22. Morelli
Chapter twenty-two
Morelli
Eoghan
“ Y ou saw your woman?” Dairo asked, his leg crossed with an ankle over his knee as he leaned back in the town car.
O’Malley sat in the front seat. His head didn’t turn to acknowledge us, even though I knew he was listening. The kid was always listening. I kept him around for his quiet discretion.
“Aye,” I said, breathlessly.
She had said yes. I almost jumped up and down the moment she told me. Planting that ring securely on her hand - the fact that it fit so perfectly, without any adjustment - was all part of the grand plan. More signs that she and I were fated.
I wanted to kiss her mouth but had barely refrained. I wanted to save it until the fateful hour, when she’d be mine.
“We’ll get Morelli, and then…” I bit my tongue, unsure what he would think.
On Dairo’s phone screen was a young woman with a black crown of braids around her head. She had the gloves of an MMA fighter near her face, and the outfit of a volleyball player - it was nothing more than a bikini.
“What’s that then?” I nodded to his phone, grateful for the small distraction.
I needed a moment to think. Not about the wedding but about how I would tell everyone.
He clicked his phone off, and the woman fighter was replaced by black, as he put his phone back into his pocket.
Dairo let out a long, pained sigh. “Good lord, you’re really getting married, aren’t you?”
He knew me well. I clenched my fists, trying to contain my excitement. I didn’t answer his question. I didn’t need to. “Will you officiate?”
“Are you handfasting?”
“No.” I almost laughed. “Christ alive, I’ve barely gotten her to agree to marriage. I’m not going to terrify her by bringing out my knife.”
O’Malley in the driver’s seat started the engine and pulled out into traffic. The New York City streets were alive, despite the winter chill. People mingled up and down the street, their collars pulled up against the wind that wove through the canyon of buildings.
Dairo looked at me with those cold baby blues and was very careful with what he said next. “Eoghan, this all seems quite… irregular. I like the girl fine, but you must know that this is madness.”
I could understand his point, but he was wrong.
Marrying her was the most brilliant idea I had ever had. It was fate! I couldn’t fight it even if I wanted to. And I absolutely did not want to.
“It’s the sanest thing I’ve ever done.” I knew that down to my core. “Insanity is other people. Insanity is my father. The world of Green Fields Enterprises, the Mafia and the Bratva. Sanity is Kira.”
I took a deep breath, letting thoughts of her wash over me. I pictured her in a white gown, walking down an aisle. I didn’t know what dress she’d pick. I didn’t care. She could walk down wearing black, for all I cared.
I would take her in all her stubbornness, flaws, warts, and all.
Every imperfection only added to her grace.
“She is where the world makes sense.”
When I lifted my eyes back to Dairo, he was contemplative.
“That might be so, Eoghan,” he said, slowly. There would be a purpose to his words. “But you’re bringing her into our world.” He looked away and smiled. “I mean… your world.”
His correction was just a delusion. He was a part of our world - the prodigal cousin who would come back soon.
I smirked. “You’ll come back. When the war kicks off, you’ll be by my side.”
I pulled out my blade, the one that was made in the likeness of his own, and we stood, staring at each other like two sides of the same coin.
“You don’t need me by your side,” he said, his smile mirroring my own.
“You’ll be there all the same.”
He didn’t disagree. He couldn’t. We were brothers. That was that.
When we were twelve, my father tried to pit the two of us against one another, as if it would somehow strengthen us. He would insult one, and praise the other. Then he would make us fight, compete, and try to break our spirits. He wanted us to lash out at one another. He thought that we would be two swords, sharpening each other with every clash.
But his plan didn’t work.
Instead, Dairo and I became two conspirators, hiding from his wrath, protecting each other like double agents. That came to a halt when we grew up, but the camaraderie remained.
Dairo pulled a knife from his belt - the small throwing knife forged from iron. It was dark, the handle only distinguishable from the blade in its blunted sides, and the small hole at the rounded end where we could tie a rope or dummy cord.
It was just like mine, except they bore his initials - ACG. Alastair Cian Green.
Our blades were like us - identical, but for one small difference.
“Do you swear to always have my back?” I asked, staring at his blade and mine as we held it in the space between us.
“How could you even ask?”
“Come back to Green Fields.”
“No.”
I shut my eyes in disappointment, even though it didn’t last long. I could work with a no. He’d give in eventually.
“You are separate from the Enterprise,” he said, grabbing my free hand in his. “I made a pledge to be your brother. Not your father’s heir. Not an Irish soldier. I would never fight for Green Fields Enterprises. But I will fight for you, brother.”
My father thinks my first blood oath was when I was eighteen years old. He had made every man in our army, me included, swear to avenge my mother’s brutalization.
The army was much smaller then, and far less professional. But it was the start of the world he would create with oaths and blood. It was a word of pledges, and feudal sensibilities. He brought something that felt ancient into our society.
