The Ultimate Sin

by Jillian Quinn

  If anyone knew the interior of any strip club in the United States, it was my brothers. They ran a significant portion of the whorehouses and strip clubs across the country on behalf of the family. We had an interest in almost any business involving drugs, whores, guns, and gambling. There was always a slice of the pie, waiting for us to take it.

  I looked at Sonny. “Drive us to AC.”

  We arrived at The Flamingo Lounge around four o’clock in the morning. The parking lot had a few cars scattered about, but for the most part, it was desolate. Only a real degenerate would be at a strip club this early on a Tuesday. Atlantic City was the smaller East Coast version of Las Vegas. And just as corrupt.

  We controlled our fair share of brothels out West and a handful scattered up the Atlantic Ocean, including those we owned along the shore in New Jersey. The DiSalvo crime family owned The Flamingo Lounge and most of the clubs and bars on this stretch along the boardwalk. They helped us break into the business after my father had taken over for Jimmy “Scags” Scaglione. The DiSalvos cut us in on some of the action, the rackets at the casinos included. But we were visitors here and had no place to come down with guns blazing.

  “You let me handle this,” Pete warned, glancing at me over his shoulder in the front seat. “Don’t open that mouth of yours. I can’t walk into the club, demand to see Dante, and then accuse him of taking your girl. There’s an order to things. Understand?”

  I knew the order of things in our world. Like my father, Pete always made it a point to emphasize common sense shit to me, as if I was an errant child who needed a reminder. When it came to Gia, I had no limits. I would do anything to get her back, and that made me a danger to my family. I knew it as much as Pete did. Love made me do crazy shit, and for Gia, I would do anything.

  I held out my hand to keep Pete from going any further. “Got it, bro. Calm down. I won’t say a word.”

  “You’ve been a loose cannon ever since your girl went missing,” he shot back, throwing his arm over the headrest, pinning me down with his menacing gaze. “Let me do the talking. Better yet, you can wait in the fucking car with Sonny.”

  Sonny rolled his eyes at me in the rear view mirror. He was pissed that I somehow managed to get him added to Pete’s shit list. It didn’t take much to annoy my older brother. If it were up to him, he would cut me loose. But the old man had insisted I become a Made man like him and every other man in my family. Being Made wasn’t a choice for a Morelli. It was a rite of passage.

  Pete and Marco exited the car, slamming their doors behind them. I was angry with myself for mouthing off to Pete and for getting both Sonny and me reprimanded for it. I hated the hierarchy in our family.

  Pete allowed Marco to have more freedom than Sonny and me. Even so, Pete was still in charge of all of us. One day he would become the boss of this family. Not me, and certainly not Marco, though I had no doubt Marco wanted the chance to succeed the old man more than Pete.

  Sonny turned around, resting his elbow on the center console. “Thanks for that, dickhead. I’m sick of Pete putting me in the fucking corner because you have to go and have a pissing match with him every hour.”

  “Sorry, Son.” I leaned forward in my seat to meet his gaze. “He makes me so fucking mad. You don’t understand. With Gia missing, I’m not thinking straight.”

  “I miss her, too, Lo. I want her back just as much as you. We will find Gia. And I will help you take down whoever had a hand in her kidnapping.”

  I was about to answer Sonny when I heard the first pop of a gun followed by several others. Without hesitation, Sonny and I got out of the car and headed to the entrance of the strip club. Pete and Marco had only been inside for a few minutes. I leaned against the brick wall, to the right of the door, and Sonny pulled it out toward us, using it to shield his body.

  I poked my head into the building and caught a glimpse of an empty stage and tables. Unlike most strip clubs, a bouncer wasn’t posted up at the door. He had to be close by, though. With my gun in hand and Sonny covering my back, I took one step into the club. But Sonny tugged on my shoulder, releasing his hold on the door as he moved me out of the way. A bullet sunk into the metal. One more. Then another.

  We couldn’t go inside, not without getting shot. So, we waited a few seconds, contemplating our next move.

