Chapter 10
I was on a high I’d never gotten from fucking guys before.
This high was incredible. It was from being told yes.
It was from Isaiah telling me he wanted to move in, and move out of that shit box he’d called an apartment.
I’d offered my help with him moving, but he didn’t want it.
No matter the back scratching and soft fingertip drawings, he wanted to do this alone.
I wasn’t letting that happen, though. I’d given Ronnie the job of helping—or at least parking outside with a van and flatpack boxes with tape for him to pack.
My brothers were at Palazzo. It was the middle of the afternoon. Tomaso was drunk, being loud, trying to get in on some of the basement-level gambling. Rocco was one more cuss word from Tomaso before he was ready to throw fists.
“What’s wrong with you?” I snapped at him, and they both became quiet.
“Your office, now.” I clicked my fingers at them.
There wasn’t much of a scene to be made.
We’d grown up in a house where we could have heated arguments in practical silence, especially since our father would backhand us if we were too loud—sometimes crack his belt even.
I wondered if that’s where Tomaso got some of his . . . afflictions from.
I slammed the door to the office behind us, louder than any of the behind-the-bar conversations. Rocco took his seat behind the desk and Tomaso slumped himself on one of the hard chairs. The office looked like a storage room as I scanned it.
“It’s a fucking mess in here,” I said, my upper lip curled.
I wasn’t just taking out my frustrations on them, they’d brought this on themselves.
“So, what the fuck is going on?” I snapped my fingers at them both.
Tomaso seemed to be sleepy now—which was awfully convenient of him. “Get him some water,” I said.
“You can’t just order us around,” Rocco grumbled.
Tomaso slurred in agreement.
“I’m not ordering you, I’m telling you something you should already be doing for our brother,” I said. “He’s fucked up, you should’ve gotten him water.”
Rocco nodded. “I tried, actually. He’s wasted.” He got up from his chair, shuffling by a cabinet and the rest of the mess in the room.
I got into a squat to be at Tomaso’s eye level.
As Rocco went to get water, I gave my brother’s arm a punch.
“If you carry on this like this, you’re gonna end up dead,” I told him.
“Or worse, someone’s pet. And I bet you’d fucking hate that.
” I laughed in his face. “This is why Rocco isn’t letting you into those games. ”
Ever since he stopped coming to Mom’s dinners and all his calls were drunken rambles, we’d had some of the guys he was supposed to be watching over now looking out for him—but when you worked for someone as powerful as our family name carried, it was probably hard to pry a glass of scotch or vodka from his hands.
“You don’t get it.” His words were mumbled in his drunken state. “Everyone loves you. Everyone likes you.”
“What the fuck happened to you?” I asked, grabbing his face. “Nonna was pissed you screened her call. Mom’s practically tearing that room upstairs apart. She told me if you don’t go back, seek some help, she’s going to turn it into a home gym.”
He laughed, it was a joke. Mom always said when we moved out she’d turn our rooms into a home gym. “She shouldn’t see me like this,” he said.
“Then tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’m empty,” he said, the smell of vodka on his breath.
“Where have you been going?”
He smirked. “My apartment, mostly. New York for a weekend, took two guys with me, they were eager to please me. Both of ’em. Have you ever felt two guys wrap their tongues around your dick at the same time?” He laughed. “No, because your lame ass is trying to get married.”
I grabbed him by the chin, tensing my grip and hoping it ached.
“Don’t come for what I’m doing,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Brother. You’ve got to sort your fucking shit out.
Just because I’ve found someone, just because I’m no longer rubbing salt in those fucking wounds Dad gave us for being .
. . different, it doesn’t mean I don’t still have the same pain. ”
Rocco arrived with the pint glass of water. “You want me to throw it over him?” he asked.
“I’ll take your fucking hand off,” Tomaso slurred out, unable to jolt forward or threaten. My grip on his face finally causing him to look at me. “Let me work through my shit at my own pace. Just because you’re both happy, doesn’t mean you can force it on me.”
“Whatever,” I said, letting go of his face, and he almost dropped into a slump at his own feet. “Maybe I’ll get cousin Jack to have you put in a cell for the day, let that alcohol wear off.”
“No, no, no.” He reached for the water. “I’ll sober up. I’ll be fine once I’ve been to sleep.”
