5. Rocco
5
ROCCO
“ C laudio Lazzaro is in the private party room on the second floor,” Teo confirms over the phone.
It hadn’t taken Teo long to find him. In fact, I half suspected he might have been waiting for me to crack down on this asshole for a while.
“Any company with him?”
“You don’t want to know.”
I don’t miss the way Martino grimaces as he pulls us up to the security gate of the staff parking lot. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he mutters.
With a long, drawn-out sigh, I glance up at the monstrosity that is Brooklyn’s Electrix.
“Not really,” I answer honestly.
The Electrix was one of the only successful things to come out of my father’s reign as the Guild’s don. But only because its vast halls quickly became a playground for some of Brooklyn’s most notorious criminals.
He had no qualms about harboring some of the most vile cretins this city has ever endured. In fact, Giuliano Moretti catered to them specifically. Three floors drenched in the worst kind of sin, all dressed up as the most elite party location this side of the bridge.
If I had my way, I would have burned it down the second my father retired. But there are some parts of his legacy that even I can’t touch.
“I can always get some of the boys in to smoke him out,” Martino offers. “You don’t need to concern yourself with personally upholding our bylaws.”
“You know how much I love to make a statement.” We step out of the car at the same time. “And Lazzaro is just begging to be made an example of.”
“Still, this kind of thing is a little below your pay grade.”
If Martino wanted to be pedantic, he might also mention that our by-laws only concern the spouses of Guild members, not angelic little girlfriends. But neither he nor Teo have tried to point that out since I explained what I saw at the Candelabra.
“Well, shit,” Teo’s voice suddenly sounds out on speakerphone.
“Problem?”
“Lazzaro is on the list.”
Martino curses loudly at my side. “I’m gonna bury Giuliano six feet under.”
My father’s retirement had been an act of unprecedented bureaucracy for the Guild. It would have been far easier to have just killed him, as many of my father’s lieutenants had advised me to do as soon as I came of age.
But I’d wanted to make a statement, start a new chapter in the Guild’s torrential, violent history of succession. So that one day, my son wouldn’t have to kill me in order to claim his inheritance.
In the end, forcing Giuliano Moretti out had only taken five years to accomplish, and it had required a long list of demands that included preserving the Electrix and, apparently, Claudio fucking Lazzaro’s employment.
“There’s no way around it?” I’m aware I sound desperate. But that bastard is within arms reach, and I’ve been itching to make him pay ever since I saw those bruises on Cas’ arms.
And, if I’m being honest with myself, that’s the real reason I’m here. Statement or not, I couldn’t sleep when all I could think about were those hazel eyes begging me not to make a scene.
How could anyone even…I can’t even bring myself to think about it without white-hot rage coursing through my veins.
“If you’re buying the coffee, I might have something in forty-eight hours,” Teo admits. “I’d have to comb through every report he’s ever made over his decade of employment….see if he’s ever messed up enough for us to make something stick.”
“And beating up his girlfriend isn’t good enough?” Martino growls.
“Not unless she’s willing to come forward.”
We stand in sullen silence as the music inside the club seems to taunt us.
“I can’t fire him. I can’t kill him. I can’t beat his sorry ass,” I say into my phone. “What can I do?”
“Beyond talking to him? Sweet nothing.”
I glance over at Martino, who shrugs right back—his eyes gleaming mischievously.
“Good enough for me.”
“Rocco, don’t…”
I hang up on him, much to Martino’s amusement.
We’re at the doors a moment later, pushing past the line of disgruntled partygoers who have likely been standing in line all night.
I waste no time admiring the crush of bodies in the main hall and make my way up to the second floor. As decadent as it appears to be—the building was modeled after ancient Greek temples—the pillars here are hollow, and the stonework is merely manipulated styrofoam.
When we reach the illustrious “party rooms”upstairs, we head toward the staff corridor around the back. Though bare and sterile, it offers a back door into each of the private rooms for discreet package delivery—a hold over from the previous don, who liked to run meetings and handle deliveries here.
“Boss?” Martino calls out when we’re halfway down the corridor, gesturing toward the two-way mirror a few doors down.
I approach with no small amount of trepidation.
Lazzaro. Sprawled out on the pleather couch, he watches two girls dance before him. All are in various states of undress—and sobriety if the lines of white powder on the table are any indication.
He fumbles lazily at his crotch as the movements of the girl closest to him become more lurid. His tongue licks up her neck and a manicured hand slips down into her lacy white panties. I notice a lipstick stain over her bare nipple.
They all approach Lazzaro, swaying their hips as they go. Hands immediately stroke over his chest, his arms, his…
I finally see their faces. I don’t bother knocking. I just kick down the door.
Danny and Teresa scream in shock.
I straighten my suit. “Martino. Make sure no one disturbs us.”
“Rocco! Baby, please. It’s not what it looks like,” Danny runs up to me as she desperately tries to put her clothes back on.
I recoil when she tries to touch me. “You don’t owe me an explanation. You can fuck whomever you like. We’re over.”
“You don’t mean that, come on.” She shoves her head through what I assume must be Lazzaro’s T-shirt. “Claudio said you came to the Candelabra tonight. You came to see me.”
Her words reek of desperation. It never mattered how beautiful she was, how perfectly symmetrical her features were, or how beautifully she sang; it always came back to the desperate desire to be more, to have more, to be wanted.