  “We can’t leave my brothers in there,” I told Sonny.

  “Go around the building,” he whispered. “There’s another entrance the girls use. It leads to the dressing rooms.”

  Marco had taken Sonny under his wing while I was in college. It was my job to follow Paulie and learn how to be my father’s consigliere. And it was Sonny’s job to learn the family business. My brothers preferred to stick with whores, where my cousin Tony and his crew liked to deal in drugs and stolen cars. Our businesses were split between different crews and family members, so no one had too much power. But my father controlled all of us. We were pawns in his game, nothing more than his humble servants.

  I sucked in a deep breath, holding my gun out in front of me. “Lead the way.”

  Sonny glanced up at the security camera on the wall above us to check its movements. He waited until it turned to the left before he got in front of me and inched along the wall. I followed behind him, glancing over my shoulder as we made our way around back. We snuck into the building through the back door and into a large, open dressing room, full of vanities and racks of clothes.

  The shots we’d heard from around front were growing closer. Strangely, the sounds comforted me. It meant my brothers were still alive and shooting their way out of the club. After losing Gia, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing my brothers too. Even if they were bastards most of the time, they were still my blood.

  Sonny peeled back a curtain and stole a glance, before releasing his hold on the fabric. He took a few steps back, his gun drawn and ready to fire. A few seconds later, my brothers ran through the curtain past us with blood on their faces.

  “Let’s go!” Pete yelled, pushing open the heavy back door.

  Following behind Pete and Marco, I took off with Sonny on my rear. We hauled ass around the side of the building, with two men behind us. They fired several shots which barely missed my ear. Pete and Marco took off toward the bar next door. He ordered Sonny to get the car. Like a good soldier, Sonny listened to Pete, but I wasn’t about to let him go alone. He needed backup.

  Pete and Marco waited off to the side of a dumpster at the edge of the parking lot, while Sonny and I used the few cars around us for cover. My brothers lucked out and lost their tail. The two men followed Sonny and me, continuing to shoot at us. They either had the worse aim ever, or someone was watching over us. Each bullet barely grazed our bodies. We made it to the car just as another bullet hit the fender.

  Sonny peeled out of the lot and drove over to where Marco and Pete were waiting for us. My brothers got in the back seat and slammed their doors as Sonny drove off the lot. The bullets stopped once we were on Pacific Avenue.

  I turned around in my seat to face Pete and Marco. “What the fucked was that about?”

  Pete wiped the blood on his forehead with his hand, smearing some of it down the side of his face. He was out of air, his breathing shallow. “I asked to speak to Dante. His men told us to wait for him in a private room off the back of the building. Something was off. I could feel it. So, I decided to cut our losses and bail.”

  “But Dante had other plans,” Marco added. “We had to shoot our way out of there. He had six men on us. The whole thing was a setup.”

  It wasn’t until I took a better look that I realized Pete was bleeding, and that it wasn’t the blood of a man he killed. “You need a doctor.”

  Pete rolled his eyes at me. “I’m fine. Nothing a bottle of whiskey and a blow job can’t fix.”

  I shook my head, laughing. “Suit yourself.”

  Pete glanced out the window as Atlantic City passed us by. “Gia wasn’t there. Two girls were dancing on the left stage, but I
didn’t see her anywhere. If Dante has Gia, she’s not at the club.”

  “None of this makes sense, Pete.” I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from blowing up. Rage bubbled inside my chest, which always fueled me to do stupid things. “Why would he send me a video of Gia at his club if he didn’t want us to come after her?”

  “We did what Dante wanted,” Pete shot back. “He lured us there to kill us.”

  “Is he on Enzo’s side now? I thought Pops was on good terms with the DiSalvos.”

  Pete blew out a puff of air, frustrated. “So did I.”

  “Whatever Pop did behind our backs is blowing up in our faces.”

  He pointed his finger at me. “Don’t talk about Pop like that. He wouldn’t put all of us in danger without warning us first.”

