Kingpin (An Italian Mafia Romance) (21 page)

“Good. This is a big mess you’ve made, now it’s on you to clean it up, because it’s not just about you now. This Russian tried to clip a made guy—when New York finds out about this, they’re gonna expect
immediate
consequences. So, you need to clean this up quickly, and brutally. An example needs to be made. You understand?”

I nod, thinking about how those bullets were only inches away from me.

Inches away from Alannah.

“I got it, Frankie,” I reply as I turn to leave. “I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

“What the fuck? Why are we just now hearing about this?” Charlie snaps as he takes his seat at the table in the conference room of River City. “You should’ve called us when it happened, and we would’ve hit back that same night. We don’t fucking lay down for shit like this.”

“I know we don’t, Charlie,” I try to explain. Charlie’s fired up though. They all are. “We’re not laying down. I just needed a minute to think, and I had to tell Frankie.”

“How’d that go?” Skinny Joe asks, with a grin that says he already knows.

“Just like you’d expect. He was pissed,” I admit. “Made sure to remind me how this makes us look as a family, which means he doesn’t want to look bad, and he doesn’t want New York to think he’s not handling business as acting boss. So, we’ve gotta fix this, quick.”

“You’re goddamn right we gotta fix it quick,” Joe snaps, his skin turning red as his temper flares. “You’re a fucking made guy, Dominic, and my captain. Nobody takes a fucking shot at you without getting clipped. No-fucking-body. So, now that Frankie knows everything, we find these cock suckers and we hit back. Hard. We make it public and out in the open so everybody in the streets knows you don’t come after one of our guys.”

As much as I’d like to tell Joe to calm down, I find myself being motivated by his energy. He’s right, the last thing any street guy would do is take a shot at a made man. It’s street code, and everybody knows it, and when that code is broken, so is your fucking neck.

“Alright, so here’s what we’re gonna do,” I begin, once Joe sits back down. “Charlie, I want you track down this SUV for me. It was dark when it all happened, but I know it was black, and it had a big body, like a Denali or something like that.”

“Okay, Dominic,” Charlie says, pushing his glasses back up on his nose. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“What about Abram? He authorized the hit,” Tommy chimes in.

“I wanna wait on Abram,” I reply.

“What? Why would you wanna wait?” Tommy says, frowning.

“Because I wanna find the shooter first,” I answer. “I want the shooter first, and I want an example made of him so big that Abram can’t ignore it. I want him to know we’re coming for him so he has fucking nightmares about it until the day those nightmares come true. So, find the shooter, and when you do, sit on him. Don’t make a move until you call me. I wanna be there.”

“Wait, you sure that’s a good idea, Dominic? You don’t want your hands getting dirty with something like this,” Charlie advises.

“No, it
is
a good idea,” I snip. “That motherfucker had the balls to come to my casino and take a shot at me, and he almost hit Alannah. He’s gonna pay, and I’m gonna be there to watch it happen.”

“Who’s Alannah?” Skinny Joe inquires.

“Alannah’s a girl I was with when they tried to make the hit. Fucker almost shot her.”

The three of them look at each other like I just said something offensive.

“What the fuck are you looking like that for?” I ask, scrunching my forehead.

“Nothing, nothing,” Tommy answers for the group. “Just not used to you being out with no girls. You’ve always been focused on business. More of a one night stand kind of guy, not a dinner date guy.”

“Well, I was out with her, so I guess you got me pegged all wrong,” I reply, and I don’t want to talk about Alannah with anybody, so I stand up and change the subject. “Anyway, look, I want the shooter found, like, yesterday. This motherfucker is gonna pay for the shit he tried to pull, and I don’t wanna wait. So, I need all of you on this until it’s done. Call me as soon as you find him.”

I grab my coat and start heading for the door.

“Okay, and where are you gonna be while we’re hunting this fucker down?” Tommy asks, gesturing with his hands.

“I told you, he almost got Alannah. I gotta go make sure she’s okay.”

There’s that look again. The three of them have the same expression like they’re triplets. They look at each other like they know they’re all thinking the same thing, but it’s Tommy who speaks for all of them.

“Look, Dominic, I don’t know who this Alannah girl is, or why you seem so concerned about her, but maybe it’s not a good idea for you to be out and about while there’s a contract on your head. Why don’t you let Joe go with you?”

Skinny Joe immediately stands up in preparation to come along.

“No,” I say quickly. “I don’t need a fucking bodyguard, and don’t worry about Alannah. Just find the fucking shooter, Tommy. That’s it.”

“Okay, Dominic, you got it,” Tommy replies, but I can still see the confusion on his face as I turn around and walk out.

I can understand the confusion amongst the guys. It’s not like me to keep things secret, especially in regards to women. Tommy’s right, before Alannah came back, I wasn’t interested in anything serious with women. They got one night of my attention and my dick, and then that was it. The possibility of something more was never an option because I never wanted to risk the distraction that emotions cause, and I never wanted some girl finding out more than she needed to know and going and running her mouth to anybody. One night was all anyone ever got. But Alannah isn’t just anyone.

Alannah is
the
one. She’s the one and only and she always has been. So, it doesn’t matter if Tommy and the guys don’t understand right now, and it doesn’t matter if Frankie doesn’t get it either. Every capo in The Family is married, and so are Leo and Jimmy, and almost all of them have a
gumar
on the side, so they got no room to judge me for anything.

