22. Niko
CHAPTER 22
As the weeks pass and Domalachego gives up hiding behind Stefan’s specter, he makes vicious moves to convert Gemelli territory to his own. News of our marriage travels through the Gemelli men like wildfire. Some of them choose to side with Domalachego, but many arrive at our door, alarmed by the bloodshed and uncertainty of the paychecks coming their way.
Gianna sits in our dining room most of the day, meeting with men who want to give their loyalty to a face they know.
“Serge!” she exclaims as another one of the men enters the room. He’s around Carlo’s age, and by how she greets him, she considers him valuable.
His eyes widen as they dart between her and me.
“I didn’t think it was true. I never imagined Stefan would allow such a union.” After that initial meeting with my top men, it was her idea to take over the lie surrounding her family.
He makes the sign of the cross, and she’s off her feet in an instant. She takes his hands in hers, holding them as she speaks.
“My papa saw the wisdom in joining our families once Alexandre was out of the way. The grudge was never with my husband, you see, and ordering his own brother to perform the hit was just depraved enough to satisfy my father’s need for vengeance. To be killed by both of your own sons and have your empire merged with your enemy is a graver insult than he could have levied on his own. I must admit I think it worked out terribly well for me.”
She gives me a flirtatious little smile and wave that I’d pay a million dollars to be real, but it’s an act. The ultimate hostess, the beauty and softness central in the home. Exactly what she was to her father and Dante, but this time, with someone behind her who believes in her capabilities.
He turns red as his gaze darts to mine. She drops his hands, and he squares his shoulders.
“Domalachego isn’t paying what Gemelli paid, and the work is far worse. Can you offer me better?”
I look at my beautiful wife. Brown curls surround her face, and her deep brown eyes are almost black, coal-lined with red lips like an old movie star. She’s fucking perfect. She’s all of these mens’ fantasies of a good Italian woman, and the glimmer in her eye says to give him something good.
“How would you like to spend some time as security in one of the brothels? We run a tight ship and pay well, but I don’t put young hotheads in there who will wind up raping my girls and fighting men over their egos. It’s a retirement position if you’d like.”
He agrees happily, and we work out a number before he leaves, kissing my wife on both her cheeks.
“That was a good call, Niko. We can expect quite a few more men to show up now. He was one of my father’s capos.”
She’s right, and the numbers steadily tick in our favor. More so as the people who live in this region are starting to notice the violence, something we’ve managed to avoid for years. Powerful businessmen with a lot to lose reach out to me to back my bid now that they see what happens with someone who won’t settle for the status quo.
This was always Domalachego’s plan, and why my father and I worked so hard to keep this from happening five years ago when he first made moves against this area. His own territory is far more grim by all accounts. He wants to turn this cozy slice of life into nothing, a bare path to the port where he can sell drugs and weapons and make more money than God.
I take meetings across town with men who used to pretend organized crime didn’t exist and they pad my pockets even fatter than I could have imagined. I also happen to book several major corporate events for the winery, which I hope to have the time to enjoy, but doubt I will.
I visit my father’s brothels, the major source of his business, for the first time since I was a teen, starting with the convent on the grounds of the monastery that has always kept a couple of call girls mixed in with Christ's brides. I guess the idea being you can get away with a lot if you say you were just communing with God at the monastery. Dimarco pops up at the convent as I’m picking through and pulling out the girls who’d rather not be there anyway.
“Nikolai, what do you think you’re doing?”
He stops me in the hall surrounded by three whores in habits and one girl who just begged me to get her the hell out of here. She didn’t give me any more reason, just that her name was Mary Katherine and she needed to get away.
“I think I’m doing whatever the fuck I want in my own territory, DiMarco. Do you have a problem with that?”
His eyes narrow with murderous intent.
“After your brother has already reduced our numbers so egregiously, I certainly do.”
“Too bad for you, then.”
And I take the women with me, keeping an eye on my back the whole time, but no one argues, and I hear no more about it until I’m at the next brothel dropping them off as replacements for the ones I’m pulling out. The underage girls who didn’t want to be there.
The old madames who have been protecting their girls as best they can for years don’t trust me for shit, not even convinced my father is really dead. It will take time for them to adjust, but like everyone else, they will. I leave each one with half the cut my father took and instructions to make necessary repairs to the girls and decor both.
I take Gianna with me when we leave Mary Katherine at a church outside any of our territories.