  “Dad only cares about himself, Pete.” I gripped the headrest, my teeth clenched in anger. “When will you see that for yourself? You’re so blind when it comes to him. We’re nothing more than toys he takes out when he wants to play with us.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth, Angelo.” Pete’s voice rumbled in the quiet air.

  “Your loyalty to him will be the death of us all.”

  I should have listened to his warning. Before I could move my head, Pete leaned forward, gripped me in his hand, and slammed my head into the window.

  An intense pain burrowed into my skull and spread down my back and arms. “Fuck,” I screamed, reaching for Pete’s hand.

  He released his grip on me and sank back into his seat. “When will you ever fucking listen? That mouth will be the death of you. It’s probably the reason your girl’s gone.”

  I wanted to swing at Pete, but I knew better than to talk back. He would only make it worse for me once the car stopped. Whether I liked it or not, Pete was in charge. Being a member of his crew wasn’t like showing up late to work and losing pay as my punishment. When one of us fucked-up, we either got the shit beat out of us, or paid in some embarrassing way that satisfied Pete’s sick sense of humor.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Marco broke the silence in the car.

  Pete turned to look at Marco and shrugged. “We need time to plan. It’s obvious Dante’s working with Enzo and Big John.”

  “Enzo’s turned all of our allies against us.” Marco leaned his head back and pushed a hand through his hair, agitated. “How the fucked did he manage that?”

  “We still have Sal,” Pete countered. “He might not have another location for Enzo, but he sure as hell knows who Enzo’s working with.”

  “What about Gia?”

  Pete narrowed his eyes at me. “What about her? We have bigger things to worry about. Whoever took her is after all of us. Every war has casualties.”

  I ground my teeth together. “Gia won’t be one of them.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “The other families must want something from Pop.” I was so pissed my anger shook through me. “Otherwise, why are they doing all this shit? Why take Gia? Why would they lure us to AC, or turn Enzo and his men against us?”

  Pete folded his arms over his chest, his deep brown irises fixed on me. In the dark, his eyes reminded me of shards of onyx, so dark and cold they had no life to them. “With Pop and all of us out of the way, that leaves room for the other families to step in and choose someone they want to run our city, and that’s not gonna happen. Over my dead fucking body. Let them come for us. We’ll be ready next time.”

  An eerie silence filled the air. None of us spoke a word on the ride back to Philly. We were preparing for a war, one I wasn’t sure we could win without help from the other families.

  Without an ally, I wasn’t sure I would get Gia back alive.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Angelo

  I stared across the desk at my father with my arms crossed over my chest and my teeth gritted in anger. After what had happened in Atlantic City, Sonny drove my brothers and me straight to my father’s compound in South Jersey. Pete filled my father in on the specifics, while the rest of us sat and listened.

  The old man fixed his gaze on me, the corner of his mouth curled up. “How could you be so stupid?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Me? What did I do this time? I’m not the one who went into the club. I sat in the car and did as I was told. I followed Pete’s orders.”

  He leaned forward, his hands balled into fists on the oak desk. “You sent your brothers on another mission to find Gianna, and all of you could have been killed. We are in the middle of a war, Angelo. There are more important things than finding your fiancée.”

  “I made the call, Pop,” Pete said to defend me.

  “It was a bad call,” Dad shot back.

  “You made a promise to Lorenzo Carlini that you would find Gia,” I said to my father. “You made the same promise to me.” I stood up, kicking my chair behind me. “I have done everything you’ve ever asked of me. All I ask is that you do everything in your power to make a deal with the DiSalvos to get Gia back. Tell Dante to name his price. I will pay it. I’m the one they want. Not Gia.”

  “She’s your biggest weakness. Powerful men like to exploit weaknesses.” He moved his chair out from the desk, his gaze traveling between Sonny to me. “Leave us. I need to speak to Pete and Marco. Alone.”

  “How am I supposed to one day become your advisor when you keep so many secrets from me?”

  My father smirked at me. “When you learn some respect, Angelo. Now, go. Take Sonny with you.”

