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Sixteen
“Hello? Hello?”
Luciano squinted at the computer on his black marble desk, a bunch of icons on the laptop screen staring back at him, none of which made any sense. So much for technology making life easier. When had using a phone become a hassle? And what was with all this video-calling bullshit? All he wanted to do was talk to his cousin over in New York, but right now, he could hear Mark, but Mark couldn’t hear him.
Not sure what to press, he stabbed at the trackpad hoping that might fix the issue. “Can you hear me?”
Still no reply.
“Luc, you haven’t got your camera or microphone on.” Mark’s voice cut through the laptop speaker. A laptop Luciano rarely used since he had a personal assistant to handle pretty much everything to do with computers.
He’d grown up pre-internet era, and even though he’d missed the 1950s by decades, he figured America had only lost its shine since the days of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra—video calls and technology included.
He shook his head at the computer and ran his fingers down the laptop’s sides, then over the keyboard, looking for where the camera or microphone buttons might be. “Where the fuck are they?”
He stabbed a finger at the keyboard some more, but that just made a bunch of gibberish letters fill a typing field on the screens right. Maybe it was time to get his PA back in here so she could set up this stupid call.
“Luc, see a red microphone picture on your screen’s bottom left?” Mark paused a beat, then added, “Click on it with your mouse.”
Luciano searched the screen again, an agitated fire filling the space beneath his ribcage before he saw what his younger cousin talked about. “Can you hear me now?”
“Yes, now do the same with the camera icon just next to it.”
Luciano did just that, only to be met with the moving image of Mark shaking his head—with his thick, light brown waves swept back, his open-collar powder blue business shirt matching his eyes.
Luciano peered at the top right corner, a smaller square beaming his own moving image back at him. He was about a decade older than Mark and about a hundred pounds heavier, his hair dark and gelled back, and unlike his pretty-boy cousin, he put in the effort to wear a suit and tie for work.
“So, what the fuck is all this about?” Mark held up his phone and flicked through article after article on his screen, each time pausing to push the phone closer to the camera so Luciano could read the titles.
Mark turned the phone back to him and read out loud, “There are signs Anthony Stucco didn’t work alone. Authorities say they are on the hunt for anyone who might have aided his failed attempt to extort money from his ex-wife, Emilia Bonacci.”
Mark lowered the phone and stared back at Luciano. “First failure, and now you fuckers left evidence that Anthony had help?”
“Look”—Luciano held up both hands, the muscles at his jaw bunching with a desire to unleash his temper—“even we don’t know what happened, which is why I wanted to talk with you.”
“Oh, so let me guess, you want me to figure out what happened?” Mark raised a brow, glaring ahead like he thought Luciano had lost his fucking mind. “Seems Anthony’s was the only body found, so what happened to the guy you had assisting him?”
Luciano scoffed and shook his head. “Like you don’t know, you arrogant piece of shit.”
Mark gazed up at the heavens, gaping in a hammed-up oblivious act. For years, he’d pushed to modernize the syndicate, wanted each branch to become more tech savvy. But none of that bullshit made much sense to Luciano and the other top honchos. Why fix something that worked well enough?
“Let me guess.” Mark’s expression hardened, his moment of sarcastic humor over. “Your guy bailed.”
Luciano clenched his jaw together, working his teeth against each other in another attempt to hold on to his cool. Despite what Mark liked to think, Luciano wasn’t stupid or a loose cannon. He was just some poor immigrant kid from one of LA’s scummier outer suburbs, a kid who the whole world had looked down on until he did what he could to get ahead.
If dealing drugs had given him his start, so what? He’d opened a door, met people like Anthony Stucco, who’d then opened doors with Rudolph Manzinni—the enigmatic man behind the entire syndicate.
Fact was, despite Mark’s attitude right now, he owed Luciano for the college education neither of them could have afforded if Luciano had kept his hands clean. He’d gotten Mark into this gig too. Gotten him the New York branch. They both had power and money now, enough to keep their families rich over multiple lifetimes. There’d be no worrying about where the next meal or medical treatment might come from. Whoever said crime didn’t pay, was a fucking moron. So, he wasn’t about to let Mark or some pissant cog like Dean Holloway put a dent in what he’d built.
“I’m in over my head here, okay?” He paused, not for the first time in his life, doing what fucking needed to be done to get ahead. “I need your help.”
For this one time, he agreed with his cousin. A little tech savvy had helped Dean Holloway find Anthony Stucco, so maybe it had helped him escape the syndicate altogether too. Now it was time to fight technology with technology and have Mark, with his army of eggheads, find Holloway.
“To find your interloper?” Mark gave a mocking sort of laugh. “Don’t you have your own man for that?”
“Yeah, and he’s the one we need to track.”
Mark’s short, mocking laugh turned into a boisterous roar, and he slapped his hand repeatedly over a desk Luciano couldn’t see on screen, the hard thud and rocking of Mark’s computer making that desk “visible” either way.
“You’re an ungrateful little punk, aren’t you?” Luciano glared into the tiny camera on his laptop, finally releasing his frustration, his words loose but his tone controlled. “You think it’s fucking funny that one dissatisfied employee might blow a big, fucking hole into the syndicate’s side? If you don’t help me, you’ll be guilty by association, and we’ll both be knee-deep in shit with Rudolph, you got it? Man, for all your education, you’re a fucking dead brain, you know that?”
He shook his head in a slow and condescending motion, while pressing his lips together in a tight line. Meanwhile, Mark held a long silence, his stare unreadable but hinting at thought.
“Okay, fine. I’ll see what I can do.” Mark leaned back in his chair, no apology given but the decision made. “But if I find him, Luciano, no more fuckups. You deal with Mr. Holloway and anyone else helping him. You make them all disappear.”
