Chapter 11 Leanna
LEANNA
My economics class ends, and I wander out into the hallway with one of my study group friends, Marcel. He’s sweet and cute, and he’s asked me out about six times, but I just never felt anything for him other than friendship.
The sun is bright as we step outside. I’m still laughing at a joke he made about our professor’s mismatched socks.
And just like that, my smile dies.
Marcel looks at me before following my gaze. “You know them?”
My brothers, both tall and dark-haired, and purposefully menacing, with their arms crossed over their broad chests, their stances wide. They look like goons, like twin statues of intimidation.
“Yeah,” I say, exhaling. “Unfortunately.”
Marcel gives me a look. “Want me to come with you?”
I shake my head. “No, I’ve got it. But… thanks.”
“You gonna be okay?”
“They’re my brothers,” I reply, trying to make it sound like that means something safe. It doesn’t. Not with my brothers.
Will I be okay?
Who knows.
“Well,” he says awkwardly, “uh… maybe text me later?”
I nod, heading over to where Vince and Ezra stand, under the canopy of an old oak tree.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Hello to you, too, little sister,” Vince says.
“Fuck you. How did you know where to find me?” I look around, wondering if they’ve had a tail on me, wondering how I missed it. I wouldn’t put it past my dad to have hired someone to follow me.
“Peace, Leanna,” Ezra says. “I flirted with your cute roommate Rylee at your house.”
“You went to my place?” I ask. “Don’t do that again. Seriously.”
Vince picks something from between his teeth. “Don’t tell us what to do.”
“Why are you here?” I ask with a heavy sigh.
“We have a job you need to help us with,” Vince says.
“No thanks,” I say. “I have class in an hour, and I don’t do Campisi business. You know that.”
Vince steps forward, bends himself a little to get in my face. “Sure are happy to live off of Campisi money, for someone who doesn’t do Campisi business.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I say.
“Sure, happy to flounce around at the Reapers game like you own the place. Happy to get this fancy college degree on Dad’s dime. You want all the perks without doing the work? And that ends. As of now.”
“I never said I wouldn’t do work,” I say. “Clean work. Legit work. I don’t want the other stuff.”
“You don’t get a choice,” Vince says. “You’re coming.”
“No, I’m not.”
He grabs my arm, rough fingers digging into my flesh. “You are. Dad sent us to get you.”
I struggle to get out of his grip, but he holds fast, and Ezra steps forward, telling Vince to take it down a notch. “People are starting to stare.”
“Tell the fuckin’ princess to get her shit together, then,” Vince says.
“Leanna,” Ezra says. “Just come with us. Dad really did want you to come.”
I grit my teeth, but go, if only to keep from becoming a spectacle.
Vince never lets go of my arm, half-dragging me to a waiting car a couple of blocks away. He shoves me inside, and I find myself stuck with my two hulking brothers as the black town car races away.
We drive and drive, and I mention, again, that I have class soon.
“You already said that, Princess,” Vince says.
We’re in the car for at least half an hour, and my hopes of making it to class drain away, leaving behind a pit of anxiety in my stomach.
We reach a rundown part of the city, an old warehouse district that seems mostly abandoned, until we turn a corner and I see a fleet of semi-trucks, some of them open, being loaded by forklifts carrying large wooden crates.
“What is this, a distribution center?” I ask.
“Yes,” Ezra answers. “Electronics is the official business, if the cops show up. Beyond that, we debulk larger shipments of less legal things and then repackage them for movement across the country. Most of that stuff comes in from overseas.”
“Drugs?” I guess.
“Sometimes. Sometimes weapons. Sometimes jewels or art. Just depends.”
“How long has this been here?”
“A while,” Ezra says. “It’s grown a lot, what we move. This is just one of our centers. Anything bigger would attract too much attention.”
“Are there more here in the city?” I ask.
“A few, yeah,” Ezra says. “But also in Mexico, Russia, Venezuela.”
“Don’t keep telling her shit,” Vince says. “She doesn’t need to know all this.”
“She does, though,” Ezra says. “Dad wants her to.”
Vince rolls his eyes, then spits on the ground.
Ezra ignores him. “Leanna, this shit is dangerous. Our reach is wide, and we’re in a strong position, but we’re not the only game here in Chicago, and we’re not the only game beyond Chicago.
We have good relationships with the cartels in Central and South America, but the Russians are not happy when we’re in their territory. ”
“Funny, since those Ruski bastards aren’t afraid to be in our business here, huh?” Vince comments.
“They’re not,” Ezra agrees. “And it’s likely to start a war.”
“And this has what to do with me?” I ask.
Vince scoffs and grabs my arm again.
I yelp, which pisses me off and delights him. He pulls me down an aisle, stacked two stories high with boxes and shelving.
