Chapter 15 Damiano
DAMIANO
I’ve always known Clemenzas were devious snakes, just like their Family symbol, and Caligula is doing nothing to change my mind. He’s a serpent wrapped in human flesh, just as underhanded as his friend Jesse Foster, and I don’t know why I thought he’d be any different.
But he is getting under my skin. He’s too fucking clever for his own good.
And too fucking pretty.
I’m distracted from my musings when I get back upstairs by a text from Sebastiano Conti, the Giuliano Underboss. He’s the closest thing I have to a friend—though that’s a low bar.
The Giulianos are run by Seb’s younger half-brother, Giuseppe—Big Gee to everyone who wants to keep breathing.
Seb is smarter. Calmer. And if anything, their father seemed to prefer Seb, the older son he had with his favorite mistress.
But in this Family, lineage matters. Big Gee is the Don because he has the name, but Seb was the natural choice as his Underboss.
So I can’t ignore a summons from Seb any more than I could ignore one from Big Gee.
But for the first time, being called to do something for the Family irritates me rather than interests me.
It feels like the whole world is conspiring to steal days away from my time with the Clemenza.
But I get my head in the game and get Vito to drive me out to the butcher shop where Seb asked me to meet for lunch.
I go in, spare a nod for the guy behind the counter, and head upstairs to the apartment above.
Seb is there already. Like me, he’s queer but quiet about it.
I don’t know if his dad ever knew Seb’s preferences before the old man got blown up in Chicago by the Irish, but Big Gee is aware, just like he knows about me, too.
He doesn’t have a problem with it so long as we don’t make it an issue.
Maybe that’s why Seb and I get along so well.
Most Giulianos aren’t exactly welcoming, but maybe a little less hostile now that Luca D’Amato is in charge of the New York Commission.
I get the feeling sometimes that Big Gee thinks Seb and I might know something about D’Amato that he doesn’t, like there’s some secret gay handshake that might come in useful someday.
He’s wrong about that. I hate D’Amato just as much as any Giuliano worth their salt.
Seb isn’t the only one in the Family who knows just how deep my vendetta against the Clemenzas runs. But he is the only one who knows I plan to do something about it.
Unfortunately, he also knows I’m under orders not to.
He rises when I enter, greeting me with a back-slapping hug and kiss on each cheek.
He’s a touchy-feely kind of guy despite the muscles.
In the old days, the real old days back in Rome, he would’ve done well as a gladiator—or maybe not.
He’s a little too fair, a little too honorable.
He hates playing dirty and he loves being part of a hierarchy, because he knows where he stands at all times.
It doesn’t bother him that his younger brother is the Boss now, because he never expected any different, since Big Gee was legitimate, and he wasn’t.
If not an ancient gladiator, Seb would probably do pretty well in the military, too, with that respect for hierarchy. Lucky for us he chose a life of crime instead. He’s good at it, but he doesn’t enjoy the work the way I do. He sees violence as a tool.
I just enjoy hitting shit.
The butcher’s wife has been busy in the kitchen, because she comes in with a meal for us both.
It’s tough to get the stink of raw meat from below out of my nose long enough to enjoy it, but it doesn’t seem to bother Seb any.
As we’re eating, he tells me about the job.
There’s a problem in a dockside warehouse in Red Hook.
“Not ours. Not Italian at all,” he adds.
“The Russians?” I ask, because they’ve been on my mind.
Seb shakes his head. “Independent crew. But they’re skimming shipments that are moving through our channels, and they need to be dissuaded from doing so.”
“When?”
“Now,” Seb says. “Before it becomes a bigger problem. Make sure they get the message, but don’t go too hard on them. Most of them are kids, got no idea how the world really works.”
“I’ll handle it.”
Conversation turns to other things. The butcher’s wife comes in to take the plates away. She replaces them with coffee, and I wonder what’s coming next. Seb asks about a crew out on Long Island that needed a little encouragement last week, and then falls silent.
“Anything else?” I ask at last, because I don’t like the way Seb is hedging. The man is not a hedger. For a Family man, he’s as straight up as they come.
“I heard a rumor.”
“Yeah? You shouldn’t listen to those.”
“This one was crazy,” he tells me. “So crazy that I figured it had to be bullshit.” He leans forward and drops his voice. “Rumor has it you were at the Obelisk last night. That you bought Caligula Clemenza in one of their slave auctions.”
It’s not a question. It’s a statement he hopes is untrue. But I don’t bother softening it for him. “I did.”
That fucker Daniel King was not going to let me get away with it.
I should’ve known that. I assumed my membership at the Obelisk granted me certain privileges, such as some goddamn privacy, so that I’d have a few days to figure out a way to break the news to the Boss. But that was my own stupid mistake.
Or maybe King just didn’t like me snatching up the Clemenza under the nose of his Bratva pal.
Seb’s hand, resting flat on the table, curls slowly into a fist. “Jesus Christ,” he says quietly. “You better be joking, Orsini.”
