save him from the Marchetti family members who quickly surrounded him. The intense fear radiating from him was palpable because he knew his life was over. He had a chance of talking his way out of the situation by appealing to Damon and me. But not Vincenzo.

  “Daddy.” Carrie’s one-word plea escaped on a whisper, but Vincenzo didn’t miss it.

  “Carrie, what exactly did you think would come of this relationship? Did you think I’d give you two my blessing?” Vincenzo leveled his penetrating gaze on his daughter, expecting her to give an answer.

  “No, sir. I never thought you’d give us your blessing.” The daring, confident woman I’d grown to know transformed into a fearful child, afraid she’d disappointed her father beyond repair.

  “No, you knew better, didn’t you? So, what was your plan, then? To run away with him, leave your family behind, break your mother’s heart?”

  “I didn’t think of it that way, to be honest. All I wanted was to be happy.”

  Vincenzo appeared taken aback by her admission. He hadn’t expected that response. The doting father in him wanted his daughter to be happy. The rigid boss in him didn’t want her to be happy with a Sanfratello. The man in him was conflicted about which of his sides should win the argument playing out in his mind.

  “You’re my niece, Carrie, and you know I’ve loved you like one of my own kids since the day you were born. So believe me when I say, you’ll be happy. Just not with him. Get up, Lorenzo. You’re coming with us.” Leo stepped toward Lorenzo, ready to use excessive force if necessary to make Lorenzo leave with him.

  I could almost hear Carrie’s heart break as the tears ran down her cheeks, but she stood motionless in place. Damon was conflicted—he was visibly upset over his sister’s broken heart, and he wanted to protect her. But his position in the family wouldn’t allow him to act on his feelings.

  Vincenzo. Damon. Carrie. All three wished for a different outcome, another way to handle the conflict before us, but none was willing to break the shackles of their family laws that held them prisoner.

  Then I felt it—the flutter in my lower abdomen. My babies, warm and secure inside me, perfectly happy in their own little world.

  Chapter Three

  Damon

  Never in a million fucking years would I had believed I’d be caught in the middle of such a shitstorm. My sister had always been impetuous and pulled a lot of harebrained schemes in the past, but fucking the son of the Sanfratello Family Boss took the damn cake. Apparently, it was the night for getting caught with my dick in my hand and unprepared for visitors since Dad and Uncle Leo walked in during that hell of a revelation.

  Then my strong, independent, fearless sister started crying.

  Fuck if that didn’t tear me apart inside. She never cried—not even when all of us boys would gang up on her when she was little. She’d stand toe-to-toe with any of us and put us in our fucking places. But she wouldn’t disrespect our father, especially not in front of Jillian and Lorenzo. Her hard veneer cracked because she knew what would happen to the man she loved when Dad and Uncle Leo left with him. And she blamed herself for it.

  Then I put myself in her shoes, thinking about what I’d do if the situation was different and they forbade me from being with Jillian. But before I could speak up to stop Uncle Leo from his mission, Jillian beat me to it.

  “No!” She stepped between Leo and Lorenzo. The brass knuckles were gone, and her gun was held flat against her stomach in an aggressive move. “You’re not taking him anywhere. This was my plan, my sting operation—you have no right to step in and try to take control of the situation.”

  “Jillian, that’s not how this works, cara.” My father’s patience in business was nonexistent, but he at least attempted to use a soothing tone with her.

  “That is exactly how this works, Mr. Marchetti. You interrupted me, not the other way around. I’m calling the shots here. If you want to get to Lorenzo right now, you’ll have to go through me. I will not just step aside, and I will not back down. If you think you can hurt the mother of your grandchildren and get away with it, by all means, give it your best shot.”

  Uncle Leo glanced at Dad, then extended his arm with a quick reflex and pushed Jillian aside, bulldozing past her. When she fell to the hard concrete floor, all I saw was red. The next thing I knew, my father was yelling at me.

  “Damon, let him up! Let go of him, son! Right now!”

  I didn’t remember any of the details regarding how, but when I came back to myself, my hand was firmly wrapped around Leo’s neck. His face was a deep red, his eyes were bugged out, and his mouth opened and closed, gasping for air. Both of his hands clawed at my hand, scraping my skin off in his feeble attempts to break my death grip on him.