We walk and walk and walk, all the way to a cold storage unit. Vince throws open the door and shoves me inside, where I come face to face with a frozen, lifeless corpse.
I want to cry out, but I would rather bite off my own tongue than give Vince that satisfaction.
I just stare.
The woman is nearly blue from the cold, her body in full rigor mortis, stiff, eyes wide, a tiny bullet hole in her forehead.
“This is Christina Petrella,” Vince says. “Remember her?”
“I do,” I manage to choke out as I try not to cry.
Christina was just a couple of years older than I am, and we went to the same high school. I always thought she was so cool. Like, I’d find her smoking cigarettes outside of our Catholic church, or sneaking off with boys after school.
Vince has some weird, almost pleased look on his face.
I don’t like it.
And I don’t think my brother Ezra likes it, either. Even though I’m certain he’s seen plenty of dead bodies, and he’s probably already seen this one, he makes the sign of the cross.
“She got married last year to Val Bucci,” Ezra says.
“Really?” I ask.
I’ll have to unpack that later. Christina was only in her mid-twenties, and Val is probably at least forty. And I never saw Christina as someone who would accept some arranged match to a man almost twice her age.
“So…what happened?” I ask. I can barely find my voice.
“Val is in charge of the jewel transfer in and out of Russia and Ukraine. He took Christina on what was supposed to be a diplomatic venture, an effort to work out a deal that wouldn’t upset the Bratva too much.
He left her back in the hotel for the first meeting.
When he came back to get her for dinner, she was missing. ”
“We got her back the other day, folded into a box of uncut rubies,” Vince says.
I feel like I might be sick, and I don’t know if it’s the temperature in here or the story they just told me, but I can’t stop the full-body tremor that makes its way from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.
I look away from the dead woman, toward my brothers. “What’s this got to do with me?”
Vince is there in an instant, grabbing my chin, forcing me to look at him.
“You think you’re above all of this. You think you’re so smart, the college girl, flitting around like some clueless idiot with no cares in the world.
Well, it’s time for you to get real. You’re in this, whether you like it or not.
You can’t be half in and half out, little sister.
You have to pick a side, and when our women are being kidnapped and sent back to us in boxes, it seems pretty obvious where you need to put your loyalty. ”
Ezra reaches out and removes Vince’s fingers from my chin, allowing me to back away a tiny bit. “Dad wanted you to see this, Lea,” he says, gentler than Vince. “He wanted you to know what’s happening, the danger that’s out there. It’s not a joke when he says he’s worried about your safety.”
“I just want…” I start. “I don’t want any of this. Not this part of things. I just want a normal life.”
“Sorry,” Ezra says. “We’re born to the family we’re born to. You can want normal all you want, but you’re a Campisi. And as much as it pisses off Vincenzo, you are the smartest of us.”
Vince scoffs.
“You need to come home,” Ezra says, ignoring our older brother. “You need security. You need to learn the business, even the parts you don’t want to see. And now that you’re done with school, he wants to introduce you to some people.”
“People?” I ask. I’m physically and emotionally numb at the moment, barely able to comprehend this conversation.
“Men,” Vince says. “Suitable matches.”
I stare at him, then look to Ezra for confirmation. He nods.
“He wants you to have someone,” Ezra says.
I look at my brothers, then back at the dead woman. Christina Petrella. “She had someone. Look where that got her.”
I think of Maria, who was largely free from this, living her best life in LA. And now she’s getting pulled back in, marrying Mikey Dee, probably on the road to having little mafia babies.
With all of my soul, I don’t want any of that.
“No,” I hear myself say.
“No?” Vince says with a laugh.
I look him straight in the eye. “No. I don’t want any of that. I don’t want it.”
He shakes his head, then slaps me across the face. It makes a loud crack in the quiet, cold space. He sneers at me as he rants, getting closer and closer until I shove at his shoulders, trying to get him away from me.
He shoves me back, hard, hard enough that I lose my balance and fall into the metal shelving that lines the unit. Hard enough that I crumple to the ground, Christina Petrella right there to greet me when I hit the floor.
“Fuck you, Leanna,” he says. “I’d give anything to be in your place, to have the brains and education to run a whole international business empire.
I’d give anything to have our father look at me like a leader, a real leader for the family.
But instead, he has to play chase with you while you shit on his legacy.
I take pride in this family, and you want to run from it. But guess what? You can’t.”
He spits in my face before he turns and shoves Ezra out of the storage unit. He takes a few steps, and I realize what he’s about to do, so I lunge, crawling toward the door, even though my back is aching from hitting the shelves.
“Maybe a few hours with your old friend will help you come to your senses,” he says as he slams the door, closing me in.