70. Obi
OBI
Isat in solitary confinement with my eyes closed, my head leaned back against the wall, and my hands clasped in my lap.
I counted the seconds.
I counted my breaths.
Every moment was a moment closer.
Leona, I know you’ll win. I know you’ll do what I need you to do.
I’d spent eleven years planning for the power that now sat at my fingertips.
All I had to do was reach out and take it.
After Greco’s death, it could be mine. I could sit in his seat, absorb the empire that the Camorra had created, and sleep in peace knowing that my family—my siblings and my brothers and my queen—would be protected.
What would it be like to walk the streets of my hometown in Nigeria and know peace?
What would it feel like for Ezenwa, Amadi, Chiasoka, and Ekene—my siblings—to know me as the older brother I wished to be? Instead of the monster Ekene rightfully claimed I was?
Ekene had looked at me with blood on my hands and accused me of becoming the very thing that took our parents from us.
I had always known she was right—but I’d also sheltered her, provided for her, gained enough power to change our city and make sure what happened to us never happened to another family.
Didn’t that prove that the power I had acquired gave us the safety they deserved?
I was torn.
Max and Leona had both warned against taking over the Camorra. They feared that the power was too much, that we didn’t need it, and that it would poison us.
I knew, deep inside my heart, that they were most likely right.
I just didn’t know if I could let go of the control that power would give me.
I had always been the monster my siblings thought I was—so wouldn’t it be right to remain so?
To take the Camorra, knowing what it would do to me, but also knowing what it could provide for us?
No, Leona’s voice whispered in my ear. No, Obi. We don’t need it. That power won’t give you control. That power won’t give us safety. Trust us instead.
I could hear her as if she sat right beside me in this cell.
I let out a heavy sigh. Leona believed our power came from the trust we had in each other and our willingness to fight for one another. That our family, the Shadows, would keep us safe. That together we could face anything in our path.
Let it go, Obi, she whispered. Let it go and come to us instead.
The idea of letting it go was…tempting.
Ever since I first saw Leona, she’d brightened my life—all our lives. She’d built something within us I never could have on my own. She’d taken away my nightmares. She’d given my soul respite. She’d helped me know peace in her arms.
I believed in her and in my brothers. I’d chosen us all for a reason—to act as chess pieces on my board and aid me in my goals—but instead we’d fit together like puzzle pieces. A tapestry that Leona had woven, an image that I never could have dreamed.
When I thought about our future and the world I wanted to create for us, I felt peace. Hope.
In the span of a breath, my world seemed to tilt on its axis.
To realign.
To reshape around what she’d been trying to tell me for weeks.
I didn’t need the power the Camorra offered.
I just needed her, us, the Shadows.
Our family. One that we’d built together. One that I could trust and rely on to keep all of us safe. The burden didn’t have to fall on me alone; we carried it together.
Suddenly, an urge overwhelmed me. To bring my family to Nigeria and introduce them to my siblings. To sleep in the home I grew up in, Leona in my arms, and rest.
The feeling was so powerful, so overwhelming, it clogged my throat and turned my breath short.
It was enough.
Together, we were enough.
After what could have been minutes or hours, the heavy metal door to my cell screeched open.
I opened my eyes.
It was time.
The Chief of the Department of Corrections stood in front of the door, his hand fisted into the shirt of his newest prisoner.
“What is the meaning of this?!” Piero Greco shouted while the Chief pushed him inside the cell.
The Chief closed the door, and it shut with a screech. Through the small glass window, he gave me a nod. His favor was complete. The blackmail we had against him would be destroyed, as per our agreement.
I stood from my seat on the cot. “I’ve been planning this for a long time.”
“Obi,” he said with narrowed eyes and a hiss like a snake. He puffed his chest. “What are you doing? You think you can train under my men and then steal my empire out from under me?”
At one point, when I was desperate for power and control, yes. But no longer. I had my family, and we were enough.
“Do you remember the day when you played chess with me in the garden of your estate?” I asked.
He blinked, trying to recall the memory. It didn’t seem burned into his subconscious as it was in mine. “No.”
“I used to play underneath the fig trees. By then, I had already decided I wanted to destroy you, but I used to think about how while I played chess there. One day, I was observing your men when you walked over. You asked if you could play.”
