Chapter 9 #2
Agents join us, and a guy with a forklift brings the six crates over to an open space.
Frank—who’s stood in annoyed silence—Santi, and I watch as they use crowbars to pry the lids off.
We watch impassively as they go through each one, lifting the coarse fabric bags out of the boxes.
They open some and sift through the beans.
There’s nothing there to be seen. That’s because what we’re smuggling is currently invisible.
As annoyed as we all appear, we’re waiting with unease for one of them to pull out a chemical detection device.
If I thought they’d use them on this shipment, I would have come up with an excuse to block their search.
But so far, there’s no sign they’re going to scan the jute bags.
Once they’ve packed everything up again with a terse apology for inconveniencing us, Santi, Frank, and I head out.
We’re flying to Scranton and will have a few hours lead on the truck that’ll meet us at an abandoned warehouse.
It gives us a chance to check into our hotel room and get something to eat.
We already have a team in place to unload the truck and a lab set up by the time the cargo arrives.
The cocoa beans will become cocaine, but the bags already are.
At least, the liquid cocaine soaked into them is.
The lab will reverse the process and extract the cocaine from the fabric without losing a gram.
We have seven bakeries across the country that are fronts for labs.
The beans will go there, and the liquid product—once back in its solid form—will head up to Canada.
Our buyers up there launder the Japanese yen into Canadian dollars they received from the eventual owners and distributors.
We’ll sell the Canadian currency at a profit, so we make money twice on this deal.
There are a lot of moving parts to this racketeering scheme, but it works.
Uncle Mano nearly fucked it all up last month when he argued the Japanese weren’t paying enough.
The figlio del diavolo—Devil’s spawn—couldn’t grasp how this made us more money than just the standard exchange rate.
We haven’t heard much from him while he’s been in Europe, and my mole among his guards has little to report. It’s clear he’s in no rush to return home. He assumes everyone will wait around for him to grace us with his presence.
He’s been staying at the luxury hotel in Vitznau, which is close enough to Zurich that he can return in forty-five minutes but is a five-star lakefront hideaway.
My informant told me—unsurprisingly—he’s not alone.
It’s a romantic getaway. It’s just a shame he isn’t sharing it with his bride.
At least in theory it’s a shame. I’m glad Stella isn’t there with him.
The thought of her sharing a bed with my uncle—it makes me want to put my fist through a wall.
“Tommaso, let’s get some dinner. Antonio can oversee this.”
I look at our most senior capo. He came along with us because of the high-risk, high-value of this enterprise.
He’s my cousin on my dad’s side and a week younger than me.
We shared the same crib when his mom babysat me if my parents had to attend a social event.
We know we can trust him. And if ever we can’t, he knows the shame it would cast on his parents is worse than any physical torture we can inflict.
“We’ll be back in a couple hours.”
Tony nods to me and turns toward the soldati—soldiers—who’re already processing the first set of bags.
My brothers and I head out. We’re not going to a restaurant to eat, but we are visiting one.
We have an associate—a guy who isn’t officially a member of our organization but still works for us—who’s been making poor financial decisions.
He’s been dipping into his savings account—a euphemism for the money he sets aside for us each month.
We keep the cops off his back, and he gives us a cut of the profits from his underground poker ring.
He’s about to learn what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you.
* * *
“I’ll be glad to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
“Same, Frank. I’m glad we can be done with all this bullshit. Uncle Mano’s screwing us. More than usual. This is going to blow up in our faces, and we don’t have Stella’s dowry yet.”
My brother and brother-in-law and I are in the back of a limo headed to Mama’s house after landing at Logan Airport.
I’m wiped. The first day went well, but it was a shitshow after that.
We’ve been away for nearly a week. We left Scranton four days ago, and I’ve been to Montreal and Ottawa since then.
The money exchange didn’t go smoothly. But now that our Canadian counterparts aren’t a roadblock, we came away with more than we expected.
“Are you eager to get back to Stella?”
Thank God the privacy glass is up. That’s the last question I need anyone overhearing. I look at Frank, my brow furrowed.
“You’re not confused, so don’t think that look fools me. You’re playing with fire, Tommaso. Uncle Mano won’t forgive you when he finds out.”
“What is there to find out?”
