by Melony Ann
“We go in like we always do. We stick to the plan. We rely on each other. We rely on our team. That’s what we do.” I close my eyes again. “We need to sleep, Jason.” I feel him lay on the bed next to me and glance at him, but say nothing.
Ever since Jason was a kid, whenever he’s feared something, he’s climbed in my bed. Obviously the older we’ve gotten, the less he’s done that. He hasn’t in many, many years. Probably since he was six and had a nightmare we all were killed in an explosion.
I can tell how scared he is right now, though. It’s not like when we were kids, but I’ve always been Jason’s calming force. No one, not even our parents, has been able to calm him like me. Most of the time, just my presence is enough to ease his nerves and fears.
He curls up on his side, and I know he’s watching the door. I sigh and sit up. “Switch me sides, Jas.”
He glances at me before he sits up and moves to the other side of the bed. “Thanks.”
I lay down with my back to Jason, facing the door. It doesn’t take long before my brother’s breathing evens out. I glance over my shoulder and see he’s sleeping peacefully. I know he’s calmer. No matter the dangers we may face tonight, I’m happy to be the person that eases his mind now.
***
I lay prone in the dirt hidden by brush and the dark as fuck night. You’d think with all the lights and traffic in L.A., there wouldn’t be a chance in hell of being dark. But here we are. Shielded from unwanted attention by the midnight sky.
I’ve never had an issue with darkness. Even as a child, darkness was never a fear. I’ve never feared anything except losing someone I love.
Before every single mission I’ve ever been on, I’ve always done one thing. I’ve always made sure my loved ones know that I love them. After every mission I make sure everyone is accounted for. If one of my brother’s isn’t with me or father, I call them. I call my mother to check in. But the one thing I’ve always done before is close my eyes and run my fingers across the worn leather band tied around my wrist.
It was given to me long ago by my grandfather. He said it always brought him the confidence he needed to go into battle and come out alive. It seemed to work for him because he died peacefully in his sleep a few years ago. He had heart complications. One night it stopped beating, but he felt no pain. He died with a smile on his face.
“Ready to go, Cobra two?” my dad’s deep voice says into my ear piece.
I clear my mind and focus. I know there’s six guards inside. I know Matthew Lucinio is inside with his wife and two sons. I know there’s guards outside, and I know how many. I know my team is ready to strike given the command. I know where the fucker is keeping Mia.
Jason lays prone next to me. Nick is with dad. I look at Jason. He nods. “Cobra two ready,” I say.
“Everyone move in. Take your targets on the way. Go,” dad commands. We all move with calculated precision to the dark and still house. Jason and I slide silently along the back of the house until we reach the stairs leading to the basement. We stealthily walk down them until we reach the door. Our mission is Mia.
“I really don’t like this, Ry. Something isn’t right.”
“I feel it, Jas, but we need to trust our team.” I quietly jimmy the door open. Jason and I slip inside keeping our eyes peeled for any danger in the dark. Right where our surveillance said she would be, I find Mia in the middle of the room tied to a chair and completely naked.
“Jesus. What the fuck did they do to her?”
“Don’t ask questions now. We need to get her out of here. Cover me.”
“Ryan?” she moans weakly.
“Yeah, Mia. It’s me. We got you.”
“They…” She starts to cry as I unlock the handcuffs around her wrist.
“I know, sweetheart. Let us get you out of here. Don’t talk.” I pull her up. She collapses. I catch her and lift her into my arms. “Cobra two and Cobra three have the princess.”
“Get her to safety.” I pause on my way to the door and meet Jason’s eyes. “Who the fuck said that? That wasn’t dad.”
Jason immediately closes the door and raises his weapon doing a sweep of the basement. “We need a way out.”
Mia tightens her arms around my neck. “Wh-what’s h-happening?”
“Get us out of here, Jason,” I say.
“Ryan, don’t come into the house! They have us surrounded! Get out!” dad yells into the ear piece. Jason and I immediately take them out and stomp on them.
