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I take a few deep breaths as I watch Connie return inside. Yes, we don’t have any secrets, but this isn’t a secret, is it? There’s nothing to tell. And it’s about time I started looking out for myself more.
I turn back towards the restaurant but before I even make it through the doors, the two smirking men from inside appear, a solid wall of muscle and intimidation blocking my way.
I stare up at them, instinctively knowing that I’m not going back inside the restaurant, knowing that Raphael was right: today is all about expecting the unexpected. I open my mouth to scream but before I can, the world goes black.
Two
MICHAEL
“What’s the plan, Capo?” asks Franco, squashing his large ass into one of the leather tub chairs opposite my walnut desk. I regard him as I smoke, wondering how resentful he feels that he now answers to me instead of my father, the great Matteo Luciano, God rest his soul. Franco hasn’t voiced his concerns to me that at just twenty-three, I’m too young to take over and run the Naples outfit, but I can tell by his often hostile body language that he’s resistant to it, despite knowing me my whole life. He still sees me as that quiet little kid who does as he’s told, the scrawny little kid under his father’s control, but he doesn’t know me, not really. My strength comes from watching, listening, observing. Understanding people’s weaknesses, and then exploiting them. Using my brain rather than my fists. Being strategic. Biding my time. Which is why the plan to attack the Ricci base is going to be clever and calculated. There’s no way I’m dying the same way my father did. There’s no way I’m dying before I avenge his death.
“Gianni,” I say while still looking at Franco. At the sound of his name Gianni stands, unrolls a large document, and spreads it on the desk, weighing down all four corners with objects. Franco and I both stand too, and we look down at the floor plan for the Ricci base. A large mansion in sprawling grounds, the residence has two guarded entrances but many blind spots we can use to our advantage. After studying the floor plan for days, I know it almost as well as my own home, but I’m not complacent about what’s ahead. Complacency gets you killed.
Crushing my cigarette out in the glass ashtray, I blow out a final plume of smoke and begin taking Franco and Gianni through my plan of attack.
Gianni nods respectfully throughout, asking the odd question to clarify particular details, but he doesn’t oppose my strategy. Out of all my right-hand men, Gianni is the one I trust the most.
“No problem, boss,” he says. “I’ll be ready.”
“Franco?” I ask.
The rotund man sticks one of his sausage fingers into the tight collar of his dress shirt, scratching the folds of his thick neck as he looks at me, the hint of a challenge in his eye. He removes his finger and shrugs. “I think we’ll need more weapons. Why aren’t we taking more guns? It’s not as if we can’t get our hands on them.” He laughs and knocks Gianni’s arm, encouraging him to join in on the joke. Gianni raises his eyebrows and remains silent.
“Come on, Capo.” He spreads his short arms wide and grins. “You know I’m right. That’s what Matteo would have done.”
I look at him and fume. This again. The same refrain over and over, always bringing it back to what my father would have done. I slam both palms down onto the desk in anger, making the objects on top wobble. “I am not my father!” I shout in a rare display of emotion, glaring at Franco’s fat face. A face I’ve seen more or less every day throughout my whole life. A face that was always beside my father’s, full of adoration and admiration for him. Now it’s a face that’s full of disdain for me. I need to put him in his place. I round the desk and grab him roughly by this thick neck, pushing him back against the wood paneled wall. I’m twenty years younger and a head taller than him and I enjoy the feeling of looking down into his wide, shocked eyes.
“My father is dead and as his only son I am now the Capo dei Capi of the Luciano clan. By disrespecting me you are disrespecting my father and his memory, and I will not stand for it!” I squeeze his trunk-like neck tighter, then tighter still, my hand a vice, causing his tongue to protrude from his mouth and his watery eyes to bulge unpleasantly in their sockets. I can see that he realizes he has underestimated me and although I would have preferred not to have made my point this way, it will ensure my father’s loyal colleague understands better how our new hierarchy works. I am not that little kid anymore and everyone in the outfit needs to know their place, and their places are all below me.
Gianni coughs behind me, bringing me back down to earth, and I release Franco, taking a step back as he gurgles and splutters and stretches his collar, trying to give the air greater access to his lungs.