  I leaned down, my face barely an inch from his to make sure he got my full message. “You don’t fucking touch her—ever. Being the underboss doesn’t give you the right to push the mother of my children. If you ever pull that shit again, they’ll find Hoffa before they find the first piece of you.”

  When I pushed off of Leo, he sat up, holding his throat and struggling to inhale enough oxygen to replenish his burning lungs. Dad helped him stand but didn’t attempt to hide his anger at Leo. “Go wait in the car,” Dad growled.

  Leo glanced around the room at the rest of us, contemplating what he should do next versus what he wanted to do. I embarrassed him in front of too many others. That wouldn’t and couldn’t go unanswered. No matter what they planned for me, I wouldn’t change a single thing about my response. No fucking way would he get away with putting his hands on Jillian in anger. He was lucky he was still able to breathe on his own.

  When his angry gaze landed on Jillian, it lingered there a second too long. He was clearly laying the blame for the shift in family dynamics squarely on her shoulders. I moved to stand directly in front of her, hiding her small frame with my large one, and stared him down.

  “Careful, old man. You won’t be so lucky a second time.”

  “Leo. Outside. Now.” Dad’s thinning patience was obvious in the gruff tone of his commands. Once Leo was out of earshot, Dad turned his ire on me. “Do you have any idea what you have done, Damon?”

  “What I’ve done? Really, Dad? You just watched him knock Jillian to the ground. She’s four months pregnant with my babies, for fuck’s sake. And you’re just okay with him doing that?”

  “No, but that was for me to handle. Not you.”

  “Yeah? Maybe he’ll walk into your house and knock Mom to the floor next. Are you just going to sit there and watch, let him get away with it because of who he is? Have a little talk with him later to explain why that’s wrong? Do you really expect me or any of your other sons to just sit there and not do anything?”

  The mere mention of anyone doing that to Mom was enough to jar him. I immediately detected the fury that flashed across his face before he reined it back under control.

  “That’s what I thought. Don’t expect me to just fucking accept it any more than you would.”

  “You know every broken rule has a consequence, Damon. Leo has his own for what he did. It wasn’t your place to dole out the punishment for it—it was mine. You overstepped your bounds, you’ll have to face the consequences for that. Jillian disrespected Leo and me, she’ll have to face the consequences for her actions. You know this is how the family works.”r />
  “I’m actually seeing a lot of shit I never thought I’d see in the family, Dad. But now that I know your immediate family is at the bottom of your importance list, it makes my decision a little easier to make.”

  “What decision is that?”

  “It’s past time for me to start my own family and leave your definition of family behind. I’ve given enough of myself to further your cause. That’s all I’ve done for my entire life—put you and the family first. Then Leo disrespected Jillian and me in that manner, and you think I’m not entitled as a man, as a father, to protect what’s mine. I’m not living like that. It’s not in me. That isn’t how I was raised.”

  “You know what happens once you leave the family, Damon.” Sadness and dread infused his tone.

  “Take care, Dad. Your family is disappearing before your very eyes. Next time you look around, you may be standing all alone.”

  After cutting Lorenzo’s bonds, I hoisted him up out of his chair with one hand while guiding a stunned Jillian toward the back door with the other. Carrie wiped the tears from her face and met Dad’s uncertain stare.

  “Goodbye, Daddy.” Her voice broke on his name, echoing the sound of her heart shattering in her chest.

  Dad remained in his same spot, watching with a stoic expression as the four of us walked out the back door. I cast one last glance over my shoulder when I said my goodbyes.

  “Give Mom our love. Tell her we’ll miss her.”

  The scrape and creak of the big metal door closing marked the ending of one era in my life and the beginning of another. The new one would be without my parents and my extended family, but Jillian and our children would be front and center in my life.

  “Jilly, are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

  “I’m fine, Damon. But what have you done? Go back in there and make up with your father while you still can.” Jillian put her hand on my arm, squeezing tighter with each word.

  “Damon was right in his decision, Jillian. Uncle Leo never should’ve touched you. Dad shouldn’t have allowed it, and he shouldn’t have called Damon down. That scenario couldn’t have played out any other way.” Carrie drew in a deep breath, trying to calm her own frayed nerves.