Chapter 2
Soren
One might think that the holiday season is the slow season when it comes to organized crime, but they’d be wrong.
It’s the time of year when everyone’s walls are simultaneously lowered and raised to an extreme degree.
We all assume that someone else believes we think we are in less danger and can therefore use it against us, and so, we are in more danger.
It’s a cycle that never really ends, no matter what time of year, nor what holiday season it is.
This is why I always stay as prepared as possible. My gun never leaves my side, not even while I sleep. Even as I lay near naked in my bed while the wind rattles the windows of my bedroom, my gun rests underneath my pillow.
I wake before the sun to the sound of one of my sisters shouting. It doesn’t surprise me even in the slightest, she’s always been hot headed. At first, I simply roll over onto my stomach and plan to go back to sleep, but then I hear something crash downstairs.
“For the love of…” I grumble as I force myself out of bed.
I pull on my pajama pants and a t-shirt before heading downstairs, eyes still blurry with sleep.
“What’s going on?” I ask as I reach the bottom of the stairs. It’s dimly lit down here, and quiet aside from my sister swearing. “Some people are trying to sleep.”
“Fuck you, Soren. Stay out of this,” Rosalie hisses at me. She’s holding a vase in her hand, and I can guess she already threw the other one.
I sigh and step closer to her, looking down in case of shattered glass. Standing back from her is one of our bodyguards, Julian.
“Don’t tell me, dear sister, you’re already fighting with your newest love interest?” I ask her as a smirk pulls at my lips.
“It’s none of your business,” Rosalie insists.
“The last guard you hooked up with is still being cleaned out of the kitchen tiles, so I think it’s everyone’s business,” I tell her. I step closer and grab the vase of lilies from her hand. She tries to fight me, gripping it tighter, but I pull it out of her grasp and set it down nearby.
“Julian, what’ve you done?” I ask him.
The younger man puts his hands up. “I don’t know! All I did was—”
“He told me he thinks I’d make a good mother!” Rosalie cuts him off. “A mother! As if that’s all I’m good for.”
“Hey, now…that’s not what I was saying,” Julian tries to assure the both of us, but mostly her.
I roll my eyes. “Clearly, he’s wrong,” I say tiredly.
“Excuse me?” she asks.
“No offense, Rose, but the day you’re a good mother is the day a wild boar grows wings and becomes the Pope.” I brush my fingers through my hair.
“I’ll be whatever I want, and I’ll be damn good at it,” Rosalie huffs at me.
“Exactly! That’s all I meant,” Julian cuts in.
Rosalie’s head practically swivels as she looks from me back to him. “Oh, Julian,” she croons and rushes over to him. The glass crunches under her house slippers as she walks over it and tosses her arms around his neck.
“This is why this shouldn’t be allowed,” I wave at them, and then look at the floor with a sigh. “I’m not cleaning that up.”
My sister nor her new boyfriend-slash-bodyguard are listening to me, they’re too busy kissing and writhing against each other in the hallway. I’m happy to just walk away, wondering if I can sneak back upstairs before anyone else wakes up and demands my attention.
I’m too late.
“Soren, you’re awake, good. I’d like to discuss something in my office,” my Uncle Eivor’s voice comes from behind me. “I’ve already arranged for coffee.”
I stare at him for a moment, before pulling myself together and nodding. “Perfect.” I follow him through the opposite site of the entry way, past the kitchen and to his office that sits across from the library.
“Is anyone else joining us?” I ask. Hoping that I won’t want to face Rosalie again after all that.
“No, just us.” The balding, older man who has been my and my sister’s guardian for over a decade sits down behind the large wooden desk with a groan.
The door has been closed behind us, and suddenly there’s a tension in the room.
It’s never good when I’m the only one he wants to talk to.
“Come sit, boy,” he tells me. That tone of voice the same as it’s always been since I was a boy. I’m a man now, and yet… sitting across from him in his office still makes my shoulders tight.
I take a slow breath through my nose. “What is it?” I ask.
“Let’s wait until the coffee arrives. There’s no need to rush.” He waves a hand. He picks up a fountain pen and begins to write in a leather-bound notebook, one of dozens that he has on his shelves behind him.
A moment or two of small talk passes before a small pot of coffee, two coffee cups, cream, sugar, and spoons are brought in on a silver tray and placed between us.
“Thank you, Francesca,” he smiles and motions her to leave.
I pour my uncle’s coffee first, then my own, and add just sugar to mine, stirring it slowly.
