Chapter Twenty Two
twenty-two
Warren
“We have a problem.”
Dad’s voice roars over the speaker in Damon’s SUV as we drive toward Sunnyvale.
It took everything I had to leave Selena after what we did earlier. I knew she would be a firecracker in bed, but I had no idea she would be such a kinky little vixen in bed. Her trust in me goes beyond anything I could ever imagine.
Now, I’m stuffed in the backseat while Xavier complains, and Damon looks annoyed while Dad yells through the car.
I snort. “Just one?”
Xavier turns from the front passenger seat and glares at me.
“This is serious. I have a name of who is responsible for our issue,” he says carefully.
After everything went down and we learned another rival mafia family was after us, Dad ordered us all not to use our phones to talk about anything related to the business.
“We understand,” Xavier says.
“We are twenty minutes away,” Damon adds in, checking the time.
“Get here fast, and we will talk,” Dad instructs, then hangs up.
“Who do you think it is?” Damon asks us.
Xavier shakes his head. “I have no idea. For years, we’ve been the target of most up-and-coming mafia families. This one feels too personal, though. They didn’t just send us a message; they planted evidence on us. They called the police. They’ve been following us.”
We grow silent as we all consider this.
“I swear, I just want to take Lily and move as far away from all of this as possible. I can’t imagine doing this when I have kids,” Damon says, his tone dark.
It strikes me that Damon is about to get married. He’s going to have kids, and what will that mean for us? Will he still even want to be part of Shadows, or will he move on to something else? Will he feel the burnout of our lives?
I wonder if I will want all those same things with Selena, too.
We finally arrived at the location Dad sent us to.
It’s a small business park in the older part of Sunnyvale.
Before getting out of the SUV, we all pause, ensure our guns are loaded and ready, and check our surroundings.
When we feel it’s clear, we all pile out of the vehicle and walk into the office.
There are a few of Dad’s guys at the door, and they let us in.
Security is doubled right now, which only makes this seem more ominous.
Heading inside, we walk down a long, narrow hallway until we reach a room with two guys standing outside.
They motion us to go inside. We pile in, close the door, and Xavier slaps a folder onto the desk.
Dad looks up as he and Frank, one of Dad’s higher-ups, sit at the head of the table.
Xavier opens the folder. Inside are surveillance shots, grainy but clear.
My car, my condo, Selena walking to work.
There are timestamps, GPS coordinates, and even a copy of her byline from the Chronicle.
There are more photos, and several with Lily at her real estate office, and a few of her and Damon leaving their condo.
I picked up the photo of Selena. “They’re watching us?”
Xavier shrugs. “They’re always watching. But this is different. Someone sent these to Dad.
“How did you get them?” I ask.
“I sent them to Xavier yesterday,” Dad grunts.
“Why the fuck didn’t you show us these before now?” Damon yells.
Xavier stays calm as he turns to us. “You would have lost your shit,” he says, eyeing Damon and me. “With the girls with us, you two can’t think straight. I needed to show you all of this when you both could be level-headed.”
I’m mad, but I understand his logic. He’s right, Damon and I would have gone crazy.
“So, who is behind all of this?” Damon asks, sitting in one of the leather chairs. It’s old and worn and squeaks when he sits.
I continue standing, leaning against the wall.
Dad leans forward, his eyes growing dark. I know that look. That’s the look when things are about to get messy. This means whatever we are dealing with is serious.
“Our men have been working twenty-four hours, and what we’ve uncovered is that someone from the Santino family has gone rogue.
I wasn’t given their inner-circle dealings, but he was kicked out for something pretty heinous that couldn’t be overlooked.
He’s trying to create his own organization and decided to start taking down each family one by one.
We were first on his list. He used an alias and first contacted us about the gun shipment we handled.
Then the body that was sent was someone who owed him a lot of money.
He planted that body on us, called the police, and has had two of his men, known drug dealers, following us.
” Dad leans back in his chair and waits for our reactions.
“Wait, so some gangster wannabe is behind this?” I ask.
Dad stands and throws his glass of half-empty whiskey across the room. The glass breaks and rains onto the dingy carpet. None of us flinches. We’ve all seen his outbursts before. It’s always performative.
“Do you think I am going to allow this thug… this rat to break down the family I’ve spent my entire life creating?” he roars out. His voice is like thunder across a stormy sky. No one says anything. We wait and listen. “We will take him out before he can take us down.”
I look at my brothers, and we exchange glances. We are all so done doing our dad’s dirty work. We want out, but this won’t end until we handle it.
“I will be in touch with orders. We will let the whole fucking world know that we aren’t to be messed with,” Dad states with finality.
The meeting ends, and before we leave, he pulls the three of us aside.
“Boys, I need you to know that I sent your mom and her sister to Italy until things calm down. If something were to happen to her, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.
” Dad’s voice breaks, and it’s at that moment that I remember that my dad isn’t just a mafia king, but a husband and father, too.
He loves our mom. He always had. I guess that was the one thing that kept all of us grounded while we were growing up.
Knowing that love existed in this cold, hard world kept us from turning into monsters.
As we leave the office building, I hear shouting coming from the parking lot. We all race forward and skid to a halt when we see flashing blue and red lights.
A dozen police officers wait for us as we walk out of the building. They instantly attack us, and as one grabs my arms, I spot Damon trying to shout something to Dad.
“Warren King, you are under arrest.”
They drag us apart, one to a car each, and the only thing I catch before the door slams is Xavier’s hissed, “Don’t say a fucking word.”
Everything goes silent, and the world around me starts to fade.