“You’re not doing that here,” Rocco said. “I’m running three businesses here. Restaurant, bar, and our friends.” It was always safe to use other language in case of bugs, but we swept regularly, and even if he didn’t use coded language, I’d definitely mentioned the gambling.
“Tomorrow, you should go see Mom,” I told him. “Whatever it is you’re going through, you should see her. Closing her off is only going to make whatever you’re going through worse.”
He smiled then sighed. “It’s the freedom,” he let out before gulping down the entire pint of water. Like a fish, he consumed it all, then burped—it was vile. I stood and stepped away from him, almost into the mess of files on Rocco’s wall.
“Don’t start,” he grumbled.
“Then tell me what all this shit is,” I whispered. “It’s got to be for something.”
“It is,” he whispered back with a smile. “But you don’t need to worry about it. You’re in a happy place right now, and we’re not going to ruin it. Right?” He patted Tomaso’s back and he burped—this time, with the threat of vomit.
“Don’t hold back,” I said. “I’m still the head of the family. I’m still in charge. If there’s something I need to know, tell me.”
Tomaso groaned in complaint before Rocco chimed in. “Remember when we all came out? Tomaso first, right. Youngest, tenacious, thought he was going to change Dad.”
I nodded. “Yeah, and?”
“Well, we all kinda came out to each other after that. Thought Dad would kill us all. Then we bonded as brothers a lot better. And from what I can tell, none of us have ever crossed streams, or whatever.”
“Never shared the same guy,” Tomaso said, another burp coming out.
“Get to the point,” I said, needing answers on why they were being so secretive together.
Rocco smiled at me as if it would trigger a memory. “We always told each other we’d find partners, we’d all get married, and it’s legal now, we don’t have to leave the country or whatever. We can build on Dad’s empire, make it gay as fuck.”
“We are,” I said. The LGBTQ center was going to be the first thing we did. “So, what’s this got to do with it all?”
“Tomaso is jealous,” he said, and Tomaso tried to protest, but this time, there was vomit—all liquid, all clear. “We’re still stuck in Dad’s world, but you’re changing it. I look up to you for it. Tom is working through it.”
My phone rang. It was Ronnie. “Thank you, but come on, guys, if we look weak to them—throwing up, being wasted—people are going to leave, people are going to try and take us down.” I answered the call to the sound of gunfire.
A numbness traveled down the side of my face.
It was loud enough for my brothers to hear, and they both perked up.
Ronnie’s voice come through. “They’ve got him. I’m sorry, sir.”
* * *
Gunshots. Bullets cracked and whipped into walls of a nearby run-down area.
My mind hadn’t gone to screaming or anger.
I took control of everything. I sent Tomaso to our mom where she’d lock him in the basement to sober up.
And Rocco followed behind, minutes after me.
Ronnie was right outside the tower block when I got there.
I’d sent the coordinates to him from the bracelet Isaiah was wearing.
“He’s somewhere in there,” I said.
A whip of a bullet collided with the van Rocco had driven, half, filled with Isaiah’s things. The van was reinforced, and no bullets were getting through it anytime soon.
“I’m not mad at you,” I told Ronnie, hoping he’d stop looking like a puppy that had fucked up.
The truth was, he had fucked up for not being there, but I’d fucked up even more for ever letting Isaiah do this alone, especially when I knew the Cordellos ran that area and had probably been waiting for him to be alone.
“What’s the plan?” Rocco asked as another bullet thumped against the van with a dink.
“We kill them all,” I said, smiling. “Shame Tomaso is going to miss this. I’m sure he’d love to get his hands dirty.”
Rocco opened the side of his suit jacket—he was double holstered. “Not sure we have the bullets,” he said. “I’ll call for more guys.”
“I have a semi-auto in the van,” Ronnie said. “I can—”
“No. I’m not going to try hitting everyone in one go. This needs to be one at a time, no other people have to get hurt,” I said. “Got it?”
“Got it,” they said together.
A voice called out from behind the dirty brick tower apartment block. “We wanna talk.”
With the van as cover, I took a shot with my Glock 40—perfect for a precision shot. I got the leg.
He screamed, pulling himself to the side away from my view.