I wouldn’t give a fuck if they judged me anyway, because when it comes to Alannah, something’s different. With her, all of the rules change.

Alannah

T
he boxes on the floor are driving me crazy, but it’s worth it to have my own place. It took the landlord a couple of days to get my apartment ready, which is why I had to stay in River City, but I was able to start moving in this morning, and although it sucks having to unpack, it feels good to have a place to call my own.

It’s only been a day since I almost died at Isle of Capri with Dominic, and the memory is still a fresh wound that hurts when I think about it. I dreamt about it the night it happened and developed a new level of understanding for people who go to war and experience PTSD. My situation only lasted a few seconds and I’m a total wreck, so I can only imagine if it had lasted days, weeks, or months.

It wasn’t long ago, but I’ve spent every second since then thinking about it. Thinking about Dominic. I haven’t heard from him since that night, but I’m glad because I don’t know what I’d say or do at this point. I feel like my dreams of what it’d be like to come back to him came crashing down around me like the exploding glass window. I had one thing in mind, and I initially thought that thing was going to come true. However, reality has a way of slapping you in the face, and that’s exactly what happened.

Dominic Collazo, the beautiful Italian I fell in love with when I was just a teenager, is still gorgeous, and the emperor of sex appeal. He’s even a bigger bad boy now than he was before, but there’s a price that comes with it that I simply didn’t take into consideration.

A teenager who’s a bad boy is almost never as bad as he seems. He probably smokes, or doesn’t take shit from anyone, including adults he should fear and respect, or he dresses like he doesn’t really give a damn about anything. It’s usually something on the surface, but deep down, he’s just a kid trying to find himself.

An adult bad boy is much more dangerous. An adult bad boy is the one who’s into the illegal things that can bring you the most trouble. An adult bad boy knows who he is, knows he’s bad, and doesn’t care a bit. It’s real when they’re bad
men
. That’s Dominic.

As a kid, Dominic was everything I wanted, and he’s still physically everything, but he scares me now in a way he couldn’t before. Maybe it was because I didn’t know about everything, and I was a bit naïve when it came to his father and the Italian ancestry. Well, I know about it all now—I know how the police view the mafia and I know the history of it, and after the shooting the other night, I can’t help but look at Dominic differently. At least, that’s how I think I feel before I hear a knock on my front door.

It’s nine o’clock in the evening and I’m unpacking in a new apartment, so I don’t know why anybody would be at my door right now, unless it’s the landlord checking up on me. So, I pause for a minute, holding a plate in the kitchen and assuming my visitor will realize they have the wrong house and go away. But there’s another knock. I put the plate in the golden oak cabinet and slowly make my way over to the door. I look out the peep hole and I’m shocked to see him.

It’s him.

It’s Dominic.

“Hi,” he says as I open the door. He smiles at me, but I don’t smile back, and I can see it makes him a little uneasy. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” I answer, before getting to what I really want to know. “How do you know where I live?”

He smirks as if to say “
You didn’t really think you could hide from me, did you
?”

“I had one of my guys look into it.”

“But I
just moved in
. . . this morning.”

“I know. I looked for you at River City and they told me you checked out, so I had my guy, Charlie, look into it for me. Charlie has ways of finding things out like that.”

“Umm, that’s a total invasion of privacy, but okay.”

“I know it is, and I’m sorry about that. I just really needed to talk to you. Can I please come in?”

I want to hesitate, but there’s something in me that wants to let him in. He looks amazing in his white button-up and light gray pants. It’s pretty casual but he makes casual look sexy as hell. I move aside and he brushes past me.

“Excuse the mess,” I tell him as I lock the door and turn to face him.

His face is serious as he steps around the scattered boxes. He’s been thinking about a lot, I can tell, and that expression of worry is still lingering. I try to not to get caught up in the look on his face and just focus on how I almost got shot the last time I was with him. I do my best
I’m pissed off
impression, and stand there waiting for him to speak. It takes a minute for him to realize I’m waiting, then he gets to it.

“Okay,” he begins nervously, gesturing with his hands. “Umm, I don’t really know how to say everything I wanna say, but I know I need to say it. I know that shit was bad the other night, and I didn’t expect all of that to happen, and I swear that’s not the kind of thing that goes on in my life on a regular basis. Before that night, everything was smooth. I’m a casino owner and a business man, but I don’t want to lie to you, or lead you to believe something other than the truth. It’s been ten years, and there’s things you don’t know about me, and I’d hate for you to get the wrong impression, so it’s important that I’m honest with you.”

He takes a deep breath and steadies himself, like his words are heavier than his body is ready for. I feel nerves in my stomach, but I let him continue without interrupting.

“The stuff you said you heard on the news is mostly true. I
am
a made member of the Giordano family, otherwise known as the St. Louis mafia, or the St. Louis crime family. My father was a made member as well, and he started prepping me to be a part of it when I was about eight years old. I’ve seen and done a lot since then, and a lot of that stuff has been bad. I’ve done things you probably don’t ever want to hear about, things I won’t tell you for your own safety. This thing is all I know, and I’ve managed to make it mostly legit, and I’ve avoided most of the stereotypical mafia bullshit they say on TV. Things went south before you got here, but there’s something you gotta know, Alannah. I’ve been waiting for you since the day you left.