Brando (Gatti Brothers #2)

1. Brando

1

brANDO

M en in our world are all about the women. The money. The fame and the glory. Me? I’m about keeping the streets clean. When I was ten, I lost my twin brother to a speeding hoodlum who lost control of his car while Christiano rode his bike down the street.

While my mother conducted her affair with her lover in a seedy apartment upstairs.

I get that we weren’t all born to royalty, but there has to be a moral compass somewhere, and it has to be pointing in the right direction. I know I’m no saint, but I’m no sinner either. Not unless the occasion calls for it.

Like killing my mother, for instance. My mother was the biggest sinner of all. Any woman who plots to kill her sons for power should be put down, nice and simple. The moment that Scar drove that knife through her chest, I felt years of anxiety slip away from me, as though I were shedding my skin.

For the longest time, I was worried about Scar wearing that burden alone. He struggled silently trying to keep us afloat after our father passed away as every piranha reared its head, looking for a slice of our pie. He fought off every single one of the enemies that came at us, then he had to fight off his own flesh and blood. It may have been understandable if it were us brothers squabbling over leadership, but no, it had to be our own fucking mother.

I don’t even think about her that much anymore. She destroyed what was left of me more than fifteen years ago when her neglect resulted in Christiano’s death, and then she came back to finish me off. She came back to destroy what was left of her family. So we took her out with the trash that was the Scarfones and the Lucianis conspiring against us. I like to think of this one deed as one of our better ones. It’s one of the best things we’ve ever done as a family, and it’s brought us one step closer to keeping the streets of our city clean.

People will tell you that mafia is all about bloodshed and violence. They’ll tell you we’re ruthless and cut-throat. We lie, we cheat, we steal. We kill. It’s true. Some of it, anyway.

We lie to get to the truth of a matter.

We cheat because we’re always taking short cuts.

We steal…only what’s on offer.

And we kill to protect our own.

I’ve dedicated my life to protecting the rest of my family. I’ve already lost one brother, and I’m not willing to lose another. To ensure safety, security, I need control. And I have that in spades. My brothers and I rule over the jungle that is our city with a measured control that cannot be swayed, cannot be infiltrated unless we allow it. Which we won’t. No drugs, no human trafficking, no organ harvesting. We want a safe place for our future kids to ride their bikes without the threat of the dangers currently rampant in other cities. Any whiff of anyone doing any of that crap in our city, and we will burn the Goddamn city down to find the damn fucker who dares to lace our streets with their poison. No exceptions.

There’s a valid reason why I don’t want my family getting involved in the mess that Tommy Corsica left behind. For one, things are going to get ugly. Well, they already are. Secondly, Allegra’s going to give birth any minute now, and I don’t want her stressing about anything other than the final stages of her labor. I don’t want Scar getting dragged into another war when his wife needs him. And I don’t want my brothers getting all heated up over something I can handle myself. We’ve already been through enough lately, and I know my family is standing on that precious precipice where we’re just starting to rebuild our lives after the devastation our so-called mother left behind. We don’t need more shit right now.

Tommy Corsica was ripe for the picking. According to the Maltese, anyway. He spent many years working in organized crime as a hitman. A Mr. Fixit, if you will. Then he helped himself to something that wasn’t his, skimming off the top from some higher ups he had no business messing with. That’s what I’m told, anyway. So, he found himself on the wrong side of a gun, then on the lower level of an underground bunker. Aka a plot.

Me, personally, I find it hard to believe that a man of his standing would so such a thing, but I don’t know him all that well to dispute the story either way. I am curious, though, so I go to see Mason Ironside – not his real name – on my own, when he calls me out of desperation, asking for my help. His long-time best friend Tommy Corsica, it seems, didn’t just leave a mess behind. He left a whole lot of drama, too. Namely in the form of three daughters.

Mason Ironside's place is an inconspicuous building tucked away in the older, grimier part of town where the bright neon signs do little to illuminate the filth on the ancient streets. The kind of place where secrets are both kept and spilled like cheap liquor. Under any other circumstances, I’d be skeptical of a man that keeps company with a dirtbag like Tommy Corsica, but Mason Ironside did us a solid with some much-needed information during the recent Scarfone-Luciani war, so we owe him.

As I walk into his office, a cloud of smoke from his cigar engulfs me, blurring my vision momentarily as my eyes adjust to the dimly lit room. Everything about this man is shady, down to his location, but I hear he’s a real paranoid fuck who moves around a lot, and I can’t imagine there’d be many vacant places left in the city for him to hole up in when he needs to.

The big man is sitting behind a massive oak desk that looks like it belongs in a museum rather than a dingy office, papers and dusty old folders scattered on its surface. I say nothing as my eyes scan the walls lined with bookshelves that are filled not just with books but various trinkets and artifacts from his years in the underbelly of the city's crime network. I’m told he’s a collector of all things magnificent, and although I can’t remember exactly who it was who relayed this information, I can see they weren’t far off the mark. The office looks more like the sort of place a private detective would keep, and I notice the dust on the shelves is inches thick, which tells me this is not an office that he uses often. Paranoid as fuck, I tell you.

“Brando,” he greets me, his voice gravelly, betraying his years of tobacco abuse. “I appreciate you coming on such short notice.”

I wouldn’t have, but like I said, we owe Mason Ironside a favor. He’s the one that tipped us off when we were looking for the Scarfones when that whole mess with my mother went down. He saved a few lives; I have to admit. So we owe him. And we always pay our dues.

