50. Max
MAX
We’d spent a week fighting back against the Camorra after the Bronx firefight. The news had been running the story the entire time.
“Is the deadly mafia firefight in the Bronx earlier this week a sign of a surge in organized crime?”
The heat, from law enforcement and from the Camorra, had increased.
The only good news was that Greco couldn’t bail out his capos.
In that case, the news stories benefited us.
The entire public eye seemed to watch us, waiting to see how else our war would spill over into their lives.
Our men had been careful, but the skirmishes between us all had increased.
Anton Felix and his reinforcements had come in handy—though there seemed to be no end in sight to the warfare.
I knocked gently on the study door—I’d already learned my lesson about walking into Leona and the guys in various states of undress—and then pushed it open, expecting to find Obi working. He had his phone to his ear, but his eyes flicked to mine and he gestured for me to come inside.
“No, keep them in general population,” he said through the phone. He paused, waiting for a response. “No. It must be this way. General population, and then my men will take it from there.”
He hung up the phone and pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh.
“Who was that?”
He sat down in his chair on the other side of the desk and started organizing the pieces of a chessboard he had sitting next to his open laptop. “The Chief of the Department of Corrections. I’ve been moving him into position. Thankfully, he is responsive. He will do what we ask.”
Once all the pieces were in line, he moved the board so that I could play one side while he played the other. He gestured for me to make the first move.
“The plan is moving forward?” I asked, moving my pawn to D4. We’d played quite a few games together at this point. It seemed to help him think.
He nodded, responding to my setup by moving his pawn to D5. “With him, yes. I still haven’t heard from the police commissioner.”
“I discreetly reached out to a few of my contacts left in social circles,” I said, moving my second pawn to C4, baiting him into the classic Queen’s Gambit opening.
He smirked, recognizing the strategy and playing into it by taking my pawn first. “The word is that both he and the mayor will be at Greco’s event tonight. ”
In other news, talk of the fundraiser was making its way around town.
In Italy, Greco and the Camorra were brazen and unapologetic.
Everyone knew who they were and what they did, even if they pretended they didn’t.
In New York, the Five Families had taken a more behind-the-scenes approach.
Men like me moved in social circles, politely glad-handing and bribing and blackmailing where appropriate, but we didn’t flaunt our criminality in the faces of the elite.
It seemed Greco was determined to stake his claim to power in front of everyone.
It was a bold move, but if it paid off—and he gained even more allies—he could truly become a ruler of New York. Not a Don, but a king.
“Our footage of Greco’s men burning down the Bronx is still top billing for all the media outlets,” I said, continuing to play the chess game.
Our games were an exercise in executing strategy, not in trying to win.
It kept me on my toes. “The stories are still running rampant in the news and online.”
“I also sent them to a media conglomerate contact of mine. He’s ensuring that Greco can’t bury the story or buy it out in the network coverage. With that negative press, he won’t be able to bail his capos out of jail without blowback on him socially,” Obi said. “Their names are all over the city.”
“I bet that pisses him off,” I said with a chuckle. “His men rotting away behind bars and he can’t get them out, especially not before this fundraiser.”
“Which is why it is imperative we get the mayor on our side,” he added. He moved another one of his pieces and caught one of mine in a trap. “If we have her support against him, she won’t let him gain control of the political side of the city.”
“And if we can get the police commissioner to do his fucking job, then we can keep his men in jail and keep the rest of law enforcement off our backs,” I said. “Law enforcement will be a larger problem if we don’t come up with a solution.”
He sighed. “True.”
The feds were tailing us, watching us, trying to catch us in problems. Both Ciel and Wynn had spent extra time sweeping all our phones and vehicles for tracking technology.
There was no sign of a breach, but those agents wouldn’t stop.
They had arrested Leona, but they wouldn’t stop until they got what they wanted: me.
“What about Sean Porter?” I turned my attention back to the board. “Has he done what we asked?”
Obi scoffed. “A bare-minimum job, to be sure. According to Ciel and Wynn’s surveillance, he is executing the tasks we gave him.
Arrests have been up at the ports. He’s confiscated plenty of contraband.
But clearly, Greco keeps getting his men and supplies into the city.
We’ll expose Sean Porter when this is over. ”
I knocked down one of Obi’s pieces and pursed my lips. “Let’s put a dossier about him on a thumb drive. We can slip it to the mayor at the fundraiser gala in a few days.”
He nodded slowly, countering my move with an aggressive one from his bishop.
“That’s a good idea. We can try to include evidence of her other deputies communicating with Greco, just in case.
My guess is that he’s been in contact with at least one of them.
