Niccolaio Andretti: A Mafia Romance Novel (The Five Syndicates Book 2)

by Parker S. Huntington

  It’s us against the world.

  At eight years old, she’s ten years younger than me, but she’s still my best friend. And I’m debating whether or not it’s appropriate to tell her that I just had my first kiss when I open the door to the apartment and see a stranger in front of me.

  She’s short, about half a foot shorter than me. Yet, standing there in her expensive, heeled shoes and fancy white blouse, she intimidates me to the core. My eyes dart to the number on our door, but when I read the familiar forty-two painted onto the white-washed wood beside a bold letter D, I know I’m in the right place.

  I open my mouth to scream for help before I realize that Mina and I don’t live in the type of building where neighbors would come running for help. Instead, they’d probably lock their doors and hide their drug stash in case the cops are called.

  I shut my mouth and warily take a step into the apartment. “Where’s my sister?” I ask cautiously, my heart quickening and my eyes scanning every inch of the tiny studio apartment to no avail.

  My sister isn’t here, but she should be. Mina’s school bus should have dropped her off an hour ago. She should be here, doing her homework or watching an old Disney VHS tape on the clunky, 22-inch television set my sperm donor managed to leave behind in his haste to get away from the poison that is Mina’s and my mother.

  “We’ve taken her somewhere safe,” the woman replies, her tone deceptively gentle.

  “Safe,” I repeat slowly. I’m trying to process her words, but it’s like my brain has produced an impenetrable sludge that blocks any logic.

  Safe?

  What can be safer than here? With me?

  And who is this woman?

  Where has she taken my sister?

  I’m too scared to panic and too shocked to shake.

  I have no idea what’s going on, yet I’m too dumbfounded to do anything but stand here dumbly and stare at this elegant woman. At her pretty white blouse, which is nicer than anything I’ll ever own; her fitted dress slacks, professional and sleek; her hair, which is pulled into a severe bun; her brown eyes, which are wide and youthful; and her round face, free of wrinkles, except at the corners of her eyes, where they form miniature crinkles.

  We stare at one another for a moment, and I know I should say something, but I can’t.

  Mina. Where is my baby sister?

  The thoughts and questions are there, pressing up against my skull right beside my fear, but they don’t quite make it past my lips. Instead, there’s a loud whimper that slices cleanly through the thick silence. I think it’s mine, and it would be embarrassing if I wasn’t so preoccupied with worry.

  We stand there in silence for a moment, eyeing one another up. Finally, the woman gestures to the wobbly wooden chair in the kitchen. We don’t have a dining room or a table, so I usually just pull the lone chair, a dollar purchase from the Salvation Army, up to the kitchen counter and use the counter as a table, my knees knocking uncomfortably against the cabinet doors.

  Mina, on the other hand, has a custom tray that attaches to her wheel chair. I saved up and bought it for her for Christmas last year. She was ecstatic when she got it, which in turn made me ecstatic.

  Ever since I can remember, Mina and I have always felt what one another have felt. If she cries, I cry. If she laughs, I laugh. That’s just the way Mina and I are, and there’s a foreboding feeling in my gut that tells me that, whatever this woman says, this is the end of everything great in my life.

  So, instead of sitting, I cross my arms. I try to look intimidating, like putting up a physical front between the two of us will protect me from the harsh reality of her words, but I’m too weakened by the thought of a life without Mina to even bring myself to speak.

  She sighs. “My name is Erica Slater. I’m Mina’s social worker.”

  Forcing myself to calm down and think rational thoughts, I narrow my eyes in suspicion. After a shaky breath, I ask, “D-do you have an ID?”

  She gives me a gentle smile and nods her head. After digging in her purse, she hands it to me. “I was assigned to your sister after a formal complaint was filed.”

  I scan her ID with my eyes. It looks legit, though this woman looks too fancy to be a social worker. Her outfit and posture reek of wealth. Not wealth because everything compared to my mangy place looks like The Ritz, but real wealth.

  The kind of wealth that speaks of summers in the Hamptons and winters in Athens, of personal drivers and tailored clothing, of menus with items so expensive there’s no price on the menu.

  The type of wealth I doubt I’ll ever see again once she walks out this door.

  “A complaint,” I say, my voice full of challenge, but in my head, everything in me is deflating.

  I knew this was a possibility after Mina’s third grade teacher approached me and asked where our parents were. I told her that our mother was working and our Dads were gone. The last part was true, but I doubt the first part was.

  With her gone so often, I never really know for sure what Dearest Mother is doing or where she is, for that matter.

  Either way, I did my telltale wince when the word “Mom” forcibly slipped past my lips, and Ms. Snow’s eyes narrowed. She paid more attention to me and Mina after that. It was just a matter of time. The thing about time, though, is it sneaks up on you no matter how much you prepare yourself for it.

  And here I am, staring at something I’ve been waiting a while for but still so unready.

  Because how can I ever be ready for having my baby sister ripped away from me?

  The woman sighs, drawing my attention to her. She’s scanning the place, and I try to see what she’s seeing through her eyes.

  Mold on the ceiling.