She was always desperate for something I would never be able to give her.
“Let me be very clear.” I step further into the room. The blood pounding in my ears intensifies the closer I get to that bastard Lazzaro. “We are done.”
“Rocco, please.” Her eyes brim with tears.
I tell myself it’s for her own good. That I’m saving her further heartache down the line. Because if she was worth my affection, I would be in an unstoppable rage right now. And I’m not.
“I’m not here for you.”
My words finally seem to connect. She backs away into the corner to where Teresa seems to be consoling herself with another line of coke.
My vision narrows the second I set my eyes on Lazzaro.
“Moretti!” he slurs, not bothering to sit up. “Come to join the party?”
I can’t help myself. I grab him by the shoulders and pin him up against the wall. Glass smashes as his legs wildly kick a table over.
“Lemme…lemme fuckin’ go!”
“You know why I’m here, Lazzaro?” I hiss in his ear.
“No.”
My first pounds into the wall, mere inches from his head. The plaster cracks, and blood trickles from my knuckles, but I don’t care.
“Think very fucking hard.”
To my surprise, Lazzaro’s hot breath hits me as he utters a low laugh. “Your daddy isn’t going to be very happy about this, you know.”
I let out a warning growl, but Lazzaro only laughs harder.
“It’s all right, ladies,” he calls over his shoulder. “He’s not going to hurt me. He’s not allowed to.”
“You think my father will go back on five years of work over your pathetic ass? You’re fucking delusional.”
Lazzaro squirms so he can look me in the eye. “But you’re too proud to be the first one to break that little treaty of yours.”
Maintaining my grasp on rational thought takes every ounce of my concentration. Because the truth is somehow even more infuriating than this entire situation.
This cowardly piece of shit is right. My father would do anything to get himself back into power.
I let Lazzaro go, and his body slumps to the floor with a satisfying crash. By the door, Martino looks over his shoulder, shooting me an expression that can only mean, If you don’t fuck him up, I will.
With a shake of my head, he stands down. There has to be a better solution here. I just need to think clearly for one goddamn minute.
“This is about Danny, isn’t it?” Lazzaro grumbles. “She wanted to be here.”
“That’s not true!”
Surprisingly, it’s Teresa who holds her chin up defiantly as she shouts the words. Behind her, Danny seems to have entered some kind of shocked fugue state.
“He said if we wanted to keep our spots on the show, we had to…”
“SHUT UP YOU LITTLE BITCH!”
Claudio launches himself at her, crawling across the floor with surprising speed.
I take no small amount of pleasure in stepping on his outstretched hand. The custom metal heel of my Italian leather shoes breaks bone at an agonizingly slow pace.
Claudio’s screams soothe something in my very soul.
“You know that I can’t remember the day you swore your loyalties to my family,” I muse. “Mustn’t have been particularly important to me.”
Sweat and tears pour from Claudio’s face. “I’m loyal to your father, you bastard!”
“But you must know the bylaws you swore to uphold? About protecting our own? Ringing any bells?”
“Fuck you.”
“Perhaps I give you too much credit. From where I’m standing,” I press my foot down harder for emphasis, “you don’t seem like a particularly literate fellow, so I’ll spell it out for you.”
Something snaps under my foot again, and Claudio’s eyes roll back into his head. I sigh in frustration as I step away to grab a glass from the side and chuck the dark liquid in his face.
He wakes up again with a start. “W-what?!”
“Unfortunately for you, coercion and battery aren’t things we tolerate in the Guild.”
Claudio blinks away the sticky alcohol and looks up at me. “Battery?”
“You might think you’re untouchable, but mark my words: you’re a dead man walking if you don’t clean up your act.” I spit on him for good measure. “Do I make myself clear?”
He wipes at his face as he tries to sit up. “I didn’t…coerce her.”
“You may want to choose your next words very carefully.”
“Danny,” he pleads with the woman in the corner, who is still seemingly in a catatonic state. “Danny, tell him.”
But Danny doesn’t even raise her head from where she’s been staring at the floor.
Claudio turns back to me. “We’ve been together for months. I…thought you knew, man.”
Months. The word drops into the endless pit of my stomach like a stone. The entire time we’d been together…
A voice that sounds eerily like my father’s echoes through my mind. A real don wouldn’t stand for this.
It doesn’t matter whether I can muster up any kind of jealousy about Danny. Now this was a slight against my name. Against my leadership.
I kick him in the ribs. “I demand satisfaction.”
Kill him.
I could. It would be so easy. I’d probably enjoy it, even savor it. But…
But. Five years of torment and negotiations would crumble over something like this.
You spent so long wanting to play this part, but now you’re on the world stage, you don’t have the balls to do what needs to be done. You’re weak, Rocco.
I shake away my father’s voice. I can’t focus with him in my head like this.
“C-Claudio?”
My heart stops as I turn to see a figure at the door. Somehow, she’s even more beautiful than I remembered, despite the fact she’s swapped out the devastating black dress for sweats.
I harden my heart as I look away from her. “This does not concern you, Miss Cassandra. Walk away.”
“You’ve hurt him.”
I can’t bear how startled and disappointed she sounds, as if she might have once thought better of me.
Well, it's better to rip that BandAid off now. I suppose it was only a matter of time before she ran away screaming.
“Wait, wait!” Claudio croaks from the floor. “You…you want satisfaction? Take her. Take her for the night.”