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Two weeks later, Tae was still missing, and I was locked up on a conspiracy to distribute an illegal substance charge. The police hadn’t found any drugs on me when they pulled me over. They had, however, performed a raid on the warehouse, and some of the packs had my fingerprints on them, so there was a BOLO out for my vehicle. I had no doubt of who set me up. I would end his treacherous ways when I got my hands on the missing man. I had lost my freedom for a while as a teenager, and that rat tried to get me sent back up the road on a lifetime bid.
Just to say he brought down a DeLuca, this one good cop did everything he could to make more charges stick. It took my grandfather flying into Columbus, Georgia to get me out of trouble. He pulled strings with the police chief and DA, and all of my problems disappeared.
Concern had etched the Don’s weathered features on the ride back to my condo. He could sense my rage. He knew the look of DeLuca wrath and how it would look once I began to unleash it on the streets. He knew I didn’t have my parents to lean on and that I was closest to the familial ties in Italy.
Don Ermano sighed. “All my grandsons and nephews are intelligent and capable, but I have always seen something special in you, Vito.” He paused, and I waited for him to continue since I didn’t know where he was going with this conversation. “During my time, we did things our way. But the world is changing with so many different ways to make a mark. There are many ways to put the things you learned to work.”
“What are you saying, grandfather?”
“You can do things your way now, set your own path.”
“I will always live by the DeLuca code. I will do things the DeLuca way,” I answered.
He nodded. “You are and always will be a DeLuca savage. I can see it in your eyes. You have represented the family well.”
His pat on my shoulder let me know I had his approval. Having his blessings was an honor I didn’t take lightly.
“Listen to me closely, Vito. I'm not supposed to say what I’m about to tell you. I’m your grandfather, but most importantly, I’m your Don. But I have seen it all at this age on the mafia side. I want to see the other side of the coin at play for more of us. You’re in a growing American city; you can do anything you want to do. And I want you to think big. Channel that energy for the streets into something these rat pigs can’t take from you. Start a business. Go legit. Become a corporate savage, and show them we are savages in anything we put our minds to.”
“Legit?” I chuckled, thinking he’d get to the punch line of his joke soon. DeLucas lived underneath the law, in an underworld where we ruled the land. If we built a legit company, it was only to wash our illegal money.
His brow furrowed. “When have you ever known me to not be serious? I’m not playing, Vito.”
“Oh, so you really want me to go legit? As in legit-legit?”
“Yes, I do, grandson.”
I frowned. Going totally legit was a foreign idea to me. I had always imagined the end game as becoming the Capo of Georgia and running the state the way my father should have.
“I’m the capo, and my men depend on me. What would I do?” I asked.
“Listen, you will always be a part of the DeLuca mafia family. I’m just asking you to expand and allow the few good men in the family who could step into your capo position to do so, so you can focus on building a corporate empire. No one will be as good as you, but we have some soldiers who have what it takes to run this area.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know about this.”
“Just think about it. You were made at eighteen years old. Because of your father’s inadequacies, you have always felt like you had to step up to fill the shoes his morals wouldn’t allow him to fill. You don’t have to do that anymore, and you have my blessings to go in a different direction,” he said sincerely.
“Are you saying this because I got locked up? I can stay out of trouble.”
He shot me a menacing glare. “And I’m here because…?”
“Point taken.”
“Look, the best of us can get jammed up when a good cop has a hardon for an arrest. But the long game has always been to roll our money into enterprises that can’t be touched. We need soldiers inside and outside the corporate world. We have plenty of soldiers to run the streets, but you have what it takes to build a huge legal enterprise. Believe it or not, you have it in you to walk on both sides of the law. So, when you ask me what can you do, the answer is simple. You can do anything you want to do.”
I took a minute to take in what he relayed. I had millions stashed from my days as a dealer. The money was hidden well, just waiting for me to put it to good use. Even if I didn’t have my own money, the Don would see that I got the funding I needed. I could go legit if I wanted. I could become a boss in the corporate world because no one legit was more savage than me. I would run circles around the corporate suits.
That talk with the Don had implanted new visions in my mind. His resounding point of that talk was to say, “No matter what business you decide to get into, make sure they know who we are. You have to make them remember our names.”
“I will always make them remember the DeLuca name,” I assured him.
I still had to handle my snitch problem, but I didn’t take the Don’s words lightly. When I became one of the youngest made men at eighteen, I thought there was no way out of the mafia. But the advice of the DeLuca Don himself was to go legit. He was the head of our family, a gentle savage that no one wanted to provoke and see his other side. Who would argue with his wishes and survive to see another day?
