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He liked the drive out, with the mansions and manicured lawns that were all meant to show off how much more wealth the owner had than their neighbor. The ultra-rich pissing contest aside, Felinus had always enjoyed the work the landscapers put into each of the yards. Usually, he took his time on the long drive to look at them like he had from the back seat of the family car fifteen years ago.
There was no time for that now. He barely touched his brakes as he raced a merciless clock to the gates of the Italian-style villa he knew all too well. He only slowed down once the gates were in sight so as to not tear up the gravel or leave tire marks on the street outside.
The Villa was designed to look like one that the Don had seen as a child growing up in Italy. He had told Felinus once that he used to stand outside the gates and imagine what it must be like to live in such a beautiful home. The Don had promised himself that one day he would know what it was like and had focused his life with that simple goal in mind. He didn’t get his perfect home right away, not even when he had had the money and power to build it at first. The house had only been finished a year before Felinus had first stepped foot inside, a decade after Esposito could have started its construction.
“But the timing hadn’t been right,” he had told Felinus, “the land hadn’t been perfect, the climate not ideal. I could not build my palace until I knew all others were taken care of. Only then was I able to focus on my own desires. Do you understand, il mio gatto?”
Felinus did understand, putting his car in park in front of the house. If the Don had built his home before knowing the Family as a whole was stable and secure, the faith in him might have been shaken. Felinus had always made sure he looked his best, but when he had become a caporegime so young that came with a risk. He never had to worry about Brutus or Bat, his first picks for his soldiers, believing that Felinus thought himself better than them with his new-found position; but other soldiers, men that had put more years into the Family than Felinus had been alive, might be rubbed the wrong way if Felinus mishandled the sudden influx of money and power allotted to him. It might have made men bitter, and bitter men tended to start sharpening knives.
On the whole, Felinus thought he had handled things well over the last five years. The skyscraper he lived in was his own construction project, and the apartments within it gave safe, reasonably priced housing to every member of the Family, not just his own soldiers, but other capos’ as well. His tenants tended to be life-long bachelors or young married couples, the location in the heart of the city was not particularly good for children or older women who desired a community, but he had never turned away an application if there was a vacancy and he was reasonable if someone suddenly found themselves short on rent. The lower floors were almost exclusively young men and women whose fathers, past and present, had been in the Family, but they themselves were drawn to other callings. Those apartments were revolving doors of young people needing short leases while they waited for acceptance letters or calls about college or jobs that would take them to other locations, sometimes out of the city itself. There was even a small shopping area on the first floor, opposite Felinus’s private entrance, to meet the basic needs of those getting used to living without parental support.
If Issac had been part of the Family, he could have been living there for the last three years while he finished his schooling. Then again, if Issac had been part of the Family, no one would have allowed him to get this sick.
Nikola was waiting inside the door as Felinus stepped in past the usual two guards outside. “Gatto,” he said shortly.
“Nikola,” Felinus replied, holding his arms out to allow the Don’s personal bodyguard to pat him down. He took the two guns and pocket knife Felinus always carried without either of them commenting on their presence. One did not pass the Don’s threshold armed, but it would be foolish to be defenseless between your own door and his. It was simply understood.
“He is waiting in the sunroom,” the man told him once the weapons were locked away in the hidden safe behind the photographs of the original Villa. “You are late.”
Felinus pressed his lips together. Listening to Issac’s sharp tongue the last couple of days almost made him loosen his own. Instead, he nodded and walked to the room of glass that Felinus had modeled his own greenhouse after.
Antonio Esposito was a man who had been a heavyweight boxer in his youth and still carried that strength in his chest and arms. He had softened somewhat around the middle as his role in the Family became increasingly hands-off to allow those under him to thrive and carry the future forward. His once dark hair was peppered with gray at his temples and there were lines around his mouth and corners of his eyes. Despite being dressed in a pale bathrobe and white slippers, the man looked more put together than Felinus felt with his ten-minute shower and not having time to spot-iron his suit.
On the table, there were two plates, cappuccino cups, a coffee pot, milk, and an assortment of fruits and pastries, some of which had already found their way to the Don’s plate.
“Sit, Felinus,” he said, firm and cold without looking at him.
Felinus swallowed as he silently crossed the room and took the empty seat. The Don had given him the name Il Gatto and only ever called Felinus by his legal name when he was angry with him. It had only happened once before.