I regain my composure, straightening my suit jacket as I move back behind the desk. Taking a fresh cigarette from the gold case on my desk, I strike a match and light the end, inhaling deeply. As I exhale and smoke fogs the lamplit room, I glance across at Franco. He’s still sporting a red face but he’s standing up straight again, regarding me more fearfully than he ever has. There’s even a hint of respect in his wary gaze now.
I gesture for both men to take their seats again. “Now, where were we?”
Two days later, we are finally ready. Gianni, Franco and I know the plan inside out and the other trusted clan members have been briefed. Our target: Anthony ‘Rooster’ Ricci, Capo dei Capi of the Ricci clan, the man responsible for my father’s death. He may not have pulled the trigger himself but if it wasn’t for Ricci trying to muscle in on our outfit, my father wouldn’t have been at the warehouse that fateful night and gunned down by armed polizia. We’ve been lying low ever since, waiting for the right time to take back the armory of weapons they stole from us in that set up. Like I said: my strength comes from watching, listening, observing, and while they think we’ve been quietly licking our wounds, we’ve actually been sharpening our teeth and claws, ready to attack.
At midnight, Gianni’s cousin, Gustavo, drives the van to the front entrance and parks it close to the house. He and Franco keep Ricci’s guard dogs on the door talking in circles, their voices becoming more and more animated while they maintain their fake delivery driver roles, creating enough of a diversion for Gianni and me to slip out the back of the van and into the concealed cellar entrance, already unlocked by one of Ricci’s disgruntled underlings that Gianni has paid off. Never underestimate the power of a bribe. Or the threat of a gun.
Our guns come in handy as we descend the stone steps into the cellar and surprise one of Ricci’s staff helping himself to his boss’s liquor. Before he can form a word, Gianni backhands him with a pistol and he slumps to the floor without smashing the bottle he’s holding. I nod at Gianni, and we continue moving through the long, narrow cellar corridor, checking each of the anterooms we encounter for our stolen arsenal that Gianni’s contact informed us was down here. Tonight’s objective is to retrieve our property and teach Ricci a lesson, making him realize that we can infiltrate his house and his business whenever we choose. Leaving him in no doubt that the Luciano clan owns Naples, and we take what we want when we want it.
While we methodically check the cellar, I think about Franco and Gustavo upstairs. By now they should have taken care of the front door guards and be hunting down Ricci. According to our intel, Ricci’s a creature of habit and at this time of night on a Friday, he’s always either in his study or in the first-floor guest bedroom fucking his current mistress after his wife leaves for the weekend.
“Boss, in here.” I turn towards Gianni’s voice and see him standing in the doorway of one of the anterooms. Almost as tall as me, but wider, he fills the gap and moves aside to let me peer into the cell-like room. He shines his torch over a mound of what looks like stacked boxes concealed with a dark covering. I stride in and yank the covering off, revealing black industrial crates stacked two deep right up to the ceiling.
“Give me a hand,” I say to Gianni.
We pull down one of the top crates and look inside, not surprised to find our stock of guns and ammunition. We grin at each other; Gianni’s contact came good. We are going to take back what’s rightfully ours.
“Let’s start moving these out to the van. Franco and Gustavo should have secured Ricci by now.”
Gianni nods and we start lugging the crates back through the corridor towards the opening we entered through, each taking one then coming back for another until we’ve restacked them. We both huff out a breath after the final crate and I check the time, wondering where the other two men are.
As if reading my thoughts, Gianni starts up the narrow stone steps. “I’ll go check they’re ready, boss.”
He opens the cellar hatch and a welcome blast of warm night air floats down. I run my hand across the back of my neck, sticky with sweat after all our exertion despite the dampness of the cellar. I walk up a couple of steps then sit, waiting to hear Gianni’s confirmation that Franco and Gustavo are ready to help us load up the van before we deal with Ricci. The thought of him bound and gagged, watching us empty his cellar brings a smile to my face. Stealing from the thief.
My eyes roam this first section of the basement lazily as I wait. Next to the slumped, unconscious man still clutching the liquor bottle, is an opening through to what looks like a wine cellar. I cross over to the doorway and dip my head to look inside. The entire left wall cushions rows of wooden barrels and the right hand side is split into walled sections containing bespoke shelving. Each section has an arched top which mirrors the low curved ceiling. This looks like a good place to hide things and I wonder what else Ricci has stolen that he’s keeping down here.
