9. Leo
9
LEO
F rankie glances at me and arches his brows. “This seems ill-advised.”
“I don’t remember asking for your opinion.”
“As your right-hand man,” he replies, folding his tattooed arms against the chest of his T-shirt, “I feel the need to warn you when you might be making a rash decision. Especially one that’ll end in catastrophe.”
Stepping around him, I walk into the office building on K Street, where the De Tores rent space to seem legitimate. Our counterfeiting and drug-running operations happen below the city, where fewer people are likely to stumble upon them, but this setup allows us to sail smoothly under federal regulations.
I’m not sure why we needed to meet here for this lousy tradition instead of my aunt Regina’s or Nonna’s, but after spending my night pacing outside the bedroom while Stella slept, I’m in no mood to argue.
You did this to her, Leo.
The guilt of bringing a helpless rabbit into a lion’s den scrapes at my insides. It’s not something I’m accustomed to, and I don’t want to dwell on why I care so much about a practical stranger’s well-being.
There’s no time to read into it.
“Are you sure you want to go up there right now?” Frankie asks as we make a beeline for the stairs in the lobby’s back corner. “Maybe we should hit the gym, do a few reps, and blow off some steam. Hell, there are probably half a dozen guys around the city you could rough up or fuck, even, instead of what you’re about to do.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He slides me a knowing glance. “You’re three seconds from self-annihilation. Something tells me you’re going to take it out on that group of men upstairs, and the lack of a bloody bedsheet indicates it has something to do with your wife.”
The stairwell door slams shut, echoing around us as we ascend to the top floor. Despite Frankie being my closest associate and brief lover, it still grates how well he knows me.
“And if it does? You gonna tell me not to get worked up over someone hurting her?”
“She was hurt already? Jesus, she hasn’t even stepped outside your condo.”
“Monsters will find a way. Sometimes, they have keys to your place and nothing better to do than terrorize your guests.”
He doesn’t reply, likely catching on.
We’ve known each other for years, so I don’t have to spell everything out. I was the one who brought him in after he got into trouble with a member of the Commission, the overseers of Mafia activity in the States. They tried to frame him as an informant despite having no evidence to prove it. The diamond on his face was their doing, something to target him with, and now no one in Boston wants to come within three feet of Frankie.
So I keep him at my side. Where I can watch him closely, but also so others are less likely to approach me.
Besides, I’ve never been one to play by the rules of our family. Especially considering the majority of them are vile snakes, waiting to betray one another.
They’re just usually better at hiding it.
Upstairs, the De Tore office is the last door at the end of the hallway. Freelance contractors, tax specialists, and occasionally mediators work on this floor, again giving us a film of legitimacy when investigators eventually come sniffing around.
Half of Boston’s police force used to be on Ricci’s payroll, and now no one knows who they can trust, so in general, we keep everything in this building aboveboard.
My father sits at the head of a long wooden conference table with a backdrop of windows behind him, like a false king overseeing a kingdom he doesn’t deserve. Gino and Zeno flank him on either side while the rest of the chairs are filled with other relatives and associates, all here for the proof that I fucked my wife last night.
Proof they won’t be getting—not now and not ever.
“Ah, Leopoldo, you’re here. Wonderful. We can?—”
The first shot leaves my pistol before my father can finish his sentence. Everyone watches the bullet whiz straight past his head, buzzing a path through the graying hair above his ear before it lodges into the wall. Blood trickles down the side of his face, dripping from his chin, and he reaches up with a stunned expression, pressing his index finger to the droplet.
Shock immobilizes the room.
“I warned you, didn’t I?” My voice is hard as steel, unrecognizable as rage powers through my veins, reigniting when I think of a drunken Stella in my bed last night. How she didn’t seem to notice the bruise until I pointed it out, which must mean she’d been caught off guard when it happened.
Leaning back in his chair, my father gives me a resigned look. “Don’t you want to know if she deserved it?”
The second shot fires without me fully focusing, and it goes over his head, piercing the window behind him. A hole forms in the glass, and fissures crack around it, framing the sun in the sky.
“I told you not to touch her.” My entire body is on fire as I edge closer to the table, noting in my peripheral vision the few chairs scooting back. I feel Frankie hovering close by, probably assessing the situation and trying to decide if he should intervene.
I’ll kill him first if he does.
A sadistic chuckle comes from my father. “I knew she’d make you soft. You’ve had your eyes on her for years, and you’ve just been waiting for an opportunity to drag her into the fold. Did you honestly think it was going to be so easy, cazzo ? That I’d let you bring Ricci filth into a world I’ve spent my entire life strengthening, just so she could fucking ruin it all?”
Gino rolls his eyes at my father’s dramatics but says nothing.
My fingers flex, my nondominant hand aching with the effort it takes to curl inside my leather glove. A painful, unyielding reminder of just how my father “strengthened” the De Tore family—by abusing me, making me an agent of his chaos, and trying to keep his title anyway.
As if the things we’ve accomplished—the allies, the new business products and protection contracts, the contact points with premier dealers in the harbor—were his doing.
When I was young, he’d slice my hands open with whatever sharp object was within reach: a broken beer bottle, a butcher’s knife, a box cutter—anything he could wield easily and use to carve me up. But only on the palm, where it’d be easiest to hide with bandages.
Sometimes, he’d just hold the fresh cuts in an open flame. I hated the fireplace in my childhood home for that reason.
Friends and family thought I was sick or clumsy since I always came around with my hands bandaged. The damage was worse on my left palm than the right, because my father didn’t want me needing too much assistance for simple, everyday tasks. Nor did he want to arouse suspicion.
The problem was he started grooming me to be his muscle—the intimidator who’d convince people to do his bidding by sheer force. Even at a young age, with one hand’s mobility compromised, my impulsivity and bloodlust were insatiable.
I was everything he’d never be, and that only drove me to do more .
I wanted his fear. I wanted everyone’s fear so I’d never be in a position to suffer again.
But even when you gain the upper hand, you never lose the feeling of vulnerability. You don’t forget what it was like when you were helpless.
You never forget who made you feel that way.
The third bullet leaves the gun before I answer my father, the popping sound deafening in the ensuing silence. Everything unfolds in slow motion after that: crimson springs to stain the shoulder of his crisp white dress shirt, his hand moves to cover that spot, and blood seeps between his fingers. Delightful agony twists his face, heightening as I round the table.
A river roars between my ears, drowning out the others’ shouts of disapproval. At least one Elder draws their own gun—though, once again, nobody shoots. I can’t help wondering if they react out of a sense of duty and secretly want to see Flavio suffer as much as I do.
My father lets out a string of vulgar Italian phrases when I grab his shoulder, gently digging two fingers into the gaping, gushing wound there. Warm flesh and muscle give way with the pressure as more blood pumps from the hole, soaking his sleeve and the carpet beneath.
Maybe this wasn’t the best idea, but it doesn’t matter now. Sure, the eyes of our men are on me, judging, even if they don’t have the balls to act. If I kill my father here, I’ll have to kill all of them, too, just to keep up appearances with the De Tores who aren’t here.
To pass this off to the rest of the family and business partners as someone else’s doing, we’d need more than just Frankie and me as witnesses. We’d need an established alibi.
Time. If I want this organization to crash and burn, to pay for this grievance against me, I can’t do it all right this second. Just because no one’s made a move to stop me yet doesn’t mean they’ll let chaos reign forever; even made men have their limits, and bloodshed isn’t typically what they opt for when there are other potential solutions.
So, even though every fiber of my being screams in protest, I reel myself in a bit, putting a forceful pause on the spiral my mind drifted into, thinking about my father’s hands on my wife, touching her, hurting her.
This is only the beginning. Now that he knows what it’ll do to me, he won’t stop.
I thought keeping her locked away in a tower was the safest option, but I’m afraid it’s only made her a sitting duck.
“Don’t be stupid,” my father grits out, his breathing labored. He glares up at me, a few strands of sweat-slicked hair falling into his eyes. “You keep on like this, and you’ll lose every ounce of support you have. The Elders won’t put up with someone who can’t control himself. Think about what you’re throwing away—and for an ugly, boring Ricci slut, no less.”
My resistance wears thin. I push my fingers deeper until I feel bone beneath my glove. “Aw, what’s the matter, old man? She didn’t accept your slimy advances? Had to hit her to make yourself feel better?”
With my dominant hand, I press the mouth of the gun to the top of his thigh, pulling the trigger before he answers. A bloodcurdling noise chokes out of his throat, and his eyes roll to the back of his head briefly; he refocuses as the conference room erupts into shouts and threats, the other associates now squabbling with one another or fleeing.
My father’s sanguineous smile greets me as I lean down, smashing the pistol into the fresh wound, watching as blood pumps from the area.
He spits, painting my collar and face red. “Guess I should’ve fucked her right then and there. You always did learn lessons the hard way.”
“Wonder where I got that from.”
He snorts, and more bright red liquid spews from his nose. “Blame me all you want, Son, but killing me won’t end this for you. There will always be someone ready to take my place. That little slut of yours will never be safe as long as the De Tore family lives and breathes in Boston. As long as you’re a part of this.”
I bring the gun beneath his chin, shoving the barrel so his head is forced back at an unforgiving angle. “Then I suppose I’ll have to correct that for her.”
This time, when I pull the trigger, my finger barely seems to move. Time itself suspends, as if putting distance between me and my actions.
Chaos descends around me. This wasn’t what I meant to do, and yet, standing in the midst of it all while my father’s brain matter splatters on the windows behind him, I don’t feel an ounce of regret.