“Ryan, what do we do?” Jason asks, panicking.
“First, we don’t panic.” I slowly let Mia down and take off my bulletproof vest. I quickly take off my black long sleeve shirt and give it to her. “Put that on.” She takes it shakily, choking back sobs. I put my hands on both of her shoulders. “Mia, honey. Look at me.” She grips my arms and does as she’s told. “You trust me, right?”
“Y-yes. Yes. I trust you.”
I help her put the shirt on. “Then you need to trust me when I tell you that I’m going to get us out of this. I need to save my family. I need you to be strong for me. Can you do that?” I put my vest back on over my black t-shirt.
She nods. “Yes.”
I quickly take the Glock I keep strapped to my leg and give it to her. “You’re dad’s a cop. Please tell me you’ve shot a gun before.”
“At… the… range. At targets.”
“Anyone but me or Jason or Nick or my father come down here, shoot them. Understand?”
“It’s dark! How will I know?” She hesitantly takes the gun.
“Code word,” Jason says. “If you don’t hear us say racoon, you shoot.”
I nod. “Racoon. Got it?”
“Yes,” she says as she nods.
“Good. I want you to hide. Go.”
“Promise you’ll come back for me.”
I hug her to me a moment. “Mia, I won’t leave you here. Now go.” My eyes have adjusted pretty well to the dark. I see her hide behind a few crates. I ready my rifle and turn to Jason. “We go up. We open the door. I go low. You go high.”
“Got it.”
I lead us up the stairs. At the top, I take a deep breath. I kick the door open and have no time to react before a hail of gunfire reigns down. Jason and I dive for the ground and scurry for any kind of cover. We crawl around a corner and come face to face with our team.
“I told you to stay down there! What the fuck were you thinking?” dad yells.
“Dad, please! Stop talking!” Nick looks at me. “Matthew shot him point blank to the chest!”
Everything seems to go in slow motion. Jason is covering his head and staring in horror at the scene in front of us. Three bodies bleeding on the ground, all good guards. Dad is covered in blood laying on the ground. Nick is crying, also covered in blood, as he keeps pressure on dad’s wound. Our guards are shooting into the other room. Bullets are ricocheting all around.
“Advance!” someone yells. I don’t know who, but I shake my head, forcing myself to snap out of it.
I look at Jason and Nick. “Get him out of here!” I point to two of my guards. “You and you. Cover them! Go!” My commanding voice snaps everyone into action. I stand and lead who I have left around the corner. The shooting is deafening, but I need to protect my family. If I can keep everyone in here on me, it’ll give them a chance to get away.
When the gunfire settles, I don’t know how long of an amount of time later, I’m still standing with almost all of my team. Bodies lay strewn all over the room… except one. One is on his knees looking up at me. My gun is levelled between his eyes. He can’t be more than a teenager. It has to be one of the sons.
“What’s your name?” I growl.
The kid looks up at me with tears in his eyes. “Alex,” he whispers.
For the first time in my life, my finger shakes on the trigger. I don’t know why, but something about this kid doesn’t seem to hit me right. Killing him feels… like the wrong thing to do. I lower the gun a little. He watc
hes my every move with curiosity and total terror.
“You’re one of the sixteen-year-old twins,” I say as the intel we gathered on the Lucinio Mafia comes back to me. “You’re the one in the line to take over.” I glare and raise my gun back to his head.
“Yes! But I don’t want it!” He holds his hands up in surrender, and the tears he fought to hold back start falling. “My brother, Josh, wants it. He’s better fit for the job! He wants to turn it legit, and our father doesn’t want that so he’s trying to force it on me.” He looks up at me. “I don’t want it. I don’t want any of this. You have to believe me.”
“Where’s your father and brother now?”