“I suppose I’ve made you wonder long enough,” Eivor says as he sips his coffee black and steaming hot without even a flinch.
I watch the vapor rise from my own but don’t drink yet. “Yes,” I reply. It feels as though I have to drag every single word out of him.
“We’d like you to negotiate with the Dresvanni’s,” he says casually.
I blink at him. “You’ve been avoiding that all year,” I remind him. “What’s changed?”
He waves his hand and looks toward the window. “Well, you know how fast word travels, and word is… a few hours ago, Michaelis Dresvanni was assassinated,” he explains.
I’m taking a sip just as he says this and nearly choke. I clear my throat and set the mug down. “By who?”
“Why should I know?” he says innocently. “I had no part in it, none of us did. We would never do such a thing.”
He talks as if he’s scared someone might be listening. Frankly, he should be. I narrow my eyes at him.
“Uncle Eivor…if you—”
“I did not,” he snaps.
My jaw tightens and I ignore the twitching of my fingers. I hate how he acts offended at the implication.
“Fine. Then you think now is a good time to get on their good side?” I ask him. I hate how this coffee tastes with just sugar…and yet, I keep drinking it. I ignore the cream, and continue to swallow the bitter liquid.
“In a way,” he waves his hands, his expression softening again. “We are not interested in integrating with them, but I’d like them to believe we are.”
“What do you expect to get out of that?” I keep my eyes on him, making myself meet his gaze no matter how sick to my stomach it makes me.
It shouldn’t. We’re adults. He’s been taking care of me for years. I shouldn’t struggle to sit in the same room with him, yet I do.
I know why… but I push it back even further, and simply remind myself that I owe him my life.
“I’d like you to negotiate for access to the Dresvanni club and permission to sell our stock there…in exchange for added protection, of course,” Eivor says, folding his hands together.
“When they find out you’re not willing to integrate eventually, they’ll pull the deal, you know that,” I remind him.
He chuckles. “We can worry about that later. Right now, they’re vulnerable.
They need our protection. The oldest, Carmine, he’ll be in charge now.
You need to find out how open to discussion he is first, figure out how to use his weak spots to get in.
” He takes another drink, and then reaches to pour himself more.
“Find his weak spots…” I mumble. “Wouldn’t Rosalie be better for that?”
“No, I don’t think so. She’s far too high strung to deal with a man who has just lost his father. You know how to work a man beyond just his body, Soren,” he smirks at me.
The corners of my mouth pull up, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. “And if I don’t agree with this plan?”
“I’m not suggesting, boy. This is your job; you will do it.” He sets his mug down onto the table with a thud and several splatters of coffee land on the table and the edges of his open pages.
“Only curious, of course…Uncle.” I stand up from the chair, feeling more comfortable while he’s below me rather than at the same eye level.
“Of course. Stay, you don’t have to start immediately,” he says, waving at the coffee. “I can have Francesca bring in some scones and croissants.”
I shake my head. “No.” My objection comes out too fast, so I follow it up. “It’s better that I observe Carmine as soon as possible, while the grief is fresh.”
“Good man. I’ll tell the rest of the family the good news, your aunt will be very pleased to hear it.”
I turn from him, my head and neck so tight it hurts. I’m not sure what he considers the good news—the death of a rival or my willingness to start the job immediately. It doesn’t matter. None of this is for him.
It’s for my family. Those who still live, and those who don’t all the same.
Tessari belongs to the Dresvanni’s, it always has.
At least as long as anyone can remember.
My uncle isn’t the only one who wants that to change.
The murder of Michaelis Dresvanni in the middle of the night just days before Christmas isn’t needed to figure that out, but it’s sure a red-hot neon sign blinking right at all of us.
I’m not sure if I believe that Eivor has no information on who called the hit, much less that he isn’t the one who called it himself.
Our family, the Fiorelli’s, we’ve been stalling on negotiating with the Dresvanni’s all year, and practically for the last decade.
While combining our two families, integrating them into one would benefit us and them greatly, it’s not the only option.
Signing away some small part of our power in exchange for some of theirs is also an option.
Uncle Eivor doesn’t want to give up his unsullied power in our domain in order to have even a fraction of power in Tessari. Yet, he’s requesting that I offer that now to Carmine Dresvanni…the night after his fathers’ death.
It’s a good play, and he knows I can run it. There’s no one else better for the job.
Except, I have no idea what his true plans are. For some reason, he’s keeping me in the dark.