24. Knox
KNOX
Sleep doesn’t come easy for me. It hasn’t these four years—the result of constant vigilance, having to keep one eye open.
Even if you can trust your cellmate, that doesn’t mean one of the prison guards hasn’t been paid off.
At any moment, that cell door can open, and if you’re fast asleep and unawares, you’re a dead man.
As a result, your body turns you into a light sleeper out of necessity.
The slightest noise, and I’m awake. And the only deep sleep I know comes from sheer exhaustion, when my body has nothing left to give and I more or less pass out.
I’m not exhausted, yet I only stir when a truck lays on its horn down on the street. It’s loud enough that both Anna and I wake up, but neither of us moves apart from my canary lifting her head. I’m content to shut my eyes, certain I’ll slip right back into sleep, but…
There’s traffic.
And I don’t mean just a few passing cars.
It sounds an awful lot like pre-rush hour outside Dominic’s house, just a more muted version, given the distance from the road.
Shit.
The pale blue numbers on the digital alarm clock are so dim that I have to move Anna off me to get a closer look.
5:21
It probably doesn’t sound like much to most people, but getting over five hours of solid sleep is new for me. The only thing I want to do is drape her naked body back over me and go back to sleep, but I have to get up.
Anna groans in protest, and it’s the fucking cutest thing I’ve ever heard.
“Sorry, love,” I chuckle, “but unless you want your neighbors seeing me scaling the side of your building as they head out for their morning workouts, I’ve gotta go before the sun comes up.”
And I’ve got somewhere this morning I need to be.
How does a man survive in prison? By making allies.
And how do you do that? By earning them.
If they have connections to the outside, even better.
And if they just so happen to be related to the Don of the Italian mafia in Chicago?
Well, you don’t get much better than that, especially when you earned his allegiance by saving his life.
Nicolo Moretti took the rap for his uncle, the Salvatore Moretti, in relation to gun charges, and though his family’s influence managed to get his five-year sentence reduced to ten months, he still needed protection from said family’s rivals.
He was also my cell mate, not to mention the reason I got shanked in the forearm and ended up with a dislocated shoulder after being thrown over the prison railing.
That had been Nico’s first week inside, and it granted me the one thing every guy in his circle would literally kill for.
You don’t ever want to owe a Moretti any favors, but when they owe you a few? They can make shit happen.
And I’m cashing out my favors today.
The Morettis have safe houses and businesses sprinkled all across the Midwest, and every now and again, one of them will blow through town to check on the properties.
I can only suspect where the prior is, but I know the business is on Second and Highland.
Vortex, a nightclub where most middle and upper-class men take their mistresses, doesn’t just offer atmosphere and top-shelf booze.
It also caters to those who want a little “private time” but don’t want to risk the paper trail that comes with hotels and the like.
Everything inside is sleek, dark, and polished, just like the owner himself.
Even at eight o’clock in the morning, Nico is dressed in a three-piece suit, looking every bit the cliché of what you’d expect, and he demands the same out of you. Hence, the literal funeral attire I’m currently sporting.
The black outfit is the only “nice” dress clothes I own, and it earns me a chuckle when Nico sees me approaching the VIP section.
“Well, look at Johnny Cash here. You gonna sing for me?” He waves me through when his bodyguards move in to frisk me, assuring them I’m clean.
We share the typical bro-hug, starting with a handshake and then patting the other’s back.
Neither of us is much for small talk, so as soon as we take our seats in the corner booth away from everybody else, he wastes no time. “Given that you wouldn’t talk about it on the phone, I can assume this meeting is about business rather than a social call?”
I take out the documents from the inside of my jacket, along with two silver dollars, sliding them all his way. “I’d like to cash in my chips.”
Nico flips each of the coins in his hands, confirming their authenticity. “You sure? You’ve only got one left.”
“Oh, I’m sure.”
Nico just blinks. And blinks. And blinks. Having read the proposal twice now, I’m sure his silence and expression aren’t from a lack of understanding, but I’m seriously expecting him to give the coins back to me.
Can he really not do it?
“I thought you said a Moretti could move heaven and earth,” I challenge, but Nico just shakes his head. “ What?”
He opens his mouth but shuts it again. Twice.
“Just spit it out, man. If you can’t do it, you can’t do it.”
Nico runs a hand over his mouth, still looking baffled. “Let me get this straight, I get to choose the location, and my men get to keep the rest of the haul?”
“…Yes.”
He starts laughing, the loud, full, belly-aching kind of laugh that echoes across the nearly empty room.
Now I ’ m the one blinking like an idiot, because he slides one of the coins back to me.
He smirks. “Consider it done. Just let me know when.”
My brain can’t compute what I’m seeing.
A Moretti doesn’t let a debt remain unpaid, and he sure as hell doesn’t give you anything free of charge.
“If anything, I already owed you another coin,” he says simply. When I don’t pick up on what he’s hinting at, Nico lifts his left hand to show off the gold band on his ring finger.
Holy shit.
Cue more blinking. “You’re married?”
A nod.
“To who?” I know it’s a stupid question, because I already know the answer, considering the coin he’s just given back to me, but I can’t believe it. “She said yes ?”
The look he returns is nothing short of a shit-eating grin. “She didn’t have much of a choice.”