“I’m proud of you for that, Niko. It was the right decision.”
She’s been pensive lately. I’m not sure exactly what’s wrong. Whether it’s the weight of everything we’ve had to do or something more complicated. Does she still hate me for what happened with her parents?
“What do you mean?” I’m not sure where she’s going with this, but her serious tone always makes me a little nervous. She can fuck my world up with a couple of words, so it’s important to pay that proper respect.
“You could have left her to keep getting fucked by creepy old men. You could have left the sixteen, seventeen-year-old girls behind. You didn’t need to drive four hours into open territory to leave her somewhere safe.”
“What’s your point exactly?” She sounds like she’s praising me, but there’s something more to her tone than that.
“You know exactly what the right decisions are. You have the right instincts. You are getting us through this, winning this war, and maintaining the fabric of the man I love. I’m proud of you.”
“But…”
“But I’m angry with you because now that I know how capable you are of doing the right thing, I wish you’d done it sooner. I wish you killed your father, even if you still felt you had to kill mine too.”
I grit my teeth, anger coursing through me that isn’t directed at her.
“I do too,” I tell her with all the sincerity in my heart, and neither of us pretends I’m sorry for what I did to Stefan and her mother because I’m not. I do regret the housekeeper, though.
The fact I still haven’t found the bodies weighs on me. If they’re still intact, they’re beyond rotting, and it must be bothering Gianna too. Each day, she gets just a little jumpier and more sensitive to the random things I say. She’s growing into herself beautifully, but there’s still a distinct thread of fear in her that I hope I can weed out eventually. I said something about praying I never become an uncle, and she nearly passed out, leaving me to wonder if my brother’s murders aren’t standing between us.
Other than her strange behavior, she’s wonderful. She’s with me every step of the way, holding my hand all the time, and just the feel of her soft skin calms me down enough to get me through the day better. We talk through our plans together and discuss how we might best deal with the men. She handles the complicated dance of lying to them, and I simply continue my narrative of never liking Stefan to begin with, and now that he’s out of the picture, he’s not my problem.
We’re sitting in the dining room again with an array of guards and our visitors, two recent converts who are starting to doubt the story we’ve laid out for them.
“My father has made it clear this is what he wants,” she tells the two men. “He asked me to marry Niko, and I saw the wisdom in his decision. Combining our families strengthens them.”
The dubious glare in their gazes doesn’t lighten.
“Where is he now?”
There’s only a sliver of distress on her face before it breaks out into a smile, and she pulls out the piles of postcards she has carefully penned in what is an exact match for Stefan’s script.
“Oh, all over.” She flips through the stack, looking for one in particular. “Most of them are personal, but he never tells me where he’s going until after he’s been.”
She pulls out a single card. “Ah, this one.”
The men take it from her and read it over. I happen to know it’s congratulating her on our union and thanking her for being agreeable to something so shocking after so many years of bad blood. He thanks her for being a dutiful daughter.
“That is Stefan’s hand,” the one says to the other.
“Sounds like him too.” They look slightly mollified, but distrust still passes between them.
“Does it really matter, gentlemen? He’s tired of being the boss. He and my mother are on vacation in paradise, and they won’t be paying. You do still need an income, don’t you?”
She giggles this pretty, disarming sound, and they all laugh. I’m impressed by her and stupidly in love with her but also suspicious of when the other shoe is going to drop.
Speaking of shoes dropping, after our confrontation at the monastery, Father DiMarco called to tell me not only did my brother kill one but he kidnapped another. This makes sense of Pax’s shift from constantly around to weeks of near silence, maybe even why he was acting so strange when I caught him with the dead nun, but why did the priest wait so long to tell me?
Since I heard what Pax is up to, I’m sending him on missions just to bother him for making my life harder and test his loyalty. So far, I’ve had him out killing defectors, and he’s happily met the challenge. I’m still leery of the pending confrontation I saw in his eyes the last time I met with him, but he’s being obedient for now, the nun obviously excluded.
That’s the one thing I haven’t told Gianna about because she would want me to go over there and rescue her, and I’m not going to. Not everyone’s problems can be ours. I don’t really give a shit about anyone but her.
Three weeks pass as I war with Domalachego and his men. We work and succeed at securing a real loyal group of men, and everyone discovers Gianna is my wife. Except for Pax, who never wants to talk and only comes when he’s called. I worry I’m actually going to have to go over there and check on my brother very soon.