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I frown for a second, confused by what he’s suggesting. “Wait, what coke?” But even as I ask, I know what coke he’s talking about. I’ve seen the girls snorting lines in the bathroom. They’ve offered me bumps before, but I turned them down.
“Half the cocaine in Kansas goes through Nicholas Calvino’s family.” Lorenzo opens the front door of Mustangs and escorts me to his car. “Half of it is used to get girls like you hooked on drugs so you’ll stay slim and keep dancing for him. I’m sure he isn’t directly behind it, but that house mom of yours is certainly the ringleader.”
Harriet Englewood? The woman that frowns upon me having an OnlyFans? She’s the one feeding cocaine to the strippers like it’s a fun pre-work snack? “Are you sure?” I ask with a frown. “Hattie isn’t like that.”
Lorenzo snorts. “Baby, there’s a lot of things you don’t know about the Kansas families. But you’re going to learn soon enough.”
That sends a shiver down my spine. I’ve never been involved with the criminal element that spreads across the heartland, but the way Lorenzo makes it sound, I’m about to be formally acquainted.
7
LORENZO
A FEW HOURS EARLIER
Tonight’s the night.
Tonight’s thenight.
Tonight’s. The. Night.
And it’s all coming togetherbeautifully.
“You know, I have a lot on my plate right now.” Riccardo examines his fingernails from the other side of the desk. He stares at his cuticles like they’re the most interesting item in the room.
I look away from my computer screen with a raised eyebrow. “Yes,” I start slowly, “do you have a point?”
A smile slides up and around his lips as he draws his gaze from his hand and lands on my face. “I’m just letting you know that I already have a lot to deal with. I don’t have time to become the head of the family.”
“If you’re trying to get a rise out of me, it won’t work.” I turn back to the computer and continue analyzing the numbers the family accountant sent over two days ago. It’s been a work in progress for two days now, and I still have no idea how we got to this point. Somewhere in the chain of communication, a link was broken. Someone fucked up. Somehow the government says we owe them 1.1 million dollars.
“I’m just informing you, Enzo. Whether you go to prison for tax evasion like Al Capone or go up the river for kidnapping, you need to know that you’re putting me in a bad spot.” One quick glance at Riccardo tells me that he’s half-serious. The look on his face is playful but strained.
I set aside the vast amounts of paperwork I’m not educated enough to understand and try to reassure my younger brother that I’m not going to prison. “The tax fuck up isn’t mine, Ric. We haven’t evaded taxes; we owe $1.1 from last year for the Riva Corporation.” Which makes no sense. We pay our fair share of taxes. Sure, it isn’t what weshouldbe paying, but we pay taxes. We want to make sure the streets of Lawrence, Kansas are taken care of and our elementary schools can buy new equipment.
Riccardo purses his lips as he nods, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. “So, are you going to explain to Jaxbeforeorafteryou go to prison that the tax fuck up isn’t yours, you’re just the one paying for it?”
I grab the nearest pen and throw it at my younger brother. It sails across the space between us before narrowly missing him as he leans away from the projectile. “You trust me to know what I’m doing, right?”
“I trust you, sure,” Riccardo begins warily. “It’s all those othercafonesI don’t trust. They don’t have to take the heat if something goes seriously wrong.”
That’s a little true, a little false. If I go down for tax evasion, I’m taking people with me. I don’t understand the numbers just yet, but I can see where the patterns are fucked up. I know I’m not responsible for the Riva Corp owing $1.1, but if I go down for this, the responsible parties are coming with me. When we’re behind bars together, they’ll get their comeuppance.
“It’ll be fine, Ric. Don’t worry about it. I’ll have it all handled, and you won’t have to worry about a thing.” I’d never let my troubles go as far as to reach Riccardo. I love my little brother too much to let the worries of the family business become his problem. It’s bad enough that he’s involved at all.
Father always told me that Riccardo wasn’t meant for this lifestyle. He had a tender heart as a child and he grew up to be a lover, not a fighter. I thought it made him a good person; father thought it made him weak.
“What’s the plan with your thunderbolt?” Riccardo changes the subject after a few moments. “She’s a part of the Calvino family, you know.”
“Her father was a part of the Calvino family,” I correct him. “I don’t think Havana knows much about the families if I’m being honest. I’ve asked her about it here and there, and she really had no idea who Nicholas Calvino was besides the owner of Mustangs.”
It’s almost kind of sweet to know that the woman I love is ignorant of the crime happening around her. I’m not sure how she managed it. Her father used to be a bodyguard for the Calvino family. The record shows that she was about ten when he retired from working full-time for the family. Was she that oblivious to her surroundings? Or did her father keep it from her that he was working for one of the biggest crime syndicates in Kansas?
“If she isn’t familiar with this lifestyle, are you sure that dating her is a good idea?” Riccardo doesn’t ask with malice or evil intent; he genuinely wants to know. He knows what it’s like to be married to a mob wife and to be married to a wife that wants nothing to do with the mob. He is a man that has peeked behind both sides of the curtain.
But I’ve dated both kinds of girls. I’ve been with the woman that wants to marry the mafia boss. She was the type that got on her knees to service every desire I had before I even had it. And I’ve been with the woman that had no idea what lifestyle I was a part of. She didn’t seem to care for the criminal details of my job, and in the end, it was why we didn’t make it. It’s reasonable to say that the lesson was picking a woman familiar with Italian culture, but Havana transcends education. It doesn’t matter what I’ve learned or what I’ve lost; Havana Camden is more important than all of it.
I try to focus on the numbers on the computer screen, but the 8s blur into 0s, and the 3s become 8s, and I can’t make sense of anything. “I don’t have an option, Riccardo.” My brain is trying to tell me that I can’t function because my mind is elsewhere; I should listen. “Every weekend I see Havana, I tell myself I can live without her. I try to convince myself that the few hours I spend at Mustangs are enough. Then I come back home for the week, and all I can think about is how she smelled like peaches or the way her eyes lit up when I told her about my trip to Florida.”