He didn’t reach for any of the things in front of him, waiting with his hands resting flat on the table.
“I received an interesting call last night,” Esposito said, still not looking at him as he used a knife and fork to cut melon into smaller pieces, “from Pakhan Volkov. Can you guess what he said to me?”
Felinus almost wanted to explode in relief, feeling his lips twitch towards a smile before he forced them still. “I have an idea,” he said evenly. So Little Volkov fucked up and ran to Daddy to try to fix it, he thought smugly. He could just imagine what Dimitri said to his father about Felinus to get the head of the Russians to call Esposito.
The knife rested next to the Don’s plate and the fingers laced together with the fork still in hand as Esposito stared Felinus down with cold, gray eyes. “An idea,” he repeated. “You keep me waiting and you only have an idea?”
For a moment, Felinus was distracted. Physically, Esposito and Issac could not look more different from each other but there was no denying that the pose Esposito had taken was exactly the same as the one Issac had back in Maria’s little restaurant. If there was any doubt that still existed in Felinus’s mind that Issac was far more than the baggy clothes and grown-out hair had first made him seem, it was completely gone now. “They are accusing me of poaching,” he answered, holding the gray eyes just as he had the black ones. “I have done no such thing.”
“They are demanding that the Family back away from Issac Maus and cease all contact.” Esposito narrowed his eyes. “Imagine my surprise when he told me that my cat has been toying with a German boy from the Russian Ring against the boy’s will.”
“I am not holding him against his will,” Felinus said, feeling a flood of anger at the accusation. He took a moment to reign it in as those eyes flashed at him. “Don Esposito,” he placed his hands over his heart as he bowed his head slightly, “allow me to explain. The Russians are reacting to lies and half-truths that they have taken as fact. It is not how it appears to them.”
“Pakhan Volkov is not a man to react to anything,” Esposito said firmly. “He would not level such accusations without cause or proof.”
“The Pakhan is indeed a strong and stable leader,” Felinus agreed quickly. “He would not be led astray by just anyone. But even the strictest of fathers are often wont to believe their youngest children when they come to him in earnest. We all know this.”
That got Esposito’s attention, and he lifted his head a fraction with a frown. “Little Volkov is involved in this?”
“Little Volkov is the cause of this,” Felinus said calmly. “Issac has known Little Volkov as a classmate for the last seven years. In that time, he has kept a great deal of information hidden from Volkov due to his stubborn nature and personal concerns I’m not privy to. But Little Volkov is obvious in his desire to have their relationship be more than just classmates, something I did not know about until after I met Issac and tracked him back down at the campus to speak with him again.” He spread his hands. “Had I known, I would have handled things differently but Little Volkov doesn’t know Issac nearly as well as he thinks he does. My presence has opened a wound in the youngest Volkov’s pride and he has turned to his father after his tantrum damaged what relationship the two had. Like any good father, Volkov believes his son’s version of events. I haven’t poached or forced myself upon anyone.”
The chair creaked softly as Esposito leaned back, stroking his chin slowly. “From the beginning, il mio gatto.”
Felinus felt a surge of relief that he didn’t allow himself to express just yet and started telling the Don of the events of the last three days, careful not to leave anything out while not going into details that he knew neither of them wanted to be shared. He didn’t hide the fact that he had had sex with Issac in the warehouse, nor did he lie about wanting to continue to have that privilege but he also repeated what he had told Issac last night: that his help and assistance would continue with or without sex, that all Issac had to do was tell him no, that it had everything to do with Issac risking death if someone did not look after and support him per the doctor’s prognosis.
When he was done, he was given the signal to take from the breakfast table, and he immediately poured himself strong coffee with a little milk. He wondered what Brutus had made Issac for breakfast and how the two were getting along as he sipped from his cup. They wouldn’t need to leave the apartment for another twenty minutes still, but he imagined that wouldn’t stop Issac from arguing with Brutus to leave earlier even if he hadn’t finished his plate. It wouldn’t work on Brutus. Brutus was worse than Ma when it came to “the most important meal of the day.” Felinus teased him constantly about making someone a great wife one day.
“So the boy is homeless and without any family of his own,” Esposito said, setting his own empty cup down. “He has no affiliations at all?”