  The faint scent of urine in the air.

  A ratty twin-sized air mattress, the hole at the foot of it covered in duct tape.

  My sheets on the floor beside it, fashioned into a makeshift bed.

  The apartment is ugly and revolting, but it’s also the place where I taught Mina to read; where she comforted me when I cried after my first crush broke my heart freshman year, her four-year-old brain too innocent and young to comprehend the source of my tears; and where Mina and I developed our sisterhood, our us against the world motto.

  “This place isn’t a place an eight year old with spina bifida should be raised in.”

  I open my mouth to argue, but I can’t.

  She’s right.

  Deep down, I know Mina deserves more than this. And it’s my fault, too. At 18, I’m almost out of high school. I should be working more than a part time job that barely pays the rent for section 8 housing. Sometimes, Mina and I have to go to the food kitchen, where we wait in line for hours for a decent meal.

  But she’s never complained.

  Doesn’t that count for something?

  When Erica speaks again, her voice is full of sympathy. “If your circumstances change, you might be able to reunite with your sister. Until then, you’re welcome to visit her at her group home in China Town.”

  She gives me a pitiful smile, unaware of what she just did. She gave me hope. She told me there’s a possibility of having Mina again. Of getting my baby sister back.

  And in that moment, I promise myself—I promise Mina—that I will do anything to get her back.

  Anything.

  Chapter Eleven

  Forgive your enemies,

  but never forget their

  names.

  John F. Kennedy

  present

  For someone with a five million dollar bounty on his head, my life is pretty damn boring. It’s been a week since Vincent informed me of the three-point-five million dollar increase on my hit, and I haven’t seen any action yet.

  To be fair, I’ve been camped inside of my brownstone, hiding like a little bitch.

  I tell myself that it’s because it’s not just my life on the line. I have my security guards to think about. Being in public,
out in the open, puts them at risk and also the lives of anyone around me.

  But a few minutes earlier, when the door of a car slammed shut and I immediately straightened up, I knew I was bullshitting myself.

  Who the fuck am I trying to kid?

  I had been indoors, doing nothing on a pleasant Saturday afternoon, because I had been waiting for her to come back.

  And at the sound of her car, I peeked an eye out of my window curtain, catching sight of her dark red hair, the soft curls blowing gently with the wind. I took a moment to consider what I was doing.

  I was staring like an awestruck teenage boy.

  Was I embarrassed? Absolutely.

  Would I stop? Fucking unlikely.

  I got another ten seconds of her bouncing up the steps to John’s place before she let herself in with a key and was out of my sight. I sighed and returned to my office.

  Now, not even a minute later, I’m still sitting idly at my desk, tempted to look her up on the internet.

  I don’t know her first name, but I caught site of her last name, Reynolds, on her sweater a short while ago, and years as a killer and recluse have gifted me with the opportunity to develop research talents comparable to the most infamous of stalkers. For a brief moment, I hesitate, my fingers hovering closely above my keyboard.

  I can pull up security footage from my cameras outside of my place.

  I can grab a still of her face.

  I can run it through every facial recognition software known to man.

  It would be easy.

  I can do all that… but then I would be sinking to a new low.

  The truth is, after talking to her a few times, I know deep down that she’s not involved in the hit, yet I want a reason to look into her past—into her. But…

  She’s not a target.

  She’s not marked for death.

  She’s a nobody.

  And I have no fucking clue why I’m so fucking interested.

  I sigh, staring at the ceiling, focusing on a smudge, where the corners of the walls intersect. When I painted the walls gray, I accidentally left a light gray dot of paint on the bright white ceilings. I could have fixed it, but at the time, I kind of liked the idea of the imperfect.

  It was a tangible, visible flaw, and it was mine.

  It was me.

  But after a while, I started to resent it. I even named it Asshole, because like an asshole, my imperfection mocked me every day when I stared at it with nothing else to do with my life.

  Laying low day after day gets boring.

  Redundant.

  Monotonous.

  Wearisome.

  Sometimes, when I would get so stir crazy, I would succumb to the insanity tugging at the fringes of my brain, and I’d talk to my Asshole on the ceiling. After the third time or so, I realized that I was talking to an inanimate object, referring to a speck of paint on the ceiling as my asshole, and stopped.

  At the time, it was an all-time low.

  Since then, I’ve sunk even lower.

  Like waiting around all day for a glimpse of fiery hair and a constellation of faded freckles.

  Like considering whether or not I should cyberstalk a total stranger.

  Like focusing my energy on a random hot chick because I don’t want to think about the fact that my little brother, who I still love and would still give my life for, wants me dead so much that he would pay five million dollars for it to happen.

  Nope.

  Not thinking about it.

  I’d rather stare at my Asshole all day.

  And I do.

  I stare at the damn thing until the grayness of its color blurs into the white, and I’m not sure if what I’m seeing is a color that exists in any color spectrum.

  I stare at the damn thing until my neck aches from glancing up at the ceiling, and my shoulders ache from carrying the burden of my neck.