  Even though I wanted to argue, I tipped my head toward the door, instructing Sonny to follow behind me. Sonny closed the door without speaking a word until we were halfway down the long, dark hallway in my father’s basement.

  “Pete’s right about your mouth, Lo. Every time you talk, I get the shit end of the stick along with you.”

  “Sorry,” I growled, and I meant it. Sonny suffered as much as I did. It wasn’t fair to him. He was obedient, paid his dues, and he was punished for being my best friend.

  We turned around a dark corner lit by old camping lanterns. My father conducted all of his business in the unfinished basement which spanned most of the mansion he used in times of war. For the past few years, he’d lived here with my mother to ensure her safety. It was easier for him to survive off the radar, out in the suburbs of New Jersey, instead of in the limelight in Philadelphia. We all had targets on our heads. My father had the biggest one of us all.

  “Do we hang a right or left down here?” Sonny pointed at the split in the basement, each path almost identical.

  I stopped for a second to analyze the curvature of the wall. One was straighter than the other. It was the defining characteristic that reminded me of the correct path we needed to take. The basement was confusing-as-fuck by design. My father had it structured like a labyrinth, with its dead ends and turns that led us in various directions.

  “We need to make a left here,” I told him.

  There were entrances at different points of the house and secret passages similar to mail chutes. The house could survive a nuclear bomb. But in our case, it was designed to withstand an attack by the warring families. Or even a raid from the FBI. We had the occasional visits from the Feds, but they never had enough evidence to connect us to our crimes.

  “No matter how many times I come down here with you or your brothers, I will never understand this maze. It doesn’t help that your dad hates lights for some reason.”

  “That’s because this part of the house is disconnected from the rest of the place. It runs off its own energy source. The old man is paranoid about the Feds getting a drop on him. The basement is encased in so much cement they couldn’t hear a peep down here if they tried. The only way the Feds would get a wire down here is if they planted it on one of our guys.”

  “Yeah, but your dad has all of us checked before we’re even allowed in his office.”

  I shrugged. “You can never be too careful when you’re in his position. A lot of men are line after him, waiting to take his place
.”

  We ascended the stairs at the end of the hall two at a time. When we reached the top landing, I pushed open the door and shielded my face from the bright lights in my eyes. Compared to the dingy basement, the main hallway, with all the creams and whites, was the polar opposite. I blinked a few times until my eyes adjusted to my new surroundings.

  Sonny cupped my shoulder with his hand, taking me by surprise. “We’ll get Gia back.”

  “I know but in what condition? What if she’s not the same woman?”

  He shut the door behind us, and we walked down the hall to the foyer. “Would it matter?”

  “No, of course not. I didn’t mean it like that.” I sucked in a deep breath and raked my fingers through my hair, tugging at the ends. “I’m losing patience. My dad doesn’t seem to think finding Gia is important. We had a deal. He’s breaking that deal by telling us what we have going on with Enzo is more important.”

  “I hate to say this, but he’s right. I don’t want to see Gia hurt. She’s in the middle of all this, whether she was supposed to be or not. Innocent people always get caught in the middle of wars. It’s inevitable. Sometimes, there’s nothing we can do to prevent it.”

  “I could have done something,” I shot back.

  Two men in dark suits open the front doors for us. The humid summer air smacks me in the face, the stickiness already making my suit stick to me. With a few more weeks left until fall, the heat has been intensifying instead of letting up. I was more of a cold weather person. So was Gia. I couldn’t stop wondering how she was being treated. After seeing the video of her stripping, I was sure she was being tortured for my sins.

  “No, you couldn’t.” Sonny hit the button on the key fob to open the car doors for us.

  I looked at him over the roof, irritated and not with him. My best friend was only trying to help me. “I killed Antonio. This is my fault.”

  We drove for about ten minutes before either of spoke again. I was sick with guilt, fear, and anger. None of those feelings were meant for anyone in my life. I was mad at myself. By killing Antonio Mancuso, I had set in motion a chain of events, which could lead to Gia’s death.