We’ll show her that her cabinet is compromised, and that Greco wants to use her as a puppet—”
“—And that we just want Greco gone. It’ll be a fair trade for her,” I said, finishing his thought. “Clean house, get a new team in place. She can come after us and the mafia once he’s gone.”
“Back to business as usual,” he said.
The mayor and the mafia were natural enemies, and that would not change, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t help each other out. Leona had taken the same strategy with me when we were at odds with the Albanians: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
“We can’t try to buy her,” I said as I took another one of Obi’s pieces.
“That’s the approach Greco would take. We’ll have to woo the mayor through honesty and facts.
In the grand scheme of things, Leona’s mafia is the lesser of two evils.
The mayor will have to choose which enemy she wants to face in the future. Us or them.”
Obi drummed his fingers on the desk. He smirked as he found a weakness in my defense and took my queen.
“Shit,” I laughed.
He chuckled. “You’re assimilating well, Max.”
I was fucking trying. My daily routine had become both predictable and strangely comforting.
Exercise with Wynn first thing in the morning.
Work with Obi on relevant tasks. Help Cas check in on our men.
Deal with problems. Clean. Cook food and meet up for dinner.
Hang out with the guys when we could. Enjoy as much time as possible with Leona.
Like Leona asked, I’d tried to get closer to Wynn and Ciel and Ryuji. I wanted to spend more time with Cas and show him how sorry I was too, but there just never seemed to be enough time. At least, not yet. Making it up to them would not be a temporary thing for me.
But I never expected myself to live a life like this. I wouldn’t change any of it. I’d felt happier in the last few weeks than I had in a decade. Maybe even ever.
“I hope that’s a compliment.”
“It is.”
I sat back in my chair, watching him. I had wanted to bring something up, but I wasn’t sure how he’d take it. I’d only just started earning his trust, and I didn’t want to lose it so soon. I didn’t want to lose this family just when I found it.
“I think you and I make a good team.”
He tilted his head to the side. “I agree.”
“So then don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “I’ve been wracking my brain…All the goals we have and the plans we’re working on are making a dent in Greco’s enterprise.”
“But?”
“But I don’t see how it gets us closer to killing him.” I’d been thinking about it for days. Unless we could literally get close to him, we wouldn’t get a chance to kill him. And if we didn’t kill him, he’d just keep coming back. More men. More guns. More money to buy political support.
He rubbed a hand across his beard. “I know.”
“Again, don’t take this the wrong way,” I continued, leaning forward and bracing my forearms on my knees.
“But I think you’re hiding something. I already know you’re trying to set stuff up with the Corrections Chief, but there’s something else.
Some other part of this plan you don’t want us to see. ”
He let out a small laugh. “You can read me well.”
I sat back in my chair. “What’s the hesitation, Obi? What’s the problem?”
He looked out the window and his jaw clenched. “I do have a plan for how to get close to him, but I don’t like it.”
“Tell me what it is.”
He raised an eyebrow in my direction, the words unspoken. There was only one circumstance where he would hesitate to put a plan in motion.
“The plan has to do with…Leona,” I murmured, feeling the ideas spin in my head. “You think she can get close to him?”
He nodded. “Only she can.”
“You don’t think she can handle it?”
He shook his head. “No, that’s not the issue. The problem is that Greco will only let down his guard if he has eliminated every other threat. He will underestimate her until she slips a knife between his ribs, but he won’t let that pride become his downfall unless—”
My eyes widened. “Unless the Shadows are gone. We’re the threat that keeps his guard up.”
“Yes,” he said softly. His fingers danced over the tops of the remaining chess pieces on the board in front of us. He swiped every piece off the board except the queen and the enemy king. “If we’re gone, she can make her move.”
He picked up the queen and moved the piece across the board. With no pieces in her way, she toppled the enemy king easily.
“Have you told her this plan?” She would do it. She could handle it. But what about us? If we were gone, where would we go?
“No,” he said softly. “I am afraid.”
“Of what?”
“You accused me before of being too afraid to live in a world I can’t control,” he said, eyes flicking up to mine. “You were right. Putting her at risk, knowing that none of us can come to her aid, is why I am afraid of this plan. Knowing that she will be completely, entirely, on her own.”
“She can kill him,” I said confidently.
“Of course, she can,” he responded. “It’s not that I don’t trust her. But if Greco makes one move I can’t foresee, it could mean her death.”
I stared at that lone Queen. Standing on her own. All the other pieces overturned before her.
“If we proceed with this, there are no other contingency plans,” he said. “Once the move is made, there is no going back. There are no other last-minute options. We either win or we lose. She either lives…or she dies. Can you make that choice, Max?”
My heart twisted in my chest.
“Could you put her at such risk?” he pressed.
The truth slipped from my lips. “No.”
But we might not have any other choice.