“You don’t get to demand that,” I called out. “Give me Isaiah, or I’ll make it a whole lot more painful for you.”
And there he was, bound and gagged to a wooden chair.
We lowered our weapons as the three larger men behind him—including the one with the wounded leg—stood him up.
And from behind them, came another. Locke fucking Cordello.
Son of Marcello Cordello. It was as funny a name as he was a man.
No wonder he couldn’t keep his territory clean—everyone was hopped up on drugs and deep in debt to their family.
“Santo,” Locke said. “Sorry about your father. We heard you put a pillow over his face at the end.”
I smirked at the idea. “Why have you kidnapped Isaiah?” I asked. “What could you possibly get from him?”
“You,” Locke snickered. “C’mon, eldest son to eldest son, we’ve always been in competition with each other. And this isn’t retaliation for Peter. Peter had it coming. Working for both of us. Getting that kid killed. We know you had to do what you had to do.”
For the briefest of moments, when I wasn’t locked in on staring at my sweet Isaiah, I saw Locke’s smug face.
We’d been in different schooling districts—my school was private, and his was a fucking mess.
We’d played ice hockey against each other.
He’d told me he was gonna go play for the Bruins. I knocked one of his teeth out.
“Don’t fuck yourself over and take a bigger bite than you should,” I said.
“Since you’ve got that false one in the front there.
Now, untie Isaiah, and I promise I won’t slit your throat and let my mom use you for fertilizer.
” He frowned at me, but I was just getting started.
This was the first time I was getting my hands dirty.
The first time I was putting myself in the way of harm, and it felt good. “That’s your only choice here, Locke.”
“I wanna make a deal,” he said, as if I’d just spoken to a brick wall.
Rocco snickered at my side. “I wanna hear it,” he whispered, and there was some curiosity.
“Make your point, but if this is a business decision, you don’t need my assistant tied up,” I said.
“Your assistant,” he said. “This little nerd is your assistant? I thought he was just your hole for the week.”
My fingers burned to grab my gun and fire off a couple of shots at him. “Five,” I said, counting down. “Four.” I sucked in deep. “Three.”
And as I got to two, Locke asked the question he’d gone to all these lengths for. “Access to your harbor, to the imports,” he said. “We have shipments coming in, but nowhere to import through.”
“Now, you know I—” I looked at Isaiah again.
He’d sweated right through blue crop top and matching sweatpants—maybe he’d also peed himself a little.
He didn’t deserve to be scared like this.
It was my fault, and I’d need to make some compromises for his safety.
“There’s an import fee of thirty percent. ”
“Fifteen,” he countered.
It was always fifteen, he was so unbelievably easy. “Deal,” I said. “Now, untie him and bring him to me.”
They immediately started to untie Isaiah. He was sobbing, his chest and body shaking. I couldn’t do anything yet, he needed to be brought across the road to me. There was a moment I imagined just unloading my chamber and hoping through adrenaline I’d find the bullseye marked on their foreheads.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Locke said with his smug smile.
Isaiah rushed behind me, shivering, while Locke stood in front of me. I stared at him for a moment, picturing all the things I was planning on doing to him once I had Isaiah in a safe place. Locke stuck a hand out and I couldn’t take it. I knew I’d end up breaking his wrist.
“No,” I let out with a growl.
Rocco shook the hand instead.
“See, that was easy,” Locke laughed. “We didn’t need all the dramatics. But next time, I’ll make sure to come to you directly. We can work together.”
If I clenched my teeth any harder, I feared I might make the enamel turn to a gritted mush between my teeth.
I got Isaiah into the car and we drove for a moment. He hugged my arm tightly, not speaking, until I pulled over into a roadside space near the park. He looked at me with those big eyes.
“Sorry for making a mess in your car,” he said softly.
“It’s not your fault, baby,” I said. I ran my fingers through his hair, pulling his head close to kiss his forehead. “We’ll get them back, I promise.”
“I was scared, Daddy,” he said before sobbing.
I squeezed him into a hug, holding him as we stayed in the parked spot for a moment.
“I’ll never let anyone hurt you, ever again.
” And that went for his mother too. I didn’t want to insulate him in my love completely, but cutting him off from her was going to be next, I just didn’t know how to get there.