But he didn’t know that Dairo and I had an older oath. We were twelve and feeling like big men. We slashed our hands, and shook, swearing to always have each other’s back, no matter what, without question. We were so young, and weak, that the cut we placed on our hands barely even scarred. Still, I could see it. The timid little knick near our lifelines.
My first vow was to Dairo.
I hoped the one I made to Kira would be my last one.
“I’m marrying her,” I said. “Tonight.”
Dairo laughed, leaning back into the seat, the leather groaning under his weight.
“Ah, just the run of the mill vacation with my family in America.” His good natured smile didn’t waver as he shook his head. “We’ll start the evening with a kidnapping, and cap it off with a wedding.”
“Will you officiate?” I asked, again, repeating a question I had asked at the beginning of this detour.
“Of course. You knew before you asked.” Dairo shrugged.
Kieran slowed the car, and we came to an office building made of glass and metal. The Law Offices of Morelli and Co.
Kieran pulled into the back of the lot, beneath a broken parking lot lamp that we had disabled that afternoon.
“Aye.” I leaned down to reach beneath the seat, pulling out two ski masks from a small, black bag. “The same way I know that when the war comes, you’ll be by my side.”
“Not while your insane father is alive,” he said, as he pulled the ski mask over his head, and I did the same. “Have I told you that this is an insane move? Taking out Morelli? When your army isn’t ready for the backlash?”
“Aye, I know it. You don’t have to tell me. But what are my options?”
In a unified movement, he and I opened the side doors and walked out, leaving O’Malley alone with the running car. We stepped out at exactly 7:03 and lurked in the shadows by some hedges, waiting for the last man to come out of the office.
Morelli and his bloody work ethic.
He was always the first man into the office and the last one out. If I was allowed to admire him, I might have. Unfortunately, all I was allowed to feel was agitation that he was forcing me into these circumstances. It would be so much easier to just kidnap him from his home, where he lived alone - no wife, no kids.
My blood hummed in my ears as I waited, keeping my breath slow and steady.
A metallic clank preceded the door unlatching.
Dairo and I hopped into action. My cousin placed a bag over Morelli’s head, as he growled, “Stay back!”
I vaguely registered the presence of another person, but was too busy in my movements to let it fully sink in. Dairo and I weren't allowed to speak during this phase of the kidnapping - we couldn’t give away who we were.
I struck Morelli in the gut. It wasn’t because I wanted to hurt him. I just needed him to know that we meant business.
In one move, I zip tied his hands in front of him, struggling with his awkwardly strong, jerky movements. Dairo pulled the drawstring of the bag, cutting off his air.
We wanted him alive, but if we killed him, then it would be no matter.
“Run!” Morelli gurgled out. “Lock the door!”
The old man’s head was turning this way and that. The building door slammed closed, the latch turning loudly.
I looked past the glass doors, staring at the woman in pink inside. A rather rumpled looking Cosima Durante was screaming, tears falling down her painted cheeks as she held a phone to her ear, no doubt trying to call 9-1-1.
Poor thing… the police would be of no help now.
She looked at me with utter and complete malice. Even with the mask obscuring my features, she knew who I was. The sweet little daughter of Eugenio Durante, my father’s sworn enemy, had vengeance behind that perfect Mafia Princess visage.
I zip tied Morelli’s feet, then we carried his struggling body to the car.
O’Malley had changed out the license plates - to one we had stolen from a Mafioso’s ride. That specific step wasn’t necessary, but it made me chuckle. I wanted them to run the plates and see that it was registered to one of Durante’s nephews, so they could understand how truly fucked they were.
We were everywhere, and we were ready to fight. That was my message to them.
Morelli tried to struggle, his legs flopping about like a fish.
The man was strong for his age. I had to give him that.
We slammed the door shut on him, and I gave the bumper a good kick, just for the thrill of it.
Dairo and I got into the back seat, removed our masks, and were well away from the law firm before the sound of sirens even hinted at someone’s response.
“Come on, Dairo,” I said, as the distant lights faded into the rearview mirror. “You have to admit that was fun.”
Dairo tried to hide his smirk, doing that oh-so-British posh man’s smile that lowered in the corner of his mouth, as if they were always trying to frown joy out of their miserable lives.
“That was, I admit,” Dairo said, staring straight ahead and refusing to make eye contact. “But what you’re about to do to the man? That I can’t get behind.”
I thought about that for a moment. I wasn’t for torturing those who weren’t my enemy. Sure, sending a message was a part of our life. It was a part of regular communication with our enemies. It was something I did because it was expected, and necessary, but I didn’t do it with much conviction. I often couldn’t really get my back into it, and I had no creativity for that particular art form.
“I think we’ll feel different, when it’s us on the chopping block,” I said, pensively.
“I don’t know. I don’t think I have it in me to hate someone that much.”