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“There’s very little going on in this country that I don’t know about, Boneiro. You would do well to remember that.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Surely you must’ve realized that a group operating as covertly as The Cobras wouldn’t involve anyone else? Or was that your plan? To set me up to take the fall?”
“Your imagination is running wild, Fadhil. My goal was to bring them out into the open so that we could get rid of them. It didn’t pan out. Now, we need to regroup and consider how to move forward. Destroying them quickly is the only way we’ll achieve success.” Marco tapped his fingers on the desk. “You’ll have to get out there. Draw them out so—”
“You’re not much of a strategist insofar as warfare is concerned are you, Boneiro? Why the hell would I do what they would expect? No, I’m not going to sacrifice myself to them, nor the FBI and surely not for you.”
“Look, we need to move now. Another delay is going—”
“I’ll make my move, Boneiro but it will be on my own terms.”
“What’re you planning? We need to do this as a team. You can’t—”
“Everything will become clear in due time.” Fadhil succinctly threw his previous response back into his face. He smirked at the angry flush on Boneiro’s face. “I’ve been playing these games a lot longer than you and I have a few tricks up my sleeve. How do you think I have managed to evade the FBI and local authorities for the past twenty odd years?”
“Fucking bastard!” Boneiro exploded as Fadhil summarily ended the call.
“Just say the word, Boss and we’ll be on a plane to take him out,” said Stefano. Marco’s youngest son was eager to please. They knew better than to call him father. It was a word that had been banned since they joined the Mafia as capos.
“Shut Up, Stefano. This isn’t a game. You don’t justtake outsomeone like Ali Mohammed Fadhil.”
“With all due respect, Boss, he’s a human being like you and me, flesh and blood— bleeds like the rest of us. He can be taken out.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”
“Where the fuck did I go wrong with you?” Marco sneered as he glared at Stefano. “Shut. Your. Mouth. I need to think.” He cast a sharp look at Luca. “Well? Don’t you have something to say?”
“My observation, you mean?”
Marco’s expression turned black with fury. Since their involvement with the sex ring had been exposed and they had been forced to go into hiding in Sierra Leone, Luca had become withdrawn, disrespectful and at times, like now, downright disparaging.
“What is your fucking problem, Luca?” Marco puffed out his chest in a show of power.
“Yeah, brother. Why are you being such a prick?” Rocco jabbed his younger brother in the side as he snickered.
“Get Out! Both of you,” Marco bellowed, his jowls bulging with growing anger.
“But Boss! How are we—”
“Now!” he said, glaring at them. His hands fisted angrily as he watched them stumble out of the room.
“You’re not scoring points by treating them like children,” Luca quipped dryly.
“I’ll treat them according to how they act… like imbeciles.”
“Have you ever considered that they act like that because of the way you treat them? They’re more clever than you think,Father. Maybe it’s time you give them the respect they deserve as caporegimes of our family.”
“I don’t need your advice on how to treat my own sons, Luca. All I’m interested in is—”
“And therein lies the crux of the matter, right? You don’t see any of us as your sons. We’re pawns to help you achieve your goal.”
“Where the fuck is all of this coming from? Spit it out, Luca. What the hell is the matter with you?” His eyes narrowed as he recalled what Luca had said. “Father? Since when is that an acceptable manner to address me?”
Luca shrugged as he leisurely lit up one of Marco’s prized Gurkha Royal Courtesan cigars— a reflection of his love for all things decadent.
That he ignored his father’s indignant stutter fueled his anger to breaking point. He knew Luca didn’t like to smoke and accurately identified that by puffing away on one of Marco’s thousand dollar cigars, was an act of defiance towards the mighty Mafia Don.
His son had turned into a force of nature over the years. He’d often dreaded the day when Luca would demand more power. This concern, like a rabid cur, snapped incessantly at his thoughts; how to share power, if at all, with an equally ambitious son. Luca, he feared, was out to make his mark in The Commission and at the most inappropriate time, adding anxiety he could ill afford at this stage. It was essential that they stood together as a unified front.
The Five Family council had been on the backfoot since the raid on the house in Oyster Bay during which time three of the leaders had been taken into custody. All of them had managed for years to avoid being directly associated with any criminal activity for which they could be locked up. Suddenly they were frontline news. They wanted blood and all fingers now pointed at the Boneiros. Luca had played a major role in establishing and running the sex trafficking ring. He’d done so with flair and success but now the same people who had praised him for taking the initiative to increase the assets of the Costa Nostrawere looking to pin the blame on him for the raid. It was imperative to get them out of the fix they were in before they got sucked under; more importantly, before it destroyed any chance of Marco being elected as the next chairman of The Commission. He’d do anything to ensure he became the undisputed Boss of all Bosses. No one was going to take that away from him.
Not even his own son.
