Chapter 9 #2
The disgraceful man begins blubbering and I haven’t even touched him yet. I like this part… taking my time, I circle the chair, only stopping once the giant man-child manages to collect himself. That tiny sliver of hope they hold onto is fascinating. Why can’t they just accept it?
Poised behind the chair, I grasp one of the only working fingers he has left, snapping it with little effort. He wails and then proceeds to piss himself. Lowlifes disgust me. I step back and speak slowly so the incompetent man follows.
“Not only have you been changing your bets, effectively stealing from my house for months, but now I learn you're some kind of wannabe gangster! The Mafia?! Really, Alex…?! You’re an empty suit. No one wants someone who never shuts their mouth! You’ve always been a piece of shit.
” I stare into his desperate tired eyes, witnessing the faith he once held onto slowly slip away.
The fucking Mafia. The only name that held actual power went into hiding damn near eighteen years ago.
Maybe it's just another gang, simply trying to find their footing in this city? It can’t be them.
I’ve done my fair share of ‘taking out’ any form of competition that has come our way over the years.
I have no plans to go into business with another family again.
We weren’t always like this; unwilling to play nicely with anyone. In fact, there was a time when the Murrays worked closely with another.
When I was very young, I would sometimes sneak out of bed and listen among the staircase railing, while our families would talk business.
The Lombardis and the Murrays each had their own territory within South Boston.
Our family’s main store front was the boxing club.
If someone wanted to gamble with their hard-earned money, we had the means.
The club hosted events bringing in big names, along with high bidders, at least once a week.
Most of the patrons left happy, and we were raking in the cash.
My father told me, “It’s important to diversify.
” Have your money working in different corners of the market, so that’s where more bars came in.
At one point, the Murray family had eight places cleaning their money.
The Lombardis were known for their stronghold on anything having to do with land and construction.
Also, drugs. From what I understood, the family sourced out those dealings since they had a family to care for.
I’m not sure who the kingpin was then nor do I know now, but one thing is for certain...
The drugs never stopped flowing through this city.
It’s de facto… if anyone steps in your yard, fucking around in your business, they're gonna be tucked in nice and tight. Taking a permanent sleep within a new row of townhouses’ concrete foundation.
That was the Lombardis M.O. Real estate.
Every building sale in Southie or investment into land, the money always passed through the Lombardis hands.
Hell, if it weren’t for them, my grandparents wouldn’t even have had the properties that they did.
Both crime families needed one another. When I was ten, it all changed.
The Lombardi family had some kind of hit put on them, causing them to effectively disappear.
Power shifted, making business messier for us.
It seemed as if someone new was capitalizing on their family being gone.
Whoever it was had no honor, because our fronts started facing monthly raids from the cops over suspicion of drugs, of all the fucking things to charge us with.
Our soldiers either turned up in the slammer or went missing.
I’d like to say that our men are fiercely loyal, but one rat can bring down the whole house.
When my father left for Ireland and I took over.
, I salvaged what we had and attempted to make a few of the businesses better, while most closed.
The Bay Boxing Club is my baby. It was no easy feat, but I managed to make it my own.
Murray’s even got a facelift. Changing the bar name to The Black Sheep.
It was a fitting name as I planned to create change.
Figure out who broke the code and destroyed my family.
I’ve never had a desire to fit in, and if I have to, I will shift the tides, alone.
In this life, you only have two choices.
You’re a rat, much like Alex before me, or you can end up in the slammer.
Either way, you're going to wind up dead. That’s the only way out of all of this. In a body bag.
In the meantime, while I await the day it’s my turn to leave this shit-stained planet, I’ll search for answers.
Bloodying my hands daily is just a bonus.
I’ve changed. Long gone is the kid who valued friendship or any semblance of love.
Now, I’m consumed by suspicion, filled with malice, and left with poor quality sleep.
The cobalt, Armani suit jacket lay neatly on a chair just outside of the perimeter.
Rolling up the sleeves of my shirt, I’m reminded of the obligation to my family, as a skull with two tiny shamrock shaped eyes stares back at me.
On my eighteenth birthday, my dad had one of his buddies come over and decorate my skin to match the one on my old man’s bicep.
“It’s a family tradition,” he told me. His father had done the same to him, so naturally shit runs downhill and going against traditions is an insult.
Sleeves pushed up past my elbows, I stand in front of the pathetic man while his head hangs low. Grasping a handful of his finely matted hair, I cock his head back to look within his reddened eyes. “Think before you answer, because you only have two ears.”
His busted bottom lip quakes, causing spit to gather around the corners of his mouth, like the foam between cresting waves.
I delivered my first question with a soothing tone. “Are you Brodi’s informant?”
He attempts to shake his head up and down very slowly, while I still have a fist full of hair. Progress.
I continue, “How did you stumble upon such a secret?”
He wets his lips before saying, “Lombardi. The Lombardi family. It… it was them all along.”
Not possible! The Lombardis were effectively retired. I yank at his scalp, sending the chair flipping over with him still clinging on. I’m left holding a tangled, disgusting clump of brown hair.
Garron approaches, offering me my favorite tool. Shaking the hair to the floor, I press my dress shoe to the side of his face, before taking the double-edged blade from my accomplice.
Alex struggles to wiggle away. He’s probably running on pure adrenaline. I’m confident his hands and fingers are now shattered beneath the weight of his body and the chair. The ring smells of body odor and piss, while my patience is at breaking point.
I squat down with my sole still pressed against the side of his jaw. I hover my prized blade above his ear. “I need a name.” Each word pushes through my clenched teeth.
“I don’t know, man! Oh god, please! I don’t fucking know his name!”
I pinch the tip of his ear and lift, as if he’s a disobedient child.
With little effort, I drag the knife through the underside of his ear, from sideburn to jawbone.
The shrieking causes a migraine to set in.
Screams and mumbled curses fill the room, as the sobbing man shakes involuntarily.
I’m delighted he’s still conscious. Most likely now in shock, he wasn’t going to last much longer.
I was done with this anyway. I flip his head to the other side and reposition my shoe against his other cheek.
“W-Wait! Wait! I know what he looks like! I can help. Please…!”
My sleeves and chest have splatters of crimson despite my best efforts to keep clean. I step back, wondering how this nark can possibly help me find someone’s face out of thirty-three thousand Southies.
All at once, the repugnant man vomits, coating the side of my fucking Prada shoes!
Dax jumps into the ring, delivering a punishing swing from his steel-toed boot.
A muffled scream bubbles from the restrained form.
The heap ceases movement after a few seconds, while the pool of blood grows wider.
I step back, because I can wash out vomit a lot easier than blood.
A cavernous hole is all that remains where the man’s face used to be. “You caved his goddamned face in, man.” I grumble at an unfazed Dax.