He pressed his lips together. “I remember now. I beat you within a few moves. Your strategy was sloppy. Far too aggressive. It was easy to lure you into a trap and take out your king.”
I nodded while I pulled my skinning knife from its place at my lower back. It had been waiting for me in this cell. The final favor the Chief owed me. Greco’s eyes widened, and he shuffled backward until his back hit the metal door.
“I latched onto that,” I said. “When you won, you stood from the board and you smirked. You told me to ‘think ahead.’ I’ve been thinking ahead for eleven years.”
“Bah! You cannot kill me!” Greco sputtered. “I am Piero Greco! My entire bloodline will come after you!”
“They won’t,” I said. A warmth spread through my chest at Leona and Ciel’s ideas to set up Lucia as Greco’s successor. It was a far better plan than mine. “Your granddaughter has already taken care of that problem for us.”
Ciel had signaled that she had been successful. All of Greco’s heirs lay dead in his estate. Lucia could do what she pleased with what remained of the Camorra.
I had everything I wanted here.
His jaw dropped open. “That girl? No.”
“Yes,” I said. “This has been a long time coming, Greco.”
“Non ci credo!” He pounded on the door. “Let me out of here!”
“No one will come for you.”
My parents had been waiting for this. My siblings.
Finally, I’d be able to tell them they were safe. That our home would no longer be under constant threat. That Leona and my brothers and my children would grow up without the fear or pain of losing someone they loved.
His nails scratched at the doorframe. “Aiuto! Aiutami!”
I had sought power for this moment.
It all led me here.
“Turn around and face your death like a man.”
Greco snarled over his shoulder. “Basta! What do you want? I’ll give you money, power, anything you ask. I have limitless resources.”
“I know,” I said. “And still the only thing I want is your death.”
His cold laugh pinged around the cell walls. “You’re no better than me. We’re men. Power belongs to us.” He spat at my feet. “You’ll kill me and then take my place.”
I shook my head slowly. “No, I won’t. Lucia killed all your heirs because she will take your place.”
He scoffed in disbelief. “My men would never support a woman in my place, let alone that one. Assolutamente no! She is a quiet, mousy thing with her computers. She does her job, and she does it very well, but that is all she’ll ever do.”
“No. When she takes your place,” I continued, “she’s going to dismantle your empire.”
“What?” he breathed, eyes wide. He choked back a raw, guttural sound. “There’s no way.”
“She is,” I said. “She’s going to break it apart so that your greedy fingers cannot hurt any more innocent people, like my parents.”
Lucia would control Italy. We would control Africa and the United States. The rest of the world would be left up to them—the Mob, the Bratva, the cartels, the Chinese, the Yakuza, whoever else could fight for a piece while we maintained our territory and kept our families safe.
That was the path I had chosen.
“It’s over, Greco.” I held my blade to his chest. “We’ve won.”
His mean snarl was a pathetic thing. I blocked his punch with barely any effort.
He was likely still feeling the effects of our poison, but he’d also become weak, relying on others to do his dirty work for him.
Most Dons were like that. He might be cunning and powerful, but with all that stripped away, he was just a man.
My knife slipped into his chest easily.
Blood bubbled from his lips. He coughed, staring down as I yanked the blade free. “You’ve killed me,” he rasped, “but you do not know what I did to that puttana. You think you’ve won, but will it be worth it when you leave this jail and she’s dead?”
My hand froze on the pommel of my knife. “What are you talking about?”
“I shot her,” he wheezed. His legs gave out, and he slid to the ground. “Right in the gut. She was bleeding out last I saw her.”
He was goading me. Tormenting me. Like the sick man he was.
“I don’t believe you,” I said as I put the blade’s edge against his throat. “A simple bullet could not kill our queen.”
I dragged the blade across his throat, and his blood spilled down his suit. His legs spasmed, his fingers clawed at his neck, but there was nothing he could do. I crouched by his side, watching as his life slipped away.
The great Piero Greco was dead.
I let out a heavy breath and closed my eyes. For the first time in years, I sent a prayer to heaven above.
Rest in peace, my parents.