“I made Josh run. He didn’t want to, but I made him. My father fled as soon as you started advancing. Someone had to stay and lead. He made me do it. I wanted to run, too, but I couldn’t leave my brother behind, and I don’t know where he ran. Let me make sure he’s okay. Let me find him. Please. And then I don’t care what you do to me as long as he’s safe.” He looks at me with the sincerest eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s not very good at hiding emotion.
I lower my gun and give him a hand up. “You really don’t want this?”
He takes my hand, and I pull him up. “No. I want to go to college and get the fuck out of this life. My father has other plans. He’s not afraid to use violence to get it either.” He holds out his arms, and I see more scratching and bruising then I’ve ever seen on anyone. He lifts his shirt, and I hiss at the purplish bruises all over his chest.
“Fuck.”
“This beating was for getting in his way of getting to my brother.”
“Ryan, we’re clear. There’s no one else here. We checked every room. The bird got away. We can’t find the wife or other son.”
I look up as Blaze walks in the room. “Clear out. Gather everyone and leave.”
His mouth nearly hits the ground. “But what about getting information out of him?” He nods to Alex.
“You have your orders. Get out. Now.”
He nods. “Yes, sir.”
I wait until it’s just me and Alex left in the room. Alex looks up at me. “He won’t go after you again. He barely escaped with his life and lost I don’t know how many guards.”
“I’ll deal with it when he does. And you’re going to help me. If you don’t want this, you’ll help me keep him at bay.”
“I planned to take over and hand control over to Josh, but he’d never allow that. He’d kill us both. I don’t know how I can help you. I don’t have much sway.”
“You’re going to feed me information. Give me your phone.” He hands it over with no questions. I put my phone number in it and send myself a text so I have his. “But above and beyond that, you’re going to call me if you need help.”
“He’s… been making me and Josh go on missions by ourselves. Lead them.”
“I’ll help you. Call. I can help prepare you and your brother for this so when he does give up control, you’ll know what you’re doing and your brother can take it in the direction he wants to.”
“Wait. You want to help me? Even though one of my family’s mafia’s guards just killed your father?”
I pause. I decide after a few seconds to not correct him and tell him his father did it. I don't doubt he'd believe me, but he's been through a lot, and it doesn't matter anyway. Not right now. Right now, the priority is making sure my father is okay, and that we all make it out of here. Alex and his brother included.
“Consider it a quid pro quo. You help me. I’ll help you.” He watches me. “Look, Alex, I’m not out to get you. You’re a kid. You and your brother are trying to do exactly what I plan to. Which says to me that you aren’t a bad guy. Call me. If you need help, or if you need to talk.”
“Why not just kill me?”
“Because it would be like killing myself. You deserve a chance to prove yourself. I don’t have any doubt you will.” I look around the house. “Go find your brother. Let me know he’s okay. And don’t make me regret sparing you tonight. If you cross me, I won’t hesitate next time.” I don’t say another word as I turn away and walk back to the door for the basement. I open it only a crack. “Mia? Racoon.”
“Ryan?”
“I’m coming down, honey. It’s safe.” I open the door further and take another glance back at Alex.
“I won’t let you down,” he says. I nod as he turns and runs from the room in search of his twin.
“Mia? What do you say we get the fuck out of here?” I say as I get to the bottom stair. She launches herself at me, and I lift her off the ground in a tight hug. I lead her out of the basement and up the stairs in the back of the house. As soon as we get to the SUV, I hand her a blanket I have in an emergency kit in the back. I get information on my father about what hospital he’s at and drive towards it using GPS. I’ve never understood L.A. and have to use GPS every time I come here.
I fly through the streets as fast as I dare, worried about my father and curious about the future and what it will hold. I’m not ready to take over, but I know instinctively I’ll need to. I shouldn’t have spent so much time being rebellious. I accepted my fate of running the Crane Mafia when I was a child and was first told of my inheritance. I never dreamt it would be so soon, but no one knows what the future will hold. All we can do for ourselves is prepare for it the best we can.