He rises from behind his desk and extends his hand, grasping mine tight.

“What’s so important it couldn’t wait a few days?” I ask, pulling up a chair opposite him. I straddle it and lean my arms on the backrest. I don’t know the man all too well, only minor interactions and business dealings here and there, but I’ve done my homework; there’s nothing about the man that concerns me except that he was friends with a now dead man. And yet, I feel comfort encasing me as I take a seat opposite him. The one thing you should know about me is my gut is never, if ever, wrong about a person.

He sighs, rubbing his temples as his eyes land on the tattoos on my hands. On one hand, I have each of my brother’s names tattooed on a digit. On the back of my hand, Christiano’s name is tattooed in bold cursive. There’s a soaring eagle in flight on the back of my other hand, the digits bare, in contemplation of future artwork. Maybe the name of my girl one day. Maybe my kids, if I’m ever lucky enough to have any.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. But I have a serious problem with the Maltese. Tommy Corsica owed them some big bucks.”

He’s not telling me anything I don’t already know. Everyone knows what Corsica did. I shake my head, as if to ask him why I would care.

“Tommy’s dead; how is this a problem?”

Killing Tommy Corsica was a stupid move from the Maltese. Everyone knows that dead men can’t pay debts.

“Now he’s gone - God rest his tortured soul - they’re turning their sights on his daughters.”

I lean in, interest piqued despite myself. “What’s the deal with the daughters?”

Mason exhales another cloud of smoke, his eyes narrowing as he considers his words. His black hair is slicked back, peppered at the sides with some greys. He can’t be a day over fifty, yet he’s built like a twenty-year-old; all lean muscle and strength that takes many men years to cultivate. He obviously takes very good care of himself, down to the lack of lines on his wide face. A face that resembles a young Ray Liotta to such an extent, it’s hard to believe they weren’t separated at birth.

“The girls have nothing to do with this. Innocent college kids, the youngest are barely nineteen. They don’t know the first thing about their father’s... enterprises.”

I roll my wrist, my patience wearing thin as I urge him to hurry it along. “My sister in law’s about to give birth any minute now, and I really don’t want to be on this side of town when I should be with my family.”

Mason sighs. “The Maltese are looking for the girls so they can sell them and recoup their losses.”

“The Maltese want to auction them off?” I ask, disgust lacing my tone. The Gatti name has never associated itself with human trafficking, and if anything, we abhor the practice. And we don’t want it anywhere near our territory, either. This is our city, and we run it our way.

“Exactly,” Mason confirms grimly. “Revenge while profiteering. They reclaim what was taken and earn extra on the side by selling those poor girls to the highest bidders. And they know some pretty crazy monsters, B.”

It is a sickening notion; one that makes my stomach churn with anger and revulsion. In our line of work, lines are often blurred, morals bent and occasionally broken, but involving innocents crosses a definitive line.

“I need your help, Brando.” He leans forward, his expression earnest. “I’ve always known you to be a decent man when it comes to women. I need help protecting these girls.”

“What’s your angle here?” I ask him. “I know you said Corsica was your best friend, but getting involved with the likes of the Maltese is a stretch, even for you.”

There’s a nostalgic look in his eyes when he turns to me, and I can see that he’s holding something back. His mind checks out momentarily, before he settles on the obvious, telling me that he promised the parents he’d always look out for the girls. I don’t entirely believe that’s the only reason he’s invested in the safety of these girls, but neither do I believe that he’s coming from a place of malice.

I sit back in my chair, my mind reeling. Another war is the last thing any of us needs, especially after we just came out of one. I hate to say it, and I do empathize with him, but I don’t know that I can do much to solve his problem without getting my hands really, really dirty.

“Taking on the Maltese would be professional suicide,” I remind him. “It will lead to all-out war. It’s too soon after the last one – we could end up facing all out anarchy.”

“I can’t do this on my own,” he says. “I just don’t have the manpower or a name like Gatti backing me. But I watched these girls grow up; I won’t just forsake them like that, no matter what their father did.”

“You know this is not our domain, Mason. We don’t get involved in things that don’t concern us.”

“No, you don’t,” he agrees. “But you’re a man with a conscience. And I know how you feel about the skin trade.”

I nod slowly, my reluctance thawing. What sort of a man would I be if I left these girls to rot at the hands of the Maltese? I’d be no better than the human traffickers themselves; the monsters we fight day and night. My mind wanders back to the battle we waged recently against the Scarfones and Lucianis, who were trying to muscle in on our territory. That particular clean up netted us a container full of broken women and children who’d been kidnapped off the streets, on their way to being shipped off and sold to the highest bidder. The complete satisfaction it had given us releasing those innocents from their prison was incomparable to any other win we’d ever had. But we’d have to utilize a whole lot of power and immense persuasion to close this deal.

“Where are the girls now?” I ask, focusing back on Mason.

“They’re holed up in one of my safe houses. I don’t know how long I can keep them there before I need to move them again.”

“Who knows the location?” I ask him.

“No-one. Just me. It’s a shanty little out of the way place you couldn’t find even if you were looking for it.”

I stand up, ready to leave but pause at the door. “I don’t want my brothers involved in this,” I tell him. “Get me photos; I’ll organize passports and new identities. I’ll help you relocate them, but they can never come back here, Mason. That has to be made very clear to the girls.”