“That you’ve been taking Stella to your club.”
How the ever-loving fuck does he know that?
“You might be twenty-nine and the underboss, and I may trust you implicitly, but you’re still my brother. Neither Santi nor I are fools. We know what you get up to in your private life, and we know you’re involved with Stella. I’ve seen you sneak out of the hotel with her.”
“You’re spying on me?”
“Watching over you. You’ve never been reckless, but you are right now. You have far too much confidence in what you’re doing.”
“You have just as much confidence as I do.”
“And Mama and Papa raised you not to be foolish. Just because they equipped you with the skills you need to run this branch doesn’t mean we don’t have them too.
If I could find out, Uncle Mano will too.
He won’t forgive you. He’ll do more than clip your wings, campione.
You’ll disappear before any of us can get to you. ”
Champion. My little brother’s been calling me that since he was five, and I was seven. I beat him at everything because I was bigger. I demanded he call me that. It just stuck.
I weigh how much I want to confess. I don’t discuss my sex life with my family, even if they know I own a sex club and have guessed I enjoy the benefits of that.
This is so fucking uncomfortable to talk about.
I wouldn’t ask Santi about his sex life with my sister, and I wouldn’t ask my brother about his sex life with Kathleen. But it’s better them than Mama.
“We’ve never had sex.”
They both snort. The expression they cast me tells me not to treat them like they’re stupid. Frank doesn’t let that go.
“I’m certain it’s been everything up to possibly getting her pregnant.”
I’ve thought about doing just that to force everyone’s hand to let me marry Stella.
I’ve considered doing it without telling her.
I know she’s on the pill, and it would be easy to replace them with sugar tablets.
I’d trap her, and she’d likely hate me for it.
But she’d be mine, and no one could contest that.
The part of my soul that’s trained to take what I want and not stop until I get what I believe I deserve screams I should do it.
The sliver of decency I want Stella to see is beating back that tide.
I won’t categorically refuse to do it because I will if that’s my only choice.
But I’ll reserve it for utter desperation.
If we get to that point, Stella might suggest it herself.
I don’t know. We avoid speaking of the future, and I’m not convinced she feels for me what I feel for her.
When we’re alone at night, we’re sexually compatible.
I let my guard down, and she sees parts of me I share with no one.
It’s the shreds of humanity I have left.
But during the day, I’m the man I have to be.
The man who issues commands, controls every detail, and dominates every situation.
I do it in business. I do it with my men.
And I know I’ve done it to her. I temper it compared to how I usually am, but I fear it’s building a wall between us.
I want to command her to trust me and have faith that I’ll be good to her, but I see a wariness in her eyes sometimes.
“Tommaso?”
“Sorry, Frank.”
“You’re unfocused, even now. You’re thinking about her. I saw your lips twitch as though you might smile, but now you’re frowning. You are flying far too close to the sun, campione.”
Both Mama and Frank have compared me to Icarus. I wonder which one of them came up with that analogy. Probably Frank, since he’s always loved all types of mythology from around the world and how to find the constellations named after Greek and Roman characters. They’ve been talking about me.
“And you know why Icarus flew that high.”
Frank and Santi stare at me for a long time, observing and assessing me.
It tempts me to squirm, but I’ve done nothing wrong.
There was no insinuation to that. At least not an overt one.
It’s not like the idea of inheriting sooner rather than later hasn’t crossed my mind.
I’m certain it’s crossed just about everyone’s in our branch’s senior leadership.
“You would never run away from your obligations.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Would you put what you want ahead of what’s best for the organization?”
“You know I wouldn’t.”
“Do you believe what you want fulfils your obligations to the organization? That it’s what’s best?”
Are we brothers—I’ve never thought of him as my in-law since I love him like I do Frank—or are we underboss and consigliere?
My heart races at what Santi’s prompting me to say. If he’s just my brother-in-law, then I would answer truthfully. If he’s the consigliere, then I need to shut my mouth and pretend like we’ve said nothing about this. Not even a hint of a hint.
“Tommaso, I’m your brother now and your friend. But I think you’re on dangerous ground. Tread carefully because there are some things even we can’t protect you from. Don’t make yourself one of those.”
That’s not fucking ominous at all.