Epilogue - Jason
“It’s pointless. I’m never getting through this,” Ryan complains. He groans and puts his head down on the desk in his office in his Manhattan mansion.
“You will because if you don’t, you’ll never understand the business side of this mafia. You need to understand this.”
“I have you. You can deal with this shit.”
I shake my head, determined for him to understand the numbers in front of him. “Ryan, it’s been two years since you took over. You got through school and got your business degree. You made the mafia legit just like you wanted to. If you want it to be successful, you need to understand the business side of it just like you understand the rest of it. I can’t keep doing this for you. I have my own company to run.”
He groans again. “I’ll hire someone,” he says into his arms.
“No. Come on. You need to do this. Now look. This company made what last year?”
He looks up and glares at the paper. “Eighteen million.”
“That was the net. You need to look at all of your expenses.”
Ryan looks at the papers in front of him again and starts crunching numbers. After a few minutes, he looks back up at me. “Gross would be eleven million nine hundred fifteen thousand one hundred ninety-seven.”
“Good.”
“Don’t we have accountants for this shit?”
“We have several. But you need to know what you’re doing so you can recognize if your accountant is fucking you over.”
“Okay. I get it. I get why this is so important.”
“Then get through the rest, and I’ll show you how to input it since that’s where you have issues.”
He shakes his head and chuckles. “Can you believe we’re all graduated from college and running our own companies?”
“Well, I’m running my own company, despite how small it is. You’re running several.”
“I can’t believe Nick became a cop. Doesn’t strike me as they type.”
“Talking about me?” Nick says as he waltzes into the office dressed in his crisp New York Police Department uniform.
I grin. “We were reminiscing.”
“Bullshit. We were trying to figure out how an asshole like you became a cop.”
“Oh, that’s easy. Watching your father get shot right in front of you and being pretty fucking convinced you’re going to die in a hail of gunfire is a pretty damn good reason.”
Ryan and I both smile a little weakly as Nick sits in an armchair. Since the night we rescued Mia and our father was shot, a lot of things have changed for us. All of us.
First and foremost, Rya
n took control of Crane Mafia immediately. He didn’t have a choice. We never dreamed he’d have to take over this early. He hadn’t gotten a chance to really do anything he wanted to in life. He was forced to get his business degree and couldn’t finish school for culinary arts like he wanted to. Being able to explore that side of himself had been good for him, though. He needed to know that he’s more than the mafia, and the mafia is more than him.
He’ll never admit it, but he’s needed these last few years to find himself and become the man that he is today. He’s needed to see a world outside these walls so he knows what it is he’s fighting for as he turns this mafia into what he wants it to be. How he envisions it.
Ryan looks at his watch and jumps up. “Fuck! I’m late. I need to get to L.A.”
Nick and I both raise an eyebrow. I look at Ryan confused. “Why?”
“I… need to help a friend.” He puts all of the papers away and strides out of the office, looking back over his shoulder at us when he reaches the door. “Lock up behind you when you leave. I’ll be gone a couple days.”
“Yes, sir,” Nick says, sticking out his tongue. Ryan laughs and leaves the room. Nick laughs.
“How was your first day?”
“Not exactly my first day. First day on the streets with my FTO.”
“What’s an FTO?”
“Field Training Officer. He’s kind of a dick. Doesn’t believe I have any skills. He told me everything I learned in the academy was wrong, and I need to forget all of it.”
I furrow my eyebrows. “That seems like the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“He knows I’m part of the Crane family. He thinks because we have a new leader, he can push me around. I’m not worried about him.”
“You think you’ll like the job?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. All I know is I had to get out. That night, if I hadn’t been keeping dad alive, I would’ve killed everyone. It would’ve been a bloodbath in there. And the scariest thing? I felt nothing. It’s like all I could see was red. I was so pissed off that I fell off this cliff into this… I don’t know… Darkness. It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. The fact that I was liking it, though. That’s what scared me. That’s what made me want to get out.”