Chapter 35
I study Creta’s face, and he genuinely seems to be grieving his lover’s death. But life is about choices, and he chose the wrong one.
I signal to my soldiers.
“Bring the boy here.”
They bring Creta’s accomplice. His eyes are wide with fear—I notice he’s quite young. I point at him.
“Young man, you can see you’re in a tight spot. There’s no way you’re getting out of here unscathed. How about you tell us what you know?”
The boy is trembling. He looks me in the eyes.
“Don, I was forced into Creta’s scheme…”
“Lies,” Creta shouts.
“No, it’s not a lie. I owed him money and couldn’t pay it all back. He brought me in to help with this, said it would knock down my debt. But it never ended.”
“How lovely, right, Creta?” Marco says. “Forcing people to be part of your schemes.”
Marco walks over to the boy.
“How many times did you do this with him?”
“Three.”
“And the liquor thefts—did you know about those?”
“He wanted me involved, but I told him my debt was with him, not the redhead.”
“And what was the scheme?” Paolo asks the boy.
“We’d load the full shipment, then he’d change the route.
Halfway through, we’d stop the truck and the driver would take a break.
I’d pull out the crate that had already been set aside before we left and hand it off to another car.
They’d take it to Creta. Then we’d continue the trip.
The next day when we arrived, I’d help unload and always report the count as if everything checked out. ”
“And what happened to the diverted weapons?” Giovani asks.
“I don’t know. I only helped with loading and unloading.”
I call over Felipe and Alexandre, my two most loyal soldiers.
“Take this kid to one of the clubs and don’t let him leave.”
“Don, are you going to kill me? It wasn’t my fault—I was forced. Creta said he’d kill my parents.”
“We’ll deal with you later.”
My two soldiers leave with the boy.
I fix Creta with a hard stare.
“Now it’s just us. What did you do with the weapons and the liquor?”
“I didn’t do anything…”
Giovani punches him in the mouth.
“Don’t lie. Can’t you see it’s all out in the open?”
“What did you do—sell them? Trade them?” Paolo pulls Creta’s phone from his pocket.
He grabs Creta’s finger and unlocks the phone, then opens a banking app. He uses the finger again to unlock the bank account.
“Look at this, Don Lorenzo—looks like he sold the weapons and liquor.”
“I’ll give the money back…” Creta is terrified.
“You hear that, Paolo? He’s going to give the money back,” I say.
“Make the transfer—go ahead, do it,” Creta says, nearly in tears.
Paolo types it in and actually does it.
“Done. All the stolen money is back with the Carusos.”
“Now let me go,” the traitor pleads.
“No. Your record is too dirty to let you slip away again—the way you slipped away from the Russian mafia,” I say coldly. “If we let you go, you’ll do it again.”
“Please, Don Lorenzo… have mercy.”
“Mercy? You showed no mercy to the kid you dragged into this.”
“Can we just finish this?” Giovani snaps.
I pull my gun from my waist and aim it at Creta. He closes his eyes and begs.
“Forgive me, please, please…”
I aim at his head.
“This is for us, for the Russians, and for J?—the kid you threatened.”
I shoot him in the head. What’s left of it falls to the side, eyes wide with panic. I turn to my soldiers.
“Clean up this mess and get rid of the body.”
I leave and the other three follow. Paolo asks,
“What are we going to do with the kid?”
“Offer him a job in the organization. If he doesn’t take it, let him go.”
We get in the cars and drive off.
Two days later…
Early in the morning, my associates arrived. We had coffee and headed to the office.
“Well, does anyone have anything new regarding what we dealt with these past few days?”
“Nothing new. We resolved the weapons shipments that had shortages—replaced the missing ones. We bought the liquor and sent it to its destination. The kid agreed to join the organization. We changed some suppliers, and everything’s been taken care of.”
“Great, Marco. Did you bring Sara?”
“No, I wanted to ask your permission for her to stay at my place a while longer.”
“What do you mean?”
“My grandfather’s been getting suspicious, and I need more time.”
“As long as you don’t take advantage of my sister and she agrees, it’s fine with me. What about you, Gio?”
“Fine with me too.”
“Did you bring Sofia and Carla?”
“Sofia, yes. Carla’s going to stay and work for me. I need a housekeeper and she accepted, just like Yná.”
“That’s fine if they agreed. All good.”
Paolo looks at us, seeming a bit restless.
“What’s wrong, Paolo?” Giovanni asks.
“So, I went to one of Accioly’s clubs and met one of his girls. She asked me for help. Her story really got to me, and I wanted permission to buy her, get her out of there.”
“But what about Accioly?”
“I didn’t talk to him. I was afraid of putting her in danger.”
“And what are you going to do with her?”
“Take her to my place, find her something to do there.”
“All right, if that’s what you want, do it. But don’t cause problems with Accioly.”
“Will do.”
“Well, if everything’s settled, let’s pick up where we left off.
I want to thank you all and reaffirm our bond and loyalty to each other.
I want you to know you can count on me, just as I know I can count on you.
And I want to tell you that I’m going to use that ring our uncle left us. I’m going to ask Lola to marry me.”
“About time,” Giovanni said.
“It’s about time,” Marco says.
“That’s great. I’m happy for you both,” Paolo adds.
They hug me, and then my phone buzzes with a message reminding me I need to take Lola to the doctor.
I say goodbye, get Lola, and we head to the doctor’s office.