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“Of course! Let’s get you to the men’s room and clean you up before that blood stain sets in your shirt.” I heft him up from the floor, silently thanking Claude, my personal trainer, for his daily squat regimen. I wouldn’t be able to lift Venza otherwise.
I put his arm around my neck, and he clutches at my waist for support. We walk to the men’s room slowly as his muscles start to seize up. Instead of going in there, we walk through an emergency exit to the alley behind the restaurant.
At this point, Venza is shaking like a leaf. His sweat-soaked skin has a yellowish parlor. I assume that’s his organs shutting down. I’m not sure if Pam concocted this poison to have such a dramatic finish or if this is a happy coincidence, but she really outdid herself. I have to let Papà know about this so we can bankroll it and help her make a profit.
Venza scans the area as pure panic settles in his features. His eyes widen in fear when he takes in the alley we stand in.
No, asswipe, this isn’t the men’s room.
He’s just with it enough to know something isn’t adding up.
“Luigi Venza, Alessandro Vettore sends his regards.” I smile like a cat that swallowed a canary whole as I deliver the message. “This is your punishment for daring to cross the famiglia.”
His face is priceless, and I snap a pic on my secured phone to show Papà at tonight’s meeting. Venza dies a minute later.
A van rolls into the alley, and a few of my father’s soldiers hop out to take Venza's corpse away.
“Hey Vinny, don’t feed that one to the piggies, I poisoned him.” I know it only lasts so long in a corpse’s system, but I want to be safe—just in case.
“Sure thing, Maddie,” he smiles at me, promptly hauling the body into the back. “An acid bath for this one, then.”
Most of the famiglia is fine with my rising position in the ranks. There are many good men, like Vinny, who aren’t misogynistic pigs. He was the first person I thought to add to my crew when I made Capo last year. Then there are a few bad apples that cling to their withering, traditional ways. They question my decisions, constantly trying to undermine my authority. The other soldier, Bruno, is one of those men. He’s Vinny’s baby cousin, and I’m giving him a chance on my crew as a solid to him.
“Why do you have to make our jobs harder?” he grouses.
I raise a brow, trying to muster some surprise at this stronzo’s audacity. The ugly truth is that I’m not the least bit surprised.
“Ow!” he screeches after Vinny cuffs him in the back of the head.
“Have some sense,” Vinny chides him. “She sliced up the last asshole who disrespected her. She’ll use the knife in her boot to slit your throat, too.”
“Right you are, Vinny,” I agree with him. “Luca just sharpened it for me, too. Here, let me show you. It was a gift from a friend.” I take it out, just to see the fear flash across Bruno’s face as I use it to clean under my nails.
“How’s Helena doing?” I ask about his wife nonchalantly, a fake smile slithering across my face.
“She’s good,” he curtly replies.
“And how’s Anna Marie? Can you tell her I said hi at your session tonight?”
“What?!” he frantically barks. “How do you know about that?”
“Oh, Bruno,” I sing-song. “I have informants all over the city. I know about everything and everyone.”
I pull out my phone with my free hand, pulling up a photo of Bruno and Anna Marie in a very compromising position. Well, at least for Bruno. I don’t judge people’s sexual appetites and preferences. As long as everyone is a consenting adult, let your freak flag fly high. However, most men in the life aren’t as evolved. A picture of Bruno hogtied while getting flogged by a known Domme at one of the Irish’s sex clubs could cause him some serious trouble within the famiglia and with his wife.
“Y-y-you’re not going to show that to people, are you?” he splutters as sweat pours down his forehead. “Please, Maddie, d-d-d-don’t do this to me. Helena will leave me if she finds out. She’ll take me to the cleaners over this.”
“It’s sad that your first thought is the money you’ll lose in a divorce. Not the child you and Helena have on the way. Or the fact that you did this behind her back while she’s pregnant. I was just going to make your life hell, but now I need to have a conversation with my papà.”
“No, please don’t!” he begs.
“Let’s see how you behave toward your wife and me. You like dominant women, well you just got under my boot, pal. Either play ball with me, or I’ll make sure you don’t have balls to play with anymore,” I promise him as I flick my knife closed and return it to my boot.
His face blanches, and I watch as he wipes at the sweat from his brow. He realizes quickly I’m dead serious and will put his balls in a Tiffany vase to display for the world. He nods once, letting me know he understands me.
Over the years, I’ve gotten creative in how I handle haters. I’ll always have them, no matter how hard I work or how high I rise in the ranks. It’s the curse of being the first female capo in a man’s organization, unfortunately. I may as well have fun punishing them, and I’ll sure as hell have fun making Bruno’s life a living hell.
I think about the meeting I have with Papà’s counsel tonight. Only his consigliere and capos attend. Max and I were the most recent of our siblings to earn our place at the table. I work hard and dedicate so much time to my family, but I always feel the need to prove that I earned my place, to defend my right to sit at that table.