  I stare at the damn thing until the tiniest sliver of evening light left outside stretches into an all-consuming darkness, and my boredom doesn’t even register in my mind, because my mind has shut down.

  Off.

  Inoperative.

  Out of order.

  And when there’s a light thud of a door closing on John’s side of the street, the subtle noise miraculously registers in my brain, sending me out of my seat and flying toward the door. I shout for my guards to stay behind, assuming they heard me get up.

  And for some damn reason, my boredom has reached its limit, and I open the door and ever so eloquently say, “Hi.”

  I don’t even remember the last time I’ve greeted anyone with anything other than a bullet.

  But hi?

  It’s so mundane.

  So normal.

  So friendly.

  In other words, it’s the exact opposite of me, and that makes me want to laugh. It’s only fitting that a woman that elicits from me a reaction so different than anyone else gets a greeting from me that is equally out of character. And saying hi, like I’m a fucking pre-pubescent teenager that has just barely found the confidence to talk to a girl for the first time after opening his first Playboy magazine or some shit, is most definitely out of character.

  She stares at me, her petite face upturned into a pretty scowl. “What do you want?”

  It’s her go to question, one that she always asks and I never quite seem to answer. And despite the I don’t give a fuck look I typically have permanently glued onto my face, the corners of my lips turn up into a genuine smile, amused in a way that I’ve noticed frequently happens when I’m around her. Only this time, I allow myself to show it with a brief smile, because what the Hell. If I’m saying hi like an everyday Joe, I may as well smile, too.

  “Nothing,” I purposely reply in a tone that says I mean the opposite.

  She rolls those emerald green eyes of hers and turns around, giving me her back. It’s a nice back, lean and trim, but what it leads to is even nicer. I take a moment to stare at her ass. Round and perky, it’s nestled beneath God’s gift to men—yoga pants.

  Without hesitation, I eye her retreating body and make a dumb decision. Leaning back into my house, I grab two guns off of the entryway table, tuck them into the back waistline of my dark jeans, and chase after her.

  The spontaneity feels like freedom amidst my perfectly planned life.

  She glares at me, hostility and—dare I say—sadness extending from her in waves. “I’m not in the mood for this. What do you want?”

  “I’m bored,” I say honestly.

  “Bored,” she repeats drily. The word sounds foreign on her lips.

  “Yep. That’s what I said.”

  “What do you expect me to do about it?”

  “You’re already doing it.”

  And she is. Just being here with her, with someone other than myself and the two guards that man my security room, is doing wonders for my brain. Truthfully, it could be anyone, and I would be satisfied.

  Seriously.

  Anyone.

  Except Asher, Vincent, Lucy, my guards, a Romano, an Andretti, my brothe—

  She turns to me, stopping us both, along with my train of thought. “Stop. Whatever you think you’re doing, just stop.”

  “Stop.” I play with the foreign word on my tongue, the sound of it unfamiliar to my ears.

  I’ve never been told to stop before.

  That’s a first.

  And it’s sexy.

  I like the word. I like the sound of it on her pouty lips. I like that she’s not giving me the time of day. And I should probably stop talking to her. It’d be for the best. And I will. One more minute, I mentally promise myself—and her. I need one more minute of this. I was being honest earlier when I said she was curing my boredom.

  The corners of my lips tilt upwards again as I wait for her to say something else.

  “Yep. That’s what I said,” she mocks me.

  I’m about to reply with something that w
ould have undoubtedly been smart when I hear a familiar clicking sound, and I spur into action, diving over her body and shielding it with my own.

  Not even a second later, there’s a distinct whish sound.

  A muffled gunshot.

  Chapter Twelve

  I was angry with my friend:

  I told my wrath,

  my wrath did end.

  I was angry with my foe:

  I told it not,

  my wrath did grow.

  William Blake

  I lay frozen for a moment.

  Shocked.

  What just happened?

  But before I can articulate my questions—namely, what the heck?—John’s neighbor is already off of me, whipping two guns out of his pants and into his large palms. They hang loosely at his sides as he casually moves my stunned body behind the cover of a parked car using the lower part of his right leg, yet somehow remaining gentle.

  I watch with wide eyes as he pulls the triggers on both of his guns at once. They emit a forced whish, quiet in their danger thanks to the silencers fastened on the tips of each barrel. Though I shouldn’t, I peek an eye out the side of the car to observe the damage.

  On the ground of the empty street lays a man. His eyes are scrunched closed, his lashes resting forcefully against the tops of his cheeks. For some reason, that’s the first thing I notice about him.

  Not the blood flowing from his hand, which pools around the fallen gun that lays on the ground besides the twitching tips of his fingers.

  Not the crimson liquid seeping through the leg of his jeans, gushing onto the gravel that rests below the coarse fabric.

  Not the way his mouth is spread open, his tongue pushed slightly past his thin lips as he groans out in pain.

  Not the clutch of his uninjured hand against his wounded kneecap as it tries but fails to stop the bleeding.

  Those observations come after.

  But for the briefest of moments, I focus on his closed eyes, and I see myself in them. I’m there in the way they shut out the world and the pain that comes with it, and I don’t know why I’m just seeing this now.