I lay down on the bed, and stared at the ceiling. I had only been in this room for a matter of minutes, and I already felt like the walls were closing in on me. Absolutely closing in on me. I couldn’t imagine living like this for very long – isolated, no television, no smart phone, no computer, no books, no music, no nothing. For that matter, I didn’t think that I was going to have anyone to talk to, either. It was as if I was a prisoner in isolation.
I shuddered as I thought of my other brother, Stefano, who was rotting in Rikers prison. He actually was in isolation, so I never got the chance to visit him anymore. He went to prison because he was caught dealing drugs to children. My father had originally employed him to sell drugs to adults, never to children, so when he was caught dealing drugs to children, my father refused to protect him when he got arrested. He ended up in isolation because he punched another guy during a fight in the lunch room, and the guy died.
I hated my father for letting Stefano to go prison. After all, my father had most of the police force and judges in his pocket, either by blackmail or bribery, so there was no reason for Stefano to go to prison. Yeah, Stefano did a shitty thing by targeting kids younger than the age of 15, but since when does a person like my father get to be the arbiter of good morals? I missed Stefano, because, before he got sentenced to isolation, I would go and visit him about every month. Ever since he got put into isolation, I was forbidden to see him, and that hurt.
Now, here I was, in my own form of isolated prison. In my own form of hell. Only it was perhaps even worse than Stefano’s hell, because at least Stefano understood what he did to get put into isolation. He was prepared for it. His life wasn’t necessarily in danger, either. But with me – I wasn’t prepared for this, I didn’t understand what was going on, and, for all I knew, my life was in danger.
Plus, Stefano was only going to have to be in isolation for a few more weeks. After that, he was going to be able to be moved back into general population. With me, who knew? I could be here in this little drab room for a day, a week, a year, or forever. Maybe I would never get to leave because velvet voice, whoever he was, had plans to kill me. I really had no clue on what was going on.
I went over to the window, with the bars on it, and desperately tried to look out. Of course, I couldn’t see anything, because the window was blacked out, and that depressed me. I understood it, but it depressed me all the same.
I lay back down on the bed and suppressed my tears, which were threatening. I wasn’t going to give this guy who did this to me the satisfaction of knowing that I was crying. I wasn’t going to allow him to break me.
He might break me in actuality, but I was determined that he was never going to know this.
Two
Lucca
I drew a breath as I sat in my library and stared at my hands. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the things that these hands were capable of. I had to close my eyes, because, when I opened them, I saw her. Bianca. I saw her cowering in the back of that van, her jeans around her ankles, looking absolutely terrified. I had to do what I did, of course. I really saw no choice in the matter. If I did see a choice, then I wouldn’t have gone about it the way that I did.
Gino came in, my second-in-command. He was the person who was in the underground garage when those three goombahs brought Bianca in to me. I killed those goombahs myself, that’s how angry I was about what they did. I had warned my men that they were not to do anything that was unnecessary, and that would definitely mean molesting hostages. I had no patience for hot-heads in my organization, and I certainly didn’t have patience for men who felt that they had to take the spoils of war as their own. So, when the three men brought in Bianca like that, I just lost it. I brought out my gun and shot all three of them between the eyes.
I didn’t play that. I might have been a relatively new boss, but I knew what kind of organization I wanted to run and I knew how I needed my men to act. They always had to act professional. That was paramount. They were never to shoot first and ask questions later. That was another rule that was beyond important to me. And, above all, they were never, ever, to treat women as anything but ladies. I was old-fashioned that way. That was how I was brought up by my Aunt Maria in Sicily. Pull out their chairs, stand up when they left the table, order for them at restaurants, open all their doors, always be gracious. Always say please and thank you, and when somebody does something really nice, you send them a hand-written thank you card.
I might have been a cold-blooded killer, but I had my manners. And what those men did to Bianca violated every single tenet that I held dear for myself.
“Did you clean up that mess?” I asked Gino. I didn’t exactly mean that he, himself, had to clean up the mess I made with the three men, but I knew that Gino was going to call my soldiers to do so. Get rid of the bodies, mop up the blood, get rid of the van. It was all routine by this point, so I knew that there wouldn’t be a problem.
“Of course.” He took a deep breath. “What are we going to do with Bianca?”
I shrugged. “I’m not quite sure, to be honest with you.” I didn’t really have a plan. I only knew that I needed her. She was my negotiation tool, perhaps the only one that I had at this point. The only effective one, that is. Everything else I had tried hadn’t worked, so this, maybe, would get the attention of her old man.
I made sure that when his dodgy son, Stefano, sold drugs to kids, that Benito’s protection wouldn’t hold. I blackmailed the judge to make sure that he treated Stefano like any other defendant, even though I knew that judge ordinarily would have let any and all of Benito’s men walk, because Benito had an “arrangement” with the judge. Then I made sure that Benito knew what I had done. I couldn’t believe that Benito appeared not to care, and that he was good with letting his son serve time in prison. It was my current understanding that Stefano was in isolation because he beat up a man in prison, and that guy died, but that couldn’t be helped. The guy was apparently some kind of a psycho. I had to send a message to Benito that I had the ability to do all of this to his son, and yet the bastard still hadn’t agreed to play ball.