I say nothing. He leans back in his chair, dragging a hand down his face. When he looks at me again, there’s something like horror in his eyes. “You were ordered to keep your hands off the Clemenzas,” he says. “Explicitly.”
“I was ordered not to kill them.”
“That is not the point and you fucking know it.”
I shrug. “He was on the block, Seb. The Bratva were circling. You want the last Clemenza heir wearing a Russian leash?”
He stares at me, incredulous. “So you bought him.”
“Yes.”
“From those evil motherfuckers.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re keeping him as property?”
“It’s for his own good. Maybe no one likes to talk about it, but someone out there is picking off the Clemenzas one by one.”
“That’s not your business. D’Amato is handling it,” he says sharply.
He’s starting to piss me off now, so I snort, “Don’t seem like it to me.”
Now I’ve pissed him off. His fist comes down with a bang, shaking the coffee cups. “Because this is way above your pay grade. Just because you don’t know about it doesn’t mean nothing is happening. And it doesn’t matter either way, because Big Gee gave you an order.”
This is the problem with Seb. He’s so wedded to order, to following the rules, that he can’t believe anyone else might see the world a little different. He rises to his feet, and so do I, fast, because I’m not entirely sure he’s not going to hit me.
“You don’t get to rewrite orders just because they’re inconvenient,” he growls. “You don’t get to decide the rules don’t apply to you just because you think you have a prior claim.”
“I do have a prior claim.”
“Big Gee told you you’d get your chance when things quiet down. Things are not fucking quiet right now, Orsini.”
“They’re never gonna be quiet!”
Both of us have raised our voices, and I’m aware that the noise from the shop beneath has hushed considerably.
Seb points at me. “You turn the kid loose. Today.”
“I can’t do that. He’s got no money, no friends, and someone’s out to kill him.”
He gives a bark of hard laughter. “Don’t pretend this is some act of charity, Orsini. You bought a human being at auction. Christ, I knew you were a member of that snake pit, but I never realized how exactly like the rest of those motherfuckers you really are.”
That stings, even though I can’t deny it. So I try a different tack. “You don’t believe me about the protection deal, you can ask the Clemenza yourself,” I say, and the sincerity in my tone seems to give him pause.
The truth is, I have no idea what that manipulative little shit would say if I got him face-to-face with Seb. He might claim I’d done it all against his will.
But I don’t think he would. The Clemenza knew the Obelisk was his last shot. He doesn’t want to go back out on the street any more than I want to let him.
And even if Seb tells me again that I need to let him go, orders me to do it, I’m not going to.
“Caligula Clemenza is mine,” I tell Seb. “I bought him fair and square. He knew what he was doing when he got on that stage, and given what you think about the place, you gotta know I was the best he could hope for among the buyers.”
“I never took you for such a dishonorable man,” Seb mutters, but I can see the conflict in his eyes. He knows what I’m saying is the truth. So I’m starting to feel pretty hopeful until he says, “You need to tell Big Gee about this.”
“I was going to.” It’s a lie.
And Seb can tell. “You go do this job in Red Hook, and then you get on your fucking knees to Big Gee and tell him what you’ve done,” he tells me seriously. “Because if you don’t, Orsini, I will. And when he sends someone to kill you for your disobedience, I’ll be first to raise my hand.”
On top of everything else the Clemenzas have done to me, now they’ve ruined my only friendship.
“I’ll tell the Boss,” I grit out. “But you gotta give me a few days to figure out some protections for the kid.”
The look Seb gives me suggests he doesn’t believe a word coming out of my mouth. “Hand him over to the Loyalists. They’d be fucking delighted to crown him king and play at power again.”
“Those motherfuckers couldn’t protect their own ballsacks.
And D’Amato wouldn’t like it, either. Last thing he wants is a figurehead for the Clemenza leftovers to flock to.
” I have no idea what Luca D’Amato, the Morelli Don, wants or doesn’t want when it comes to his old enemy.
But from the look on Seb’s face, my wild shot has hit home.
“Give me a few days to figure something out,” I repeat. “And then I’ll talk to the Boss.”
All Seb says is, “Get outta here.”
I’ll take it as a grace period. I have no intention at all of letting Caligula Clemenza leave my house, but I knew the moment I bought him that I’d have to explain myself to Big Gee one way or another. A few days will give me time to come up with a plausible story.
In the meantime, I head down to Red Hook, and despite Seb’s orders to keep it light, it’s a fucking mess. I’m meaner than usual. Leave one of them unconscious and the rest of them crying. They get the message, but it’s a little firmer than Seb wanted, and he’ll be pissed when he hears.
But it’s not my fault. It’s the Clemenza’s. He’s gotten me all riled up, flashing his ass at me so my balls and my brain are mixed up.
So while I figure out how to make my case to Big Gee, and while I cool off and get my dick back in line, I’ll stay away from Caligula Clemenza.
Leave him down there alone in the dark.
Let him learn his lesson.