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“Paul. Jay. There’s no need to be uncivilized with our guest.”
A deep voice with a thick Eastern European accent commanded the room in a second. Paul and Jay released their grips, and I shook them off like a dog right out of water. I then took an extra second to straighten my clothes before peering around a room I’d thought I’d never see again.
It wasn’t really a room—more like four hollowed-out apartments that once upon a time took up half the third floor. Weight-bearing posts were scattered around the room, along with a few remnants of the apartments that used to be here—a kitchen in one corner, a full bar built in another, a TV surrounded by couches near an empty fireplace, and a large dining table that would easily seat ten or twelve and chairs set up in the middle. There were a few other tables here and there that were currently empty, but I could easily imagine holding a card game or two.
The headquarters of the Mancuso family was big but not particularly showy. Made sense. Most of the bosses didn’t even live in the Bronx anymore. Instead, they made their homes in Westchester and New Jersey, leaving the dirty work of managing their turf to low-level soldiers or runners like Paul and Jay.
They were blasé about my presence—no blindfolds or passwords or dumb movie shit like that. That was because they knew, just as I did, that there wouldn’t be a single incriminating piece of evidence in the building. Mobsters like Mancuso and Antoni provided the money and the protection for various operations like selling dope, stealing cars, or gambling, and in exchange, they took a healthy cut. But none of it ever touched them because they were smart and played men like me for fools. It was why they were so hard to take down. And why it was so hard to escape them.
No, a place like this had two purposes: congregation and interrogation.
I doubted I was here for the first.
The merging of the Albanians and the Italians had been coming a long time in Belmont. The Albanians had been steadily taking over the drug trade in this part of the city since the early eighties, doing the work no one else wanted to do with ruthlessness, efficiency, and immovable integrity. They kept their promises unto death—or so said their reputation. It made them valuable partners. And certainly not people you’d ever want to cross.
This was the first time I’d met any of them, though.
“Sit,” said the man who was clearly in charge. He gestured to a seat at the far end of the dining table.
Not being a complete idiot, I did what he said.
Five men sat with him, some sipping on espresso or glasses of brown liquid, others picking at a platter of baklava, while a few others were watching a Knicks game on the TV, and a blonde woman in the kitchen was busy at the counter. At the head of the table was a middle-aged guy with thinning gray hair and a long, slightly crooked nose. Everyone else, including Sly Ricky, was watching him closely.
But it was the familiar face sitting to his right that clued me in to the fact that I was facing none other than Lis Antoni, boss of the entire Albanian mafia in New York City.
“Ares.” I nodded to my former classmate. “What up, man?”
I hadn’t seen Ares Antoni since the ninth grade, which happened to be both of our last years of high school. Our reasons, however, were pretty damn different. I left because no one cared whether I passed or failed. Ares left because people cared too much. His life had already been planned for him by the people in this room, and those plans didn’t require Algebra Two or reading Huckleberry Finn.
I had to give it to Lis Antoni. It was a pretty strong declaration to name your only son after the god of fucking war.
“Hey,” Ares replied with a simple nod. He’d grown up since ninth grade, switched the oversized Knicks jersey for a button-up shirt, a buzz-cut for slicked brown hair, and a babyface for a well-groomed goatee.
Still as quiet as ever, though. It made sense. A god of war in training was never going to waste time with chatter.
The woman in the kitchen approached the table, carrying a tray of food, which she set down directly next to Ares. He gave me a smirk when he saw that I recognized her.
Gina Reyes. Paul’s sister and my ex-girlfriend.
Apparently, she wasn’t too eager to get me back as everyone thought. Not that I gave a shit.
Although I was a little surprised that Area was into her now. Fine as she was, I wouldn’t have thought he’d have a taste for sloppy seconds.
“You want?” Lis’s deep voice boomed across the table as he waved a casual hand toward the food.
I shook my head. “I’m good, thanks.”
“Hi, Mike.” Gina finished unloading the tray, giving everyone at the table an ample look at her cleavage in the process. But instead of turning to Ares, she slid a proprietary arm around Lis’s shoulder on her other side.
No one at the table even batted an eye.
“How you been, baby?” she purred as she played with the older man’s hair.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Gina always did have a taste for power and the darker corners of Belmont, even if it only started with star basketball players and hoods like me. But the sight of her hand massaging the neck of a dude at least forty years older than her was still pretty fucked up.
“I heard you got out,” she continued as she massaged Lis’s neck.
“Yes, no thanks to you,” I snapped before I could stop myself.