So I had to do something, and that something was nab his daughter. Maybe that old man didn’t give a shit about his son, but I had to bet that he cared about his daughter.
“So, we have her here, and she’s upstairs, and….” Gino’s voice trailed off.
I swiveled in my chair. I felt just a tiny bit lost. Gianni left this job to me when I was only 29 years old. I had little experience in managing a huge organization like this one. I had little Mafia experience, period. I was only a soldier in Palermo, Sicily, in a small organization that was run by a local godfather. I took the blood oath, as all soldiers must do, pricking my finger with a needle while my godfather, Mario Vittoria, watched the blood flow over the image of a saint. I made the sacred promises that Mario demanded of his soldiers and associates – to keep my mouth shut, to not have affairs with a wife or girlfriend of another member, to not speak to the police, to not take prostitutes, and never to commit any crimes involving children. That last part was important, because to violate it often meant you would be killed. And not just shot between the eyes in the back of a van, but made to really suffer.
So, I was a low-level guy in Sicily. My life consisted of killing local judges and members of other families and, occasionally, I hit other associates. That was what I did.
Then Gianni tracked me down, which was quite a strange thing in and of itself. I didn’t even know that I had a brother. Nobody ever told me about him. As far as I knew, it was only me, Juliette and Sofia. Me and my two sisters, living in Sicily. Then I got to New York with Gianni and found out that I also had a sister, Antonia.
I shook my head, thinking about all that had happened since Gianni found me and made this offer to become the head of this enormous organization. He helped me, of course, by showing me the ropes. He made sure that Antonia was right there, too, because she knew as much as he did about the inner workings of the Azzarra or
ganization. So, I wasn’t exactly flying blind. But, at the same time, I didn’t really know what I was doing, either. There was a lot of on-the-job training, much more than I was prepared for, and, for the first year, I feared for my life. Too late, I had found out that Gianni had put down a would-be coup, and that our father, Giorgio, was the victim of a coup. As the new capofamiglia, I was the next on the chopping block.
I found myself constantly looking over shoulder, thinking that every time I turned the ignition in my car, I would be blown to bits. I didn’t like my life, even though I thought that I would. I certainly had the trappings that I had always dreamed about – the money, the apartment, the houses, the cars, the women. The power. But how much fun could it be when you’re constantly scared that every moment is going to be your last?
Then I finally found my footing and I started to relax a tiny bit. It started with finding Gino, who replaced Vincent as the second-in-command. Vincent retired and was given a grand send-off, and Gino, who was a young and hungry guy, was brought into the fold. Gino was tough, much tougher than Vincent ever was, and he was feared. Most importantly, he was able to command respect from the men who were under him, and he was smart enough to find rats and burn them out before they could strike. I no longer feared that one of my own men would take me out, and that took a lot of pressure off my shoulders.
Then Gianni brought in Pagolo, who was an older man who Gianni had met through his law practice. Pagolo was the consigliere of a prominent family in the city, and had the experience needed to do the work. He had been forced out of that family when there was a change in leadership and he was ready and eager to come on board. Gianni’s consigliere, Angelo, died peacefully in his sleep, so it was imperative that we brought on another man to take his place. I didn’t have a consigliere for the first year that I did this job, and that was something that I knew that I needed. When I met Pagolo, I knew that I could trust him, and this made me feel more secure.
Nevertheless, while I felt more secure than I did when I first took this job, it didn’t mean that I felt completely at ease. That was where Bianca came in. I needed her father to consolidate power with my organization. His family was the second most powerful in the city, and his family was behind the murder of my father. That was a power move that sent a shock wave and a signal throughout the Azzarra organization. The signal was that the Fattores were going to try to take territory from the Azzarras, and, perhaps, was going to try for a hostile takeover.
I needed leverage over that bastard, and I got her. I knew that Bianca was the old man’s only hope for a “normal” child, what with Stefano in isolation in prison and his other son, Nico, coming out as gay and refusing to work for the family business. It was my understanding that the old man really saw Bianca as his shining hope, his one child that he could be proud of. Not that Benito wasn’t proud of Stefano, because Stefano at least made the decision to join the family business, but the fact that Stefano dealt drugs to kids was something that turned Benito’s stomach. That was a typical old-school Italian reaction to such a thing – kids are off-limit, period. That means no child porn, no child prostitution, no dealing drugs to children. With adults, it’s anything goes, but you don’t fuck with children, either literally or figuratively.
Benito was going to come to the table no matter what. I was going to make sure about that. I knew that Bianca was the best bargaining chip there was. I felt somewhat bad that I had to put her into that little room, a room where there was literally nothing in there to entertain her. No television, no books, no smart phones, no computers, nothing like any of that. I didn’t want Bianca to feel that she was staying at the Ritz. She needed to be uncomfortable. If she got uncomfortable, then she might actually work with me in bringing Benito to the bargaining table. She might actually do what I need for her to do, which is to convince her father to meet with me in good faith.
In good faith. That was important, because Benito was known to be a wily one.
