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Chapter Nine- Enzo (Five Years Later)
I’m a bitch, I’m a boss. I’m a bitch and a boss and I shine like gloss.
I sigh, staring down at the man I’m interrogating as my phone rings in the background. The unmistakable ringtone my father set on the phone himself rings out through the room, breaking the atmosphere of intimidation I was setting. Instead of being afraid of me, the man accused of discounting our stock and selling it to the Russians at wholesale prices snickered.
I hit him across the face with my pistol.
The man will never leave this warehouse alive. I just need information from him before I kill him, namely, who else may work with him in this little scheme?
It was almost comical, the way he had been begging for mercy when I had been taking a baseball bat to his knees. Begging, but refusing to talk. I scowl at my phone. We were making progress and I’m sure the man was going to talk soon. There is no chance now.
I didn't pick out the ringtone on my phone. I don't customize ringtones. My father set it, insistent that his unique ring tone will remind me to always pick up when my Don is calling.
And you don’t say no to the Don.
I shoot the rat in the head. There’s no point in wasting any more time with him. Others will reveal themselves with time.
Sal may be my father but he is also a ruthless Don. It’s a piece of him not everyone sees. My mother and sisters don't see what he is capable of, but I'm not given the same courtesy. Working under him, and being primed to take over for him, means I am all too familiar with his irritability when he is kept waiting.
“Hello,” I growl into the phone when I bring it to my ear.
“Mansion. Now. We have a problem with Eric,” my father says. He doesn't give me any more information before hanging up the phone.
I frown at the dark screen. There’s only one thing about Eric I care to deal with, and that’s his daughter who should be coming home from university soon. When she went away, I assumed she would be back for the holidays and to spend time with her father, but Eric never spoke about her. My father assures me he is keeping tabs on the situation, but he hasn't provided me with an update.
It has been far too long since I’ve gotten to see her luscious red hair since I have got to feel those full lips against my own. I never got to learn if they feel as good going down my cock as they did against my mouth. And her pussy. I have dreams about her pussy about every damn night.
It’s been five years. A year longer than I told my father I would wait, but he insists she has the opportunity to finish university. I’m done waiting. The next time I see her, I'm going to tattoo my name on her ass. Property of Lorenzo Lombardi.
It has briefly occurred to me she'll be different from the girl I met. Five years is a long time. Eric hasn’t mentioned an engagement. I would have gone and taken her back home immediately if he ever did, but that doesn't mean there aren't any long-term boyfriends. The thought makes me sick to my stomach. It won't matter. She's mine. Any man she met while she's been away is a temporary distraction.
I’m the last one to arrive at the mansion, my uncle’s and cousin’s cars are already waiting in front of the house. The interrogation I was busy with took place in a warehouse across town, and I had to wait for a clean-up crew to arrive before I could leave. The last thing I need is some teenager trespassing and poking their head in there to see a dead body. We pay the police handsomely to avoid our properties being searched, but they would need to respond to the call to avoid further speculation from the media. It's an unnecessary expense to pay off the police and shift the blame elsewhere when they find a body, proper disposal is a cost-saving measure.
Andy is waiting at the door for me. “You’re late,” he says as I enter through the front door. He’s got an infuriating smirk on his face that never leaves. If I didn’t love him so much, I would hate him. Still, I’m glad for Bianca. She may be the only woman alive capable of humbling him.
“I was in the middle of something,” I tell him.
Andy snorts. “Yeah, it’s a good thing you didn’t get pulled over. You still have blood on your shirt.”
I don’t look, not wanting to become a victim of the weird games he likes to play. I nod my head down the hallway where my father’s office is located. No need to keep him waiting. He doesn't gather all my uncles and cousins if it isn't something important. Being together makes us vulnerable.
Our property is heavily guarded, and we have the best security system known to man. We’re more secure than the White House here, but we know better than to get cocky with our safety. Having us all together makes for a tempting target. Taking out the entire line in one swoop is a rare opportunity, the kind our enemies would make a Hail Mary attempt to not miss. Our meetings are rare and far in between for that reason, the last one being Andy and Bianca’s wedding.
I shake my head as Emma pops into my head again. She spends more and more time there. I’m growing anxious waiting for her. The only ones who know I intend to claim her are Andy and my father, but everyone can tell something has me on edge. My family has taken to avoiding me like the bubonic plague.
Eric mentioned in passing she is in her last semester, but then he noticed I was in the room and didn’t say anything more. He doesn’t speak about her anymore. At least he doesn’t when he knows I’m around. It adds to my suspicions he knows something happened between the two of us and thinks he’s protecting his daughter.
“Not the office. Basement.”
“Basement?”
Andy only answers by wincing and nodding his head. When my father mentioned Eric, I assumed it had something to do with one of our business acquisitions or mergers. We wouldn’t be heading to my father’s torture chamber if that was the case. He may call it his interrogation room, but the Don doesn’t do interrogations. He torments them until the truth pours from their lips in between broken cries. His interrogations make what I do look like child’s play, and I had been prepared to break someone’s femur earlier.
My eyebrows shoot up towards my hairline. “We’re having a meeting with Eric in the basement?”
Eric mainly deals with our legal and law-abiding companies, helping us to funnel and launder money made from our less legitimate businesses into something that can enter the system. It can be a complex process, as the government watches our every move and waits for us to fuck up. One wrong receipt, one suspiciously profitable business, and the feds will send their agents out like bulldogs. And unlike the city police, they’re much more expensive to pay off, if they’ll take a bribe at all.
It was the IRS that took down Al Capone, and we will not make the same mistakes he did.