Another reason why I needed Bianca was that I needed Benito to know that I wasn’t a pussy. I might be young and inexperienced, but I can get to his daughter, just like he was able to get to my father, so I was showing my muscle to him in that way. It was a show of strength, taking Bianca like that.
“Yes, she’s upstairs,” I finally said to Gino, stating the brutally obvious. “We need to send a message to Benito and let him know that she’s here and why we have her here. We can make our demands at that time.”
“And if he doesn’t meet our demands?”
I stared at Gino, not wanting to contemplate that particular scenario. If Benito blows us off, then what? What? I just let Bianca go, no harm, no foul? He calls my bluff and I fold? No way. That could never happen. That would be a show of weakness, a sign that he drew blood and that he could just do whatever he wanted to me. He would never believe me again. I would never have leverage over him again, because I would have showed him that I really was a pussy.
Needless to say, showing weakness like that would be the end of me. The end of my family. The end to the Azzarra organization. We would definitely be subject to a hostile takeover at that point. There would be no stopping it.
“If he doesn’t meet our demands, then we ice her. It’s as simple as that.” I tried to make sure that my face didn’t show my inner turmoil, my inner fear. I was playing a high-stakes game with this girl, a more high-stakes game than I had ever played before. I was trying to play chess with Benito Fattore, and, from what I understood about him, he was about as masterful in playing this particular game of chess as anybody in the business. I might have taken his queen, but I certainly hadn’t check-mated him yet. Not anywhere close.
Gino shrugged. “Okay, boss, whatever you think.”
“What?” I demanded. Gino was acting strange, and I didn’t like it. I felt that he was secretly wanting to undermine my plan. I needed him to be completely on board, no matter what.
“I don’t think that you thought this through,” he said. “You took that girl without really considering what was going to happen if Benito calls your bluff.” He shook his head.
I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that I had made a rookie mistake. And maybe I did. Maybe I took Bianca without really knowing the end-game. Except I did know the end-game for this move. I just didn’t know if it would work.
“You would do well not to question me,” I said. Gino was a few years older than me, and much more experienced. If he would have had the right bloodline, he probably would be in my position, running his own organization. But he didn’t have the right bloodline, so he probably would never be able to rise to the the level of capofamiglia. I wondered if he resented that fact.
“Maybe I won’t question you, but Pagolo will,” Gino said. He knew that it was the right place for a consigliere to question the boss, but the underboss knows his place. At least, it was that way in this organization. “He’s going to want to know exactly what your plan is.”
“My plan is to take a proof-of-life photo of Bianca and send it on to Benito along with my demand that he meet with me, and we go from there.”
“Go from there.” Gino shook his head. “Whatever, boss. Listen, you’re playing in the big leagues here. This ain’t no local Palermo low-level drug running bullshit. You can’t just make threats to a guy like Benito and expect him just to bow down. I don’t care if you did kidnap his daughter, he’s not going to roll over.”
I stood up, not liking the disrespect, yet knowing that what he was saying was absolutely true. “I don’t need him to roll over, I need him to back the fuck off. That’s all I need for him to do. To stop making noises about horning in on our territory and to quit threatening a hostile takeover. I need him to respect the boundaries that our families have observed for years. That’s all that I need for him to do.” I sat back down and crossed my arms in front of me. “And if you have any better ideas about how to do that, then take the floor.”
“Okay,” Gino said. “I wish you luck.”
“You’re not going to wish me luck, you’re going to be in the negotiation room. Don’t think that you’re going to get out of it, because you’re not.”
“Of course,” Gino said. “I’m probably going to get shot, and you will too.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I guess that’s my penance for coming to work for a rookie.”
I bit my lower lip. If I didn’t need Gino’s expertise and reputation, I probably would have fired him right then and there. If I didn’t ice him for his fresh mouth. But I knew when to back down, and what battles I needed to fight. This wasn’t one of them, so I chose to let that comment slide.
For now.
“In the meantime, I need to go and see Bianca and explain what I need for her to do.”
At that, I went out the door without another word.
Three
Bianca
I was laying on my stupid little bed, staring at the walls, about to go insane, when he walked in. Six feet tall, dark hair, full lips, light hazel eyes. There was something about him that made my heart skip about a thousand beats. Maybe it was the way that he walked, as agile and graceful as a jungle cat. Perhaps it was the way that he stood, proud and strong. Maybe it was the way that he looked in his tight t-shirt and jeans, which showed off his sinewy muscles and allowed me to see the faintest outline of an eight-pack stomach without an ounce of fat.
I didn’t really know what it was, but all that I knew was that when he walked into the room, I suddenly felt like I was trying to breathe underwater.
Then he opened his mouth, and, just like that, my lightning bolt attraction turned to absolute revulsion. “Bianca,” he said, his voice as velvety and smooth as melted chocolate, “we need to talk.”
I screwed up my face. He was the asshole who arranged this whole situation. He was the jerk who carried me like I was a sack of potatoes. Who threatened me with a pillow-case just because I screamed. As if I wasn't supposed to scream after being man-handled and threatened like that.
Lucca: Azzarra Crime